Kindergarten English Instruction in Korea

Another symptom of the zeal with which Korean parents encourage their children's education is the continued popularity of kindergarten-level English instruction.  The headline of an article in The Korea Times today suggests that, "For many toddlers, English comes ahead of mother tongue."
Out of 1,200 parents who had children in the first or second grade, 92.7 percent said their children began studying English between the ages of three and five, a survey by the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education (KICCE) showed.
The average age of a child receiving English education in pre-school was 3.7, according to the survey of parents living in the Seoul and Gyeonggi regions from June to July last year.
An employee at an English-language kindergarten in Hannam-dong, Seoul, said, “The largest age group at our kindergarten is four-year-olds.”
Affluent parents tend to send their offspring to English-language institutes as early as possible.
The biggest reason parents push for early English-language education is so their children can quickly get comfortable speaking in English.
There are, however, parents who worry that sending their children to English-speaking kindergartens will set back their Korean-language skills.
“My daughter was stressed out by the curriculum. They taught writing at such an early age. I didn’t think that was necessary,” said a parent in his mid-30s, who used to send his six-year-old to an English-speaking kindergarten.
“I now send her to a local Korean-speaking kindergarten. I was worried that she wouldn’t learn Korean as much as she should be learning at her age. I heard that kids attending English kindergartens end up not speaking Korean well.”