A Comparative Study of the Educational System, Teacher Education and English Language Education of South Korea and Turkey

Korean education has attracted the attention of researchers in the field of education due to its fast and steady development in the last 40 years. This paper aims to compare the educational systems, teacher education, and English language education of South Korea (hereafter Korea) and Turkey, by document and content analysis to compare the two countries. The results were enriched and validated with semi-structured interviews with the educational counsellor of the Korean Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, and with a Korean parent who raised two children in the Korean education system. The findings indicated that sharing elements of an Asian culture in which individualism is still a rather foreign concept especially in relatively more conventional parts of both Turkey and Korea, where governmental funding is insufficient, both Turkey and Korea are striving through some turbulences in their education systems, and English language teaching in particular. Rather than the more mechanical, years and hours of courses or even the starting age of English language instruction in the national curriculum, or the teacher training requirements, the major difference between the two countries is their perspective and attitude towards education in general