South Korean mothers are parenting at island resorts – while their children pick up English
- Overseas programmes combining leisure time for mothers and study for children are big business in the country
- There is also growing interest in English proficiency, with a recent study showing more than half of job interviews require some use of the language
Three years ago, Lee Eun-kyung wanted to run away from her job as a schoolteacher. South Korea has high expectations for children in classrooms; in 2018, for the fifth year in a row, the country topped the NJ MED’s World Top 20 Education Poll in terms of standardised testing and college graduation rates.
This means the pressure is not just on students but on teachers and mothers as well, as mothers are traditionally placed in charge of children’s education.
Lee’s trip to the island of Saipan, an American territory in the Pacific Ocean, with her sister and both their children was meant to be a one-time break from the pressures of teaching. For about a month, the children – who were around seven to eight years old – enrolled in the local private school as exchange students while their mothers relaxed, spending long days on the beach and evenings filled with leisure.
“The small island, which is one-ninth the size of [popular Korean getaway] Jeju island, also has a friendly atmosphere for mothers and students alike who are not advanced speakers in English,” she said. “There’s also the big plus that Saipan has beaches Koreans only have seen in holiday magazines.”
Not only did the children gain experience using English with foreign students, they took part in extracurricular activities such as sports and arts instead of going to after-school study centres as they normally would at home.
“After we told our friends and neighbours about our multi-purpose trip involving both travelling and schooling for the kids, these mothers started to ask us if they could also send their own children with us on our next trip,” Lee said.
