Broadcaster-turned-TV personality Kim So-young expressed her views on English kindergartens.
On the 21st, a video titled "Kim So-young and Oh Sang-jin recommend children's books. Do they attend an English kindergarten? Answer to that. Revealing Sua's education method" was posted on Kim So-young's YouTube channel "Kim So-young's Kkinggri TV."
Kim So-young opened by saying, "People have been curious about what books we usually read to our child. Especially since both my husband and I are announcers and we run a bookstore, this is one of the questions we really get asked a lot, and I don't think I've ever given a grand answer, so today I want to talk a bit about the child's books and education, and how we teach our child."
Kim So-young said she received many questions about whether her eldest daughter Sua attends an English kindergarten, and said, "She attends an English kindergarten. But I actually hadn't answered many questions about English kindergarten because I think it's really a matter of choice and people will respond differently, so I hadn't answered much."
She added, "The reason I sent her to an English kindergarten is that I am not good at English. So I wasn't confident about how to teach English to my child. I had no sense at all of how to teach English," and said, "She started around five or six years old and learned English at the English kindergarten, and at home I hardly touched English at all."
Kim So-young candidly said, "I think it can be done when there's a need. Many parents these days do mother-led English. If the mother is sufficiently good at English and has the ability and time to teach the child systematically, I don't think there's a need to send them so early, but I had no idea how to teach English at all."
Kim So-young added, "In our day, we first learned English around fourth or fifth grade. So I didn't really know how to teach a child things like the pronunciation of the alphabet at first. That's why I sent her to an English kindergarten."
Kim So-young drew attention by speaking honestly about the effectiveness of English kindergarten. She said, "This seems like a really sensitive issue. English kindergartens are expensive. So they have pros and cons," and said, "One real advantage is that the child learns at the academy even if the mother doesn't teach English at all, but when you consider whether a child becomes good at English proportional to the time, money and the mother's effort invested there, that seems to vary by child. Attending there doesn't automatically mean a child will be good at English."
Kim So-young said, "Honestly, I had some doubts about whether it would be that effective at age five or six. I don't know if it's unconditional, but anyway it certainly helps," and shared her experience: "The reason I decided to send Sua to an English kindergarten was that Sua had already fully mastered Hangul before going, so I thought she could learn a new language, but if a second child were born who didn't know Hangul well, it could cause confusion, so we'll think about timing then."
Kim So-young married announcer Oh Sang-jin and had her first daughter, Sua, and she is currently pregnant with her second child.
[Photo] YouTube video capture.
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