By Bernama
Seoul : The South Korean Naval Academy has set up an English-only zone to help its cadets improve their English language skills in several simulated environments, Yonhap news agency reported Friday quoting the Naval Academy spokesman Lietenant Noh Jin-seok as saying.
The zone, which opened last month, consists of four areas — an operation control room, an airport check-in counter, a travel agent’s office and a debate room — in which the students can learn to speak in terms used in actual encounters, the school said in a press release.
“Making the rooms look exactly like the real thing was to help the students get the feeling of actually being in such places and speaking in actual terms used at such places,” Lieutenant Noh Jin-seok, was quoted as saying in a telephone interview.
Currently, four American teachers are stationed at the English zone along with U.S. LCDR. Robert Capraro, who is on a teacher-exchange program at the Academy, according to Noh.
“The best and the easiest way to learn English is to use it as often as they can,” said the head of the Academy’s English department, CDR Woo Choong-hwan.
Woo also noted that the gaining of better English skills by the cadets will ultimately lead to better communication between the country’s future military officers and U.S. forces stationed here when working together in joint operations.
About 28,000 U.S. service members are currently stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.