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고급영어듣기/뉴스와 화제

[통계] 직장인 2명 중 1명, 평소 외국어 공부한다 [세계일보, 10월 14일, 2009년]

아래의 결과는 세계일보에 게제된 기사를 주관적으로 재구성 한것 입니다. 원문보기


질문 1.  Have you been studying English on regular basis?

  • Yes                                  53.4%(1323명)
  • No                                   46.6%(1154명)


질문 2.  What is the main goal of your English study?

  • Successful change of job   36%(476명)
  • Self satisfaction                 20.1%(266명)
  • Required for business        14.0%(185명)
  • To be competitive              13.2%(175명)
  • For promotion                    4.2 %(55명)
  • Travel and others              6.5%(86명)      

Majority of answers (67.4%) indicates the close association of English to their job or profession, and only one out of four subjects (26.6%) is regularly studying English for their own interests.  This data clearly shows the strong influence of English capability for the professionals to hunt a job, perform well, and get promotion as well.    


질문 3.  What do you need to improve your English most?

  • Spoken English                  56.8%(751명)
  • Listening comprehensive   13.3%(176명)
  • Business English                9.9%(131명)
  • Vocabulary                         9.4%(125명)          

Dominant number of people (70.1%) answered that they need to improve the level of listening and speaking comprehension.  As the demand for practical English skill (communication) rapidly increases, two basic skills (listening and speaking) for good communication are gaining momentum.    


질문 4.  When do you get stressed the most while you study English?

  • No obvious improvement       34.8%(460명)
  • Hard to use in real situation  24%(317명)
  • Shortage of time for study    13.5%(178명)
  • Lack of knowledge to study  13%(172명)
  • Diminished memory power    12.7%(168명)     

People get stressed when they don't see the effect of study in real situation, where they need English the most. This is caused in part by the limited opportunity of direct communication with those who use English in daily life. Therefore, finding or providing chances to speak with English speaker in person could be immediately needed to get obvious improvement of their English skills.   


질문 5.  How do you study English?

  • Self study                            61%(811명)
  • On-line lecture                    29%(384명)
  • On site lecture                    19.2%(254명)

Independent self study without a coach or teacher is the easiest choice to the general population.  It could be an effective way of studying English in case they have enough materials and knowledge how to study at home or office alone. However, a self study without proper direction or organized plan could get them frustrated more, and may force them to give up English, resulting to reduce their chance to find a job and perform better.  


Conclusion


It is a fact that English is deeply related to our work force. Although more than half of Korean professionals are spending time to improve their English skills, especially listening and speaking comprehension, lack of easily accessible English speaker/coach/teacher forces them to study alone with limited or somewhat non-organized educational materials.


Therefore, it is essential for people to gain knowledge of how to effectively teach themselves English listening and speaking with minimum cost.  One potential solution to improve "listening"ski ll could be using the sources available in the Internet such as English News Programs (VOA, CNN, ABC, CBS, PBS, NY Times, BBC etc), and other media (YouTube).  They are broadcasting news, sports, entertainment, health, social events, politics, etc, without any charges.


Although speaking English is different from listening skill in that real conversation with English speaker is the best way to improve. There are a number of phone English programs available at some cost, but my recommendation is using your friends and starts communicating in English if you have friends who share the same goals with you.  Many cases, pronunciation is not the major difficulty in communicating, but lack of practice is.  Once you pass the initial shy stage, then you can find a good English speaker through many phone English companies.      

 


Study Method and Subjects

A publishing group (Nexus, www.nexusbook.com) and a recruiting portal site (Saramin, www.saramin.co.k) surveyed between May 5 and 9, 2009 with total of 2477 employed professions that were randomly selected. 


카페: 재미있는 유튜브 영어 공부방   


Spiritual - Charlie Haden Pat Metheny