Review of ‘ODA’

Review of ‘ODA’

Review of ‘NEAT’

‘NEAT’ is National English Ability Test. It was first time to listen about NEAT in presentation. NEAT has four fields which is ‘reading’, ‘listening’, ‘speaking’ and ‘writing’ but our now Korean English SAT has only two fields which is ‘reading’ and ‘listening’.

Because now Korean English SAT has only two fields, Korean English education focuses on mostly reading and barely listening. In my case, I also took an English class from elementary school to high school for 10 years. In that period, I used to learn 90% reading and 10% listening in a class. So, I am very weak at writing and speaking. And my parents had spent money to teach me to speak English well at private English academy. I am sure other parents too. Most parents spent a lot of money to private education market. If we have NEAT as SAT, the government tries to install the professional training for teachers and the public school will try to teach students all four fields, therefore most parents won’t to spend a lot of money to private education market. So I have a very positive opinion to set NEAT as SAT.

And NEAT is also can be an official English score instead of ‘TOEIC’ or ‘TOEFL’. Now on days, all job seekers have to have an English score for getting a job. Because of that, many 20’s and 30’s included university students take ‘TOEIC’ or ‘TOEFL’. But problem is that the test fee is not cheap. It’s about 40 dollars to take 2 parts of TOEIC, 110 dollars to take a full package TOEIC, and 170 dollars to take a TOEFL. It’s burden to students. Additionally all the money goes to U.S. It’s a foreign currency loss.

Maybe I will spend more time to study English and take the NEAT, but even that I am welcoming NEAT because I have a big expectation that my English skill will be better through take and study NEAT.

Review of ‘Working Holiday’

Working Holiday visa is quite familiar to me because I had been in Australia with working holiday visa. So, I was a working holiday maker from 2008 to 2009 for about 6 months.

Working Holiday is good to experience new environment, but probably it can be also bad because you don’t have enough background knowledge to live and supporter like family. But for me working holiday visa was pretty good opportunity to taste other countries with low living cost. However I want to say that the outcome of working holiday experience is depends on person.

In my case, I was pretty lucky. I went there without full-preparation to live. Even that, I met great homestay family and learn the English at very good language school. And I spent my effort too. I didn’t hang out with any Koreans and try to have every lunch with non-Koreans. So, I used to hang out with many Vietnamese and keep talk to homestay family. Additionally, during do part-time job I try to avoid get a job at Korean restaurant then I got a job at Thai restaurant. After waitress job, I worked at the farm to gather more money and when I stayed at the farm I still kept studying English with town librarian. To estimate my working holiday life by myself, I would like to say success.

I am also sure other Korean students will do good job with working holiday visa. In my view, usually Korean students have desire to be a good student. And I want to go New Zealand, UK, Canada or Ireland again even I miss proper time to get a good job.