Self-directedness has been attended to as a key element in successful learning The ultimate goals of the national curriculum in Korea is to have Korean students become self-directed learners However, Korean students' learning experience seem quite far from this ideal They are still being or even more strictly controlled under teacher-directed instruction Learners' independency is much worse in learning English because most of them are intensively trained in highly teacher-controlled 'hakwon (private institutes)' This study attempts to examine Korean elementary students' readiness for self-directed language learning with three questions a) Are Korean elementary school students ready for self-directed language learning? b) What factors positively or negatively affect their self-directedness? 3) dose k-12 school education help Korean students grow as independent learners? 426 fourth and sixth graders and 229 college students were surveyed to measure and compare korean learners' self-directed learning ability by age, region, gender, and other factors Guglielmino's Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale (1977) was translated and modified into a new version for Korean elementary students in EFL context The SDLLR of fourth graders are significantly higher that the other age groups Region, gender and motivation are also critical factors that significantly affect Korean students' self-directedness This study concludes that the national language curriculum are not successfully helping Korean k-12 students become a self-directed language learners