I'm not sure, but has the Korean national government decided that next year, individual schools will have the choice to select English text books?

The week before Chuseok I had the chance to investigate roughly 28 different books for 3rd and 4th graders.  I did this on my own, even though it had no impact on which texts would be selected.  If the curriculum fractures, it doesn't bode well for this site.

Even though a large number of books were presented, each had its short comings or otherwise left me disappointed. Initially I blamed the fact that 90% of the authorship is Korean, with a single Western name printed in Latin characters on the cover, but the similarity in structure in the majority of the texts suggests that all of them were written according to a government specification.  I had hoped to find a book which would address most of the issues that have cropped out from the current curriculum, but most of them reinforced the current "Zeeto" standard.

While I don't presume to know the perfect system or systems of English education, I have only taught a couple years in Korea, but I do believe that every native English teacher here in Korea has identified some issue they wish were addressed.  I can read antimoon.com all day and accept that text books are a crutch for poor teachers, but each year 700+ native speakers come here to the front lines with substandard equipment.  We can instantly identify problems and see the same mistakes cemented in the system and perpetuated to the next generation.  Private academies will not be going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, much of their success is thanks to the use of native speakers in the creation of text books.

The only way I see any change is through an extensive critique of the system with simple hints on how to improve it.  For example, the lack of proper handwriting stroke order instruction severely inhibits students' writing abilities later.  The use of words that Korean has borrowed from English for phonics drills does not teach correct phonemes.  The fact that the English text books have fewer English words than Korean words on every page is not encouraging.  What can I say about roleplay, but that I never do it because I have more effective and interesting speaking activities.

The list goes on, but ultimately I think a text book written by native speakers and used by native speakers is the solution.