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Busan English Library, “I Love the Library, I Love English” |
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2010-07-21 |
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 The Busan English Library (BEL), established on July 1st of 2009, is Korea’s
first public English library to create an English-friendly environment. The
BEL’s mission is to make its various English resources and multi-media
available to students and citizens who don’t have the chance to otherwise use
English. The BEL offers a variety of English reading programs; storytelling,
puppet shows, reading with art and music, and ENIE (English Newspaper in
Education).
English literacy is encouraged through the provision of programs including;
‘I Love Stories’, a reading program where EPIK (English Program In Korea)
teachers tell interesting English fairy tales, and ‘Creative writing’, a
program where students write a fun and creative story or poem after reading
books together.
There are also weekend family programs and special events. One of the BEL’s
advantages is its location, as it is situated near Seo-myeon, a central part
of the Busan city. Citizens can easily access and use the library.
The BEL also has programs such as SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory), SRC
(Scholastic Reading Counts), and Lexile, which is a unit of measurement used
when determining the difficulty of text and the reading level of readers. It
lets users participate at their own level. Above all, the BEL supports
preschools, elementary and secondary schools by offering various activities
and services relating to the English curriculum in order to improve English
proficiency.
The impact and outcomes of the BEL are significant. Since its opening, people
have been able to participate in high quality English programs for free or a
moderate cost and use many of the English collections. The accessibility of
the BEL and its resources play a important role in reducing the “English
Divide”, a disparity in English skills between children from affluent parents
and those from lower-income families.
The BEL has been very popular among students and citizens as indicated by the
number of on-site visitors, which currently totals more than 113,400.
Aiming to be a national top model in the English public libraries, the BEL
plans to increase and develop its programs as well as its collections.
*This news letter partly excerpts from the Busan English Library’s English
homepage(http://www.bel.go.kr/site_eng/main/main.php)
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