If you’re going to turn Korea into the best English-speaking nation in Asia, you need teachers.
Problem is, Korea doesn’t have any. Or perhaps better put, it has English teachers. Plenty, in fact.
They just can’t speak English.
Anyway, LMB thinks ethnic Koreans overseas might provide part of the solution by coming back to Korea for a year or two to teach the kiddies English:
In his meeting with transition committee members Thursday, Lee expressed willingness to post Koreans residing in English-speaking countries to primary and secondary schools for a certain period.
“I think many ethnic Koreans will roll their sleeves for their maternal country for about one year,” he said. “If we systemize the project, there will be many volunteers.”
Lee added that some Koreans working abroad have already informed the transition team of their willingness to teach here by suspending several months or years away from their jobs.
Korean-American readers, your Motherland calls! Drop that job and book your plane ticket now!
Oh, and this paragraph from the KT might raise some eyebrows:
At private English institutions nationwide, there are many ethnic Korean teachers, such as Korean-Americans and other ethnic Koreans. Some students prefer them to foreign teachers, as they understand Korean culture well and have higher educational backgrounds including master’s degrees or doctorates.
As opposed to those undereducated non-Korean teachers, I suppose.
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22 Comments
This is what I’ve been trying to explain to everyone around me for years now! I never quite understood why they hired English-only speaking instructors. It just doesn’t make sense. Can you imagine taking Spanish I with a teacher that can only speak Spanish? It’s a disaster! I wouldn’t want that person as a teacher! No offense to the many English teachers who work hard, but you gotta know Korean yourself before you can teach Koreans to speak English. I’ve taught as an assistant at a English village once, and found that the students didn’t learn jack from their native speakers who didn’t know a lick of Korean. Even though I was supposed to pretend that I didn’t know any Korean at all (I’m a Kyopo BTW), I broke the rules and taught the students myself in Korean and English. Thank you LMB for finally understanding and bringing this issue to light!
OMG there is going to be a braindrain on kyopo holding PhDs rushing back to the motherland to teach English!
“I think many ethnic Koreans will roll their sleeves for their maternal country for about one year,” he said. “If we systemize the project, there will be many volunteers.”
Perhaps, but I’m willing to roll UP my sleeves, so I think that makes me more qualified.
As an aside, it really pisses me off that the Korea Times’ links expire so quickly. Half the links on my blog are dead b/c they can’t keep their links in one place.
“…and have higher educational backgrounds including master’s degrees or doctorates.”
Hahaha I wonder what kind of phds these hogwan teachers are sporting. I’m guessing diploma mill phds, or even more likely, $50 Thailand buy one get one free phds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09.....korea.html
In a way, these schools ask for it when they hire people merely based on their school name and not on their ability.
Yes, come on over gyopos!
All of the forced military service you want!
60% of the pay and none of the benefits of the white teachers!
Being expected to follow Korean cultural bullshit regardless of how American you are!
Why are you all waiting?! Sign up now!
Yes, come on over gyopos!
All of the forced military service you want!
60% of the pay and none of the benefits of the white teachers!
Being expected to follow Korean cultural bullshit regardless of how American you are!
Why are you all waiting?! Sign up now!
Sure…if it’ll only give me a chance to beat up some expats.
Even if Korean law, would ignore the expat to protect their blood, it seems that any gyopo who had the same citizenship of the person he attacked would follow under the jurisdiction of the country of citizenship. Thus, if Korean law fails to provide protection from gyopos attacking someone, perhaps legal action in the country of citizenship should be applied. Just because the korean justice system can be backward at times, doesnt mean all countries are backward.
Netizen Kim, I’m sure you’ll be able to beat up all the expats you want. It’s Korea, remember? You won’t get punished for it!
Funny how it’s always American-Koreans, American this and American that.
Actually, it’s a bit amusing and also quite annoying.
Is it funny or quite annoying? You should make up your mind. I find indecisive people funny… and quite annoying.
I’ll be more than happy with that #10! Please come over here and take me on. Of course we’ll have the same rights, but not the same justice. I’d be more than willing to do some time for taking you out.
A few years ago, I taught ESL to beginner children at a private K-12 international school in China. My students were Korean, Chinese, and Japanese speakers. Guess which language I used for instruction (I speak all three plus English, of course). I now have a class of kindergarteners with minimal English. Five are Spanish speakers and one is a Chinese speaker. Guess which language I use for instruction? Native language clarification is helpful for complex grammar and vocabulary nuances, but children learn best by extensive modeling in context. I rarely use another language for instruction. Knowing the native language of young children is more useful for behavior management; the kids can’t get away with cuss words and insults. If those Korean beginners “didn’t learn jack” from their foreign teachers, it’s because of ineffective teaching methods, not because of a lack of Korean language proficiency. Some of the beginner children I taught in China had already had some prior instruction in their native language. Knowledge of the students’ native language in a monolingual class is helpful but not essential.
Netizen - tell you what: why don’t you just stay over there, have sex with some local women, and we’ll call it even.
Sonagi agains finds herself a lone voice of intelligent discourse bracketed between crude boorishness. Apologies, m’lady.
“you gotta know Korean yourself before you can teach Koreans to speak English.”
They get plenty of “instruction” in Korean from Korean teachers. You’re just sheltering them from foreigners. This will not produce people that are communicatively competent in the target language.
It sounds like they just want to throw more native speakers into the industry. You need people in the classroom who have a high level of proficiency in English, and who have training in teaching English as a foreign language. Whether they hold a TESOL certificate, CELTA or a degree in applied linguistics, or just have years of experience in the trade, these are the employable people you need in the classroom, not just another native speaker of English. Cultural awareness is definitely apart of the job, but a trained teacher who has good classroom management skills is more likely to get better results and at the same time not step on any sensitive toes.
I think Korea needs to decide on what dialect of English the country should learn.
#13
I concur. This is one of the fallacies of bilingual education. The use of a student’s L1 can become a crutch because the end result is that no real meaningful communication is occurring in the target language. The struggle to communicate in the L2 is an important part of the language learning process.
My own experience learning Korean also bears this out. When I first started learning I attended a special class for foreigners taught by an English speaking Korean. She spent time introducing Korean words and simple grammatical structures, but used English to do so. In fact, the real language of communication was always English. I spent two months enrolled like this, but made little progress. Finally, in my third month, I took a class with a Korean teacher who had majored in Korean education (국어교육학). This teacher, either out of embarrassment or design, never used English in class. As a result we were forced to use Korean to say things like “I have a question”, “Please write that on the board”, “Could you repeat that?” etc. While it was certainly more difficult at first, it gave us more chance to actually practice using Korean. The result is that I was actually starting to develop confidence in the language for the first time. That experience taught me that using the student’s native language is not a help, but a hindrance.
I can only conclude that LMB is grasping at straws for solutions to Korea’s problems with English education. In the end, I think the best solution is to work on improving the professionalism of Korean schools so that talented English teachers are not scared off. Unfortunately, the current system is so discriminatory and xenophobic that many of the best teachers leave out of frustration.
Sonagi agains finds herself a lone voice of intelligent discourse bracketed between crude boorishness. Apologies, m’lady.
I am a crude boor, for sure, but I’m hardly the only one here. If Sonagi was easily offended by boorishness, she’d had left a long time ago. One of the best kind of women are women who act like women but is familiar enough with guy crap to not get easily offended by it and just lets guys be guys. I think she is like that.
I held my own in a household of five brothers, including four younger sibs whom I took great pleasure in bossing around.
She even tolerates my patronizing bullshit. Amazing.