The real conditions of English classes and teachers and students’ perception in the free learning semester

Analysis of the effects of the free semester system on academic achievement and career maturity

“…It can be understood that the average effect of the free semester system on the academic achievement and career maturity analyzed above comes mostly from students belonging to the distribution in the lower ranks. In the case of English subjects, based on a study indicating that classes that emphasized practical activities to utilize communication ability were highly satisfactory to high-ranked students (Park and Choi, 2018), the possibility that the free semester system may have additional effects on students in the mid-upper level already equipped with the ability to use English can be estimated. These results have great significance in that they can alleviate the current social concerns that the free semester system will lead to the polarization phenomenon of "the rich-get-richer and the poor-get-poorer" depending on academic achievement and the degree of career maturity development.…”

“…Meanwhile, as for the fact that differential effect appeared in English subjects (Baek, 2012; Lee and Cha, 1996), which is known to be affected more by family background, similar to mathematics in South Korea, there is a possibility for the peculiarities of language subjects to have been reflected. In the free semester system, English classes have been changed from the existing knowledge/grammar-oriented education to a method to regard communication as important and focus on language utilization and interaction through various activities (Park and Choi, 2018), and due the effects of such changes, the influence of the school effect on language subjects became larger so that there is a possibility that the differential effects of families will not be very noticeable.…”

“…However, existing studies that analyzed the effects of the free semester system thus far have mainly focused on the average effect on academic achievement, career development, etc. (Kim et al, 2019; Eo, 2015; Cho et al, 2018), and even those studies that focused on the differential effects on students mainly took notice of differences in academic achievements between household incomes or differences in satisfaction levels (Kim, 2018; Park and Choi, 2018). Studies on the differential effects of the free semester system according to the differences by student’s level that can verify the social concerns about the “rich-get-richer and the poor-get-poorer” phenomenon raised above are insufficient.…”