Post by TheBo on Jan 6, 2004 15:16:08 GMT -5
This rather long article appeared in the Chicago Tribune yesterday, so many here in Chicago may have seen it. I am always interested in these things, so if you are--well, on YH boards there were some discussions about Hyun-Ji's "Korean-American" English. If you are interested, then read--I'm not making any value judgments here, so don't yell at me.
Bo
By Sang Hun Choe
Associated Press
January 5, 2004
SEOUL -- Some South Korean parents know few bounds in trying to give their kids an edge in speaking English. They play nursery rhymes for offspring still in the womb, hire pricey tutors for toddlers and send preschoolers to America to pick up the accent.
But now some are turning to surgery to sort out misplaced "l" and "r" sounds, underscoring the dark side of the social pressures involved in a highly competitive society.
The surgery, called frenulotomy, involves snipping the thin tissue under the tongue to make it longer and supposedly nimbler.
The procedure is used in the West in cases where the tissue under the tongue is abnormal and causes a speech impediment.
No statistics exist on how many South Korean children undergo go it.
While local media say it is widespread in Seoul's wealthier districts, doctors call the reports exaggerated.
The South Korean government is so dismayed about the practice that its National Human Rights Commission has made a movie to scare the public into stopping it.
The movie "Tongue-Tie" shows a young mother, who is obsessed with her son's pronunciation at the kindergarten's all-English Christmas play, rushing him to the clinic for a quick fix.
The boy screams as the mother and nurses hold him down, the mother insisting: "It's all for his future."
"Many viewers close their eyes at the surgery scenes," said director Park Jin Pyo, who used footage from a real operation. "I wanted them to see how our society tramples our children's human rights in the name of their future."
"Tongue-Tie" struck an immediate chord when it was seen in "If You Were Me," a compendium of six short films about human rights in Korea released in cinemas to enthusiastic reviews in November.
Doctors scoff at the notion that the Korean tongue is too short or too inflexible for proper English, noting the thousands of Korean-Americans who speak unaccented English without surgery.
Experts say practice, not surgery, is the key.
" Doing the surgery on a normal kid just for English pronunciation doesn't make anatomical sense at all," says Park Bom Chung at Seoul's Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital.
The operation takes 20 to 30 minutes under local anesthetic.
The English craze among preschool children took off four years ago when the government made English classes mandatory from 3rd grade.
Flawless English was once ridiculed as snobbish and even unpatriotic. Now it's a status symbol and prized by business and colleges.
"Many parents have an illusion that good English could change their children's lives," said Song Young Hye, who runs Wonderland, one of the thousands of English language schools in South Korea.
Noh Kyung Sun, a child psychologist at Seoul's Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, calls the surgery "crazy," and cites the case of a 3 1/2 year-old to illustrate the parental zeal that disrupts children's lives.
"That child came to my office and saw a big Jackson Pollock poster on the wall and could read each letter of the artist's name at the bottom -- J-A-C-K-S-O-N -- but could speak neither English nor Korean," he said.
The government has tried to absorb some of the overheated private English-instruction industry into the public school system, hiring more teachers including native speakers.
The mania has even induced changes in the Korean language itself, like "goose fathers." These are dads who work in South Korea and fly to the United States for seasonal reunions with their children who have been transplanted to America to learn English.
Bo
By Sang Hun Choe
Associated Press
January 5, 2004
SEOUL -- Some South Korean parents know few bounds in trying to give their kids an edge in speaking English. They play nursery rhymes for offspring still in the womb, hire pricey tutors for toddlers and send preschoolers to America to pick up the accent.
But now some are turning to surgery to sort out misplaced "l" and "r" sounds, underscoring the dark side of the social pressures involved in a highly competitive society.
The surgery, called frenulotomy, involves snipping the thin tissue under the tongue to make it longer and supposedly nimbler.
The procedure is used in the West in cases where the tissue under the tongue is abnormal and causes a speech impediment.
No statistics exist on how many South Korean children undergo go it.
While local media say it is widespread in Seoul's wealthier districts, doctors call the reports exaggerated.
The South Korean government is so dismayed about the practice that its National Human Rights Commission has made a movie to scare the public into stopping it.
The movie "Tongue-Tie" shows a young mother, who is obsessed with her son's pronunciation at the kindergarten's all-English Christmas play, rushing him to the clinic for a quick fix.
The boy screams as the mother and nurses hold him down, the mother insisting: "It's all for his future."
"Many viewers close their eyes at the surgery scenes," said director Park Jin Pyo, who used footage from a real operation. "I wanted them to see how our society tramples our children's human rights in the name of their future."
"Tongue-Tie" struck an immediate chord when it was seen in "If You Were Me," a compendium of six short films about human rights in Korea released in cinemas to enthusiastic reviews in November.
Doctors scoff at the notion that the Korean tongue is too short or too inflexible for proper English, noting the thousands of Korean-Americans who speak unaccented English without surgery.
Experts say practice, not surgery, is the key.
" Doing the surgery on a normal kid just for English pronunciation doesn't make anatomical sense at all," says Park Bom Chung at Seoul's Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital.
The operation takes 20 to 30 minutes under local anesthetic.
The English craze among preschool children took off four years ago when the government made English classes mandatory from 3rd grade.
Flawless English was once ridiculed as snobbish and even unpatriotic. Now it's a status symbol and prized by business and colleges.
"Many parents have an illusion that good English could change their children's lives," said Song Young Hye, who runs Wonderland, one of the thousands of English language schools in South Korea.
Noh Kyung Sun, a child psychologist at Seoul's Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, calls the surgery "crazy," and cites the case of a 3 1/2 year-old to illustrate the parental zeal that disrupts children's lives.
"That child came to my office and saw a big Jackson Pollock poster on the wall and could read each letter of the artist's name at the bottom -- J-A-C-K-S-O-N -- but could speak neither English nor Korean," he said.
The government has tried to absorb some of the overheated private English-instruction industry into the public school system, hiring more teachers including native speakers.
The mania has even induced changes in the Korean language itself, like "goose fathers." These are dads who work in South Korea and fly to the United States for seasonal reunions with their children who have been transplanted to America to learn English.
