Police busted two Americans — one of whom was a high school dropout — for teaching English at Seoul elementary schools. One of them, a 37-year-old Mr. “H,” had been teaching English conversation since 2001. He had taught at three Seoul area schools and was teaching at a private English academy when the authorities finally caught up with him. A high school dropout and former soldier with USFK, he purchased a forged college degree from a Korean “broker” and entered the country on an E-2 teaching visa. He told police he did this because he heard that as long as you had the qualifications to teach (which, in Korea, means being a native speaker of English with a degree — in anything — from a four year school), you were guaranteed a stable livelihood. He said, “My friends suggested it, and Koreans are kind and the money is good, so I did it.”
Fellow American Mr. “T,” meanwhile, was nabbed by police for teaching at an elementary school in Mokdong, Seoul with a forged degree. He, at least, was a college dropout.
Police are detaining the two, and plan to expand their investigation of unqualified foreign English teachers in the Land of the Morning of Calm.
According to the Yonhap report on this story, the two were nabbed in a joint investigation with Interpol. A police official said, “The demand for foreign English teachers is increasing explosively, but since we have absolutely no system to check the authenticity of degrees, the quality of English education is decreasing.” He added, “As one could see not so long ago during the ‘English Teacher Party Incident,’ word is going around that Korea is a ‘paradise for white English conversation teachers.’ As a result, unqualified English teachers are flooding in.”
Police also discovered during the course of the investigation the existence of an international degree forgery ring. According to information obtained by the authorities, one can purchase on the Internet a bachelor’s degree for US$125~200, a master’s for US$195~300, and a doctorate for US$500 and up.
Oh, speaking of the “English Teacher Party Incident,” also known on this blog as “English Spectrum-Gate,” police arrested today a 26-year-old Mr. Hong for trying to blackmail two of the young women who appeared in the now infamous photos that appeared on English Spectrum. According to police, Hong sent dozens of emails and cell phone messages to 27-year-old Ms. A and another woman, threatening to post photos of them from “The Party” around their entire neighborhoods if they didn’t pay up W50 million and W100 million, respectively. Investigations revealed that Hong got to know Ms. A via online chatting earlier this year, but their relationship ruptured about two months later, leading Hong to blackmail her out of spite.
31 Comments
BTW English Spectrum is back up and running
at least they didn’t publish their full names. usually the abbreviations are saved for koreans.
Hey those foreigners should be praised for their cultural sensitivity, seeing as they know how to hold themselves when put on display. Those are some mightly cultured and refined way gooks!
I got my degree for $200. $500 seems way too much. You don’t need a university degree to teach conversation English. Even a high school drop out like myself can do it with proper documentation.
Americans saving face?
I thought the Cornholio routine was only for Koreans. Oh well, when in Rome….
And then there’s the idiot over at Daves Cafe who said:
Why the heck would anyone pull a coat over their heads?? That’s a Korean thing. Heck, I’d give the lens a big finger.
I’m with everyone above. Mark’s right esepcially. Why do the Cornholio deal? I’ve always said that if I were arrested in Korea, I’d get my face out there and proclaim my innocence as loud as possible, that and just to go against the norm in Korea.
Koreans who get taken by these folk deserve it. I know of KA folk who’ve graduated from good colleges with appropriate degrees in teaching English, and yet don’t get as much play because they’re not white.
what a load of crap that the quality of english education is decreasing. what skills do these people actually think are necessary to teach english to elementary students?
oh the good ol’ days when the peace corp folks taught english in the villages and gave out chocolate bars - and considering how all older koreans speak english almost fluently, the quality of english education must have been much better back then.
Of course, nothing is mentioned of the schools that actually hired them. Here in Vancouver, one of the local tabloids that caters to the local Asian population ran a piece regarding rising xenophobia in South Korea towards English teachers.
This is something that Korea can really be proud of.
Why was Interpol involved? I’ve never heard of Interpol getting involved with tracking down any of the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in the U.S. You’d think there are more pressing matters for them to attend to, wouldn’t you?
Yeah, it’s gotta make you wonder why Interpol would bother with a couple of drop-outs. Seriously, did they spend all that time and money just to track these two blights down? AND how did they actually catch them? where was their mistake? Did they use a broker? A degree mill? Photoshop not do them justice?
Also, i wonder if their old students are bad-mouthing them now? “I knew teacher X was not qualified to teach me! He told me I had to repeat Lets Go 2 one more time because of my poor spelling!!”
I’m pretty happy to see these charlatans are caught. Would like to see a lot more. There will be some good that comes about from the English Spetrum fiasco. Cleaning up the ESL industry will be good, but both sides need to be cleansed and by that I mean management too.
But they are playing with fire. It will be pretty hard to regulate the system if only foreigners are expected to abide by educational requirement while the local population doesn’t. By this I mean that there are many many Koreans working in the institute system in Korea that don’t have a BA or BS degree. Why not go after them? Are there different laws for foreingers in this regard? I don’t know. Just a thought.
Quote by needphdtoteach: “considering how all older koreans speak english almost fluently”
Really? Exactly what part of Korea do you live in?
There aren’t many older Koreans walking around speaking English Where I am, and I live in Seoul.
If they’re going to go about cleaning up the system, shouldn’t they look at the teachers with a criminal record? (the ones that are violent or dangerous to children anyway) Get your priorities straight, people!
Cleaning up the system would be a great, but it has to start from the top. So many shady teachers - unqualified, illegal, or whatever - wouldn’t be working here in the first place if the system wasn’t so lax, corrupt, and driven by greed.
Korean employers are either unwilling and/or unable to attract enough qualified teachers to meet demand. Many places couldn’t care less about qualifications, professionalism, etc. as long as the money rolls in. A lot of the legit places don’t offer a decent enough package for professional teachers to pack up and come to Korea.
The government must be aware of illegal and unqualified teachers, just as they are be aware of exactly how many illegal 3D workers are in Korea at any given time. Periodic cosmetic “crack downs” a la foreign laborers, the prostitution industry, etc. aren’t going to solve problems of a systematic nature, especially ones the authorities might not really want to do away with anyway.
Immigration visa inflexibility is a contributing factor as well, though that didn’t stop a friend of mine from teaching a few officers from that particular department of the Justice Ministry while on a tourist visa a couple of years back! (Does that really surprise anybody out there?)
As with a number of issues here, it is a lot easier - and popular - to blame the state of things on foreign scapegoats (Japan, US, IMF, etc) than to make a serious effort at real improvement. Looks cool on TV and seems to confirm a few stereotypical beliefs about foreign teachers, but doesn’t accomplish anything positive. At the end of the day, it is the Korean people who get the short end of the stick.
More on Byung Hyun Kim Sucking
This was originally posted as a comment to an earlier post about Kim. It was long enough that I decided to make it a post of its own. A comment-based conversation between me and HK from the new blog
phil,
i was just being sarcastic - i guess that’s hard to convey on a message board.
A police official said, ?橫The demand for foreign English teachers is increasing explosively, but since we have absolutely no system to check the authenticity of degrees, the quality of English education is decreasing.?? Once again Korea is the hapless victim–how difficult would it be to check the degrees? One phone call, an e-mail? I’m sure the bureaucrats at immigration could do it, I’ve been to their office and seen them all sitting around for hours on end doing nothing.
Oh, yeah, I see that now. Oops. Hope that’s my babo moment for the week over.
Apparently not, I can’t even spell my name right today.
Check this out from the anti english spectrum site. I cant wait till the discussion boards open.
We, the proud people of Antienglishspectrum are here to postulate strongly immediate shut down of EnglishSpectrum.com.
For many years, Englishspectrum.com has been notorious for its vile reputation all over the net. It has openly degraded Korean society and its honorable people in many forms of humiliating stigmas.
Furthermore, It has a great responsibility of promoting promiscuous sexual conducts in M’s few months ago. Regardless of what EnglishSpectrum.com is insisting on taking to reform its unreliable commitments, we the proud people of Antienglishspectrum are not pledged to accept such preposterous claims.
In order to avert the evil from sprouting from its own root, once again we the proud people of Antienglishspectrum WILL take every legal mean possible to proceed with our noble agenda.
Antienglishspectrum
The blackmailer needs to have his nutsack stepped on a few times.
What suprises me is the insistance on Diplomas. In the US employers often require Transcrips instead of Diplomas. A Transcript is much more difficult to forge and is easier to verify. But hey, what do I know.
Usually both diplomas and transcripts are needed, but for anyone who has dealt with Immigration, the story can change from year-to-year, officer-to-officer, etc. Sometimes the transcript requirement is waived by the authorities, often when an employer “pushes” for a visa to be issued (I have a pretty good idea what that might involve).
I’m not sure that I’d agree with the police about the demand for English teachers growing so rapidly at the moment, so much as the supply of teachers - qualified or not - being lower than it was back in ‘96 or ‘97 - back in the days of $US = W 800 - when I would argue the demand was also higher than it is now.
There may be some truth to the belief that Korea can be a Western teacher’s “paradise”, but I’ve met numerous people on visits back to Canada over the years who have stories about a friend or friends who didn’t enjoy their Korean experience all that much, often because they got shafted by their employer. Both sides of the secret are out…
If Korea is such a paradise for english teachers, how come so many of them hate it here? For the record, I do like it here and know a number of other foreigners who also like it, but it seems I’ve met alot who don’t. Paradise? The girls are pretty and it’s easy to get dates (free english lessons), but the work hours are usually slave hours at most hogwans. I agree there are lots of unqualified teachers here, but how are you going to get qualified ones to come over? Pay them well and give them a decent teaching schedule. Not willing to do that? Well, expect the unqualified types then.
Brendon you out there?
Why the heck is lying to an employer a criminal offense? Obviously people should get fired for lying about their credentials but criminal charges? Are these guys just getting taken into custody for deportation purposes or are they actually being charged with a crime?
Anyway what the heck are you guys that are teaching English in Korea thinking? Assuming you’ve got a college degree and are under 40, come to Japan and teach in the JET program. As far as I can tell, it’s alot better deal than what the Korean hagwons give out. FYI the girs here also tend to be alot more into foreign guys …
http://www.chicago.us.emb-japan.go.jp/jic/JET.html
I wondering if these guys were doing a good job? Did the schools have anything bad to say about these guys… Did they do a good job? Were the children happy? Were the parents happy?
I am so happy I am no longer teaching English in Korea… I just wonder what made the Korean government hunt these guys down? Were they going to work drunk…
After 5 years of teaching English you might think these guys had enough experience to do the job they are required to do…^^
Mike
mike,
immigration might have been tipped off. there’s a reward out for turning in people like this. it’s a good way to clear out the a-holes from one’s workplace, if the a-holes are using doctored docs.
To the person who said why not do JET, my answer is simple, you can’t save as much money if you want to go out and have a good time. Also with JET you are at the whims of the system as to where you get placed. I for one would not want to end up in the mountains as a couple of my friends have. Also the application process is a bit of a pain versus the simplicity of Korea.
Why the heck is lying to an employer a criminal offense? Obviously people should get fired for lying about their credentials but criminal charges? Are these guys just getting taken into custody for deportation purposes or are they actually being charged with a crime?
Well, obviously I don’t know what the charge is, but it seems possible to me that because a diploma is a required document for the teachers’ E-2 work visa application, submission of a forged diploma to the authorities is considered to be “making a false official statement”. Which is, of course, a crime just about anywhere.
So there you have it. I want this guy ariwrong to call me at my office just to say hello.
Ask a hogwan directore what kind of “qualifications” he cares about, and he won’t really give two squirts about a fancey degree (although the moms like to see it mentioned in the brochures). In many cases, the greener the better. My old director got sick of hiring teachers with B.Eds, because they came here expecting to actually “teach” and all they do is fight the system and complain. What a director really wants is a happy go lucky anything goes kind of person who adapts to Korea and keeps a smile…and most importantly gets along with kids. You can’t teach that at a university. I think for teaching adults maybe it is good to have an English or Business Degree. But teaching kids in Korea is a joke. Once Korean realise that they will save themselves heaps of money and import as many highschool dropouts as possible who will be happy to work for less so long as its more than they would otherwise earn at a 7-11.