National Foreign Language Education Policies and CEFR: English as L2 and the Situation of Other Foreign Languages in Korea

Abstract

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages(CEFR) is the product of the political will for the emerging supranational organization and it's intended to provide “a common basis for the elaboration of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks, etc. across Europe” (Council of Europe, 2001). Although the CEFR has been welcomed by many foreign language educators in Europe, there has been criticism against its influence such as Fulcher's. As we know, the CEFR is not language specific and it requires a comparable level of proficiency from language to language. However, the status of English as an international lingua franca is very strong in Korea and it's the only foreign language(FL or L2) in Korea. In fact the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation named all other foreign languages such as French, German, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, etc. as second foreign languages while it named English as foreign language. The widely spread concept that English speakers can communicate with the rest of the world is still dominant in Korea and the so called second foreign language education in high school level has been almost disappeared in last ten years. While the foreign language education policy makers in Korea ignore the value of the foreign languages other than English, the European language educators tend to value the achievement of the CEFR. Thus this study will analyze the Korean National Curriculum of English and other European Languages and will discuss the effectiveness of the CEFR in developing national language education policy in Korea.