The Education Ministry is pushing a plan to use overseas Korean students and “foreign” students in Korea-related majors as after-school English teachers in rural areas.
The ministry plans to implement the program, designed to help alleviate the shortage of foreign English teachers in rural areas, beginning this summer vacation.
The ministry noted, however, that it would be difficult to employ college students as regular English teachers (since you need a four-year degree for an E-2 visa), so it would deploy these instructors to schools for after-school programs.
The instructors would come as volunteers and teach children for six months to a year. They would also get to participate in Korean cultural programs prepared by the Education Ministry.
The ministry will announce at the end of April how many teachers it will recruit, what their qualifications should be and how the selections will be made. Once a detailed plan is released, the ministry will work with the Foreign Ministry to recruit instructors through Korean embassies abroad, ethnic Korean student associations and overseas Korean groups.
An Education Ministry official said, “I understand there are a great many overseas Koreans and foreign students want to experience Korea… The plan will have the effect of providing them with an opportunity to experience Korea while Korean students receive high-quality English classes.”
Marmot’s Note: Doubt this will provide “high-quality English instruction.” I might also wonder how many university students will come to Korea as volunteers when they can just wait until they graduate to do the same thing and get paid. Still, the thought is nice, and it might be a great experience for Korea-interested individuals looking to take some time off from school to do something productive.
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I heard some time ago that kyopo English instructors would be off to North Korea to teach English too. Funny how both North and South Korea make plans for these people without considering that few of them might be actually interested.
And they are going to attract people to volunteer how?
They can’t even get enough people over here while offering them money.
A more realistic program would be community-service English classes staffed by kyopo and expat cons busted here and looking to reduce their sentences.
Perhaps Cullen Thomas be the chief organizer, since I hear he’s having trouble getting back into the country he loves so much.
Really curious about what type of visa these ‘volunteers’ will have who aren’t apart, or connected to the minjok by marriage. Doesn’t the government know its own laws with regard to foreigners teaching English?
I typed out an intelligent response, but it’s just not worth it on an article like this. Dumbassery all around. Anymore, schools deserve the idiots they hire.
Well currently the majority of the SAT test prep teaching staff (and TOEFL too at a lot of places) is made up of gyopo college kids from elite American universities who teach during their school vacations (which coincide with the school vacations of all of the rich kids at international and boarding schools).
And let me tell you, they make a good bit more than most legal teachers.
I love the logic behind this one (”we can’t get enough public school teachers with the current salary structure, so let’s pay them nothing instead”). The Education Ministry will try ANYTHING to avoid doing the one thing that will fix the problem: raising the salaries of public school teachers.
I’m a hagwon teacher, and having worked at public schools in other countries, I know that it’s a much more satisfying experience. The thing is, I’m not willing to take a 40% wage cut to do it. The only way to attract more - and better - teachers to public schools in Korea is to make the salary competitive with hagwons.
A newbie with nothing but a B.A. can get 2.4 in their first year with very little legwork. If they can get that for 30-ish hours in a hagwon, what’s their motivation to be at work for 40 hours (although only teaching 22) at a public school for 1.9 with EPIK?
Being Korean-speaking gyopos or Korean Studies majors does not guarantee that the Korean kids will receive “high quality English classes.” The “volunteers” may be more interested in improving their Korean language skills rather than helping the Korean kids improve their English skills.
Also, if the Korean government provides them with free airfare and food and lodging in exchange for their “volunteering,” wouldn’t that be considered payment, which would, therefore, be illegal?
If Korea really wants cheap, motivated English instructors for their schools in the countryside, she should be hiring Filipino instructors with master’s degrees in English. That would be a win-win situation.
What is up with all the articles on English education? I believe this whole debate is being framed in the wrong terms, esp. gov’t bodies which seem to have a lingering authoritarian approach to this issue.
English education here should be a choice not a requirement. Once that decision is made by the powers that be, the number of ESL students here will halve across the board.
Once that happens, let the market solve all the other problems. Class sizes will be smaller, shortage of native ESL teachers will be eased and qualified teachers will be able to command higher salaries.
Problem solved! Next!
#6,
Right…From top universities. That’s a good one. Just because someone says they have studied at an elite university doesn’t mean that they did (besides, studying at an elite university ain’t all that given that they tend to be the worst at inflating the grades of their students (gotta keep those expensive seats full)).
The ones I’ve met were in fact people who have spent a few years while growing up in the US, Canada, Australia, or the UK, and probably had never taken the SATs, let alone study at an Ivy League school (not that it matters since some of the lesser-known universities to the general public are better respected within certain fields of study than better-known ones).
One of my current university students is one of these guys. I don’t know what his school told their customers, but he earned more than 5 million won per month over the winter vacation. He speaks English an awful lot better than his classmates (probably upper-intermediate level), but still makes fairly typical mistakes.
There isn’t a shortage of available foreigners. The problem is that it just isn’t feasible to have foreigners visit certain rural schools. In Gangjin county, for example, nearly 75% of schools last year did not have a visiting native speaker. In rural areas schools often have 200 or fewer students (not uncommon to find schools with 50, or 70, or 100), so obviously there’s no need for a full-time teacher. Foreigners would visit each school once a week . . . not enough students for any more than that. Given that these schools are so remote, it’s hard enough to get around to a different school, and would often be impossible without personal transportation. And because schools usually only have classes in the morning, and because the schools are pretty far away from one another, two-a-days are out of the question.
I’m not totally convinced there’s a shortage anyway. The hagwon in Gangjin had no problem luring dumbasses in, with offers of 1.9 a month and shared housing. The public schools just didn’t hire any more teachers when the experienced ones left. Why? Because, at the time, it was believed that all the foreigners at elementary and middle school levels would be funnelled into English Towns, and would no longer be used in the public schools. Not sure if that’s still in effect, but I do know that there are no white people teaching in Gangjin’s elementary schools, and they did open up an English Town last week. I’m really not convinced rural areas would have problems hiring people . . . they don’t seem to have any problems now.
Thing is, they’re talking about these after-school programs. Sometimes those are just twice-weekly speaking classes. Other times they’re immersion programs, similar to the “English Only Zone” set up in Gangjin, where about 30 students would spend two days and one night at a school, doing different “real life” stations. The EOZ needed a white person for three hours a day, 15 a week, and after-school conversation classes are normally held for 2 - 6 hours a week. Teachers really rake in the money doing these classes . . . unfortunately, they’re usually mandatory, and teachers don’t really know what they’re in for when they sign on at a particular school. Felt bad for a woman in my town . . . worked 8:30 to 8:30 three days a week, 9 to 5 the other two. Sure, she made some good money, but I’d hate to walk into that surprise when I get off the plane.
So what’s really happening here is that schools are choosing not to hire foreigners for their schools in the first place, as these white people are being funnelled into English Towns. There’s no one left to work these after-school programs, so they need somebody who can pick up a few hours a week, the few hours that would normally fall to the school’s English monkey. Some rural schools do hire Filipino teachers, but I don’t know how successful that is. Korean skills, difficult accent, awkward grammar . . . why not just use a Korean?
But who in the hell would sign up for a program like this? If they are claiming they’re having trouble HIRING people to work in the sticks, how on earth are they going to find people to VOLUNTEER out there? This looks just like another pipe dream. Remember a few months back when 2MB said how smart gyopos would come back and serve the motherland for a year? This seems kinda like that. Except dumber.
I’m sure, if this ever takes off, they’ll snag a few dumbasses. Too many teachers never bother to do their homework. They’ll assume they’re walking into a free semester-long vacation. “It’ll be a chance to study abroad.” I thought that a year in the sticks would be like a study abroad, too, but for many reasons it was nothing of the sort. Imagine how difficult it would be for a person with no money, no contact with the outside world, and no free time? You really think they’re just gonna let that teacher come in for three hours a day? No, as in my case, they’ll have him doing “favors” like teaching kindergarten in the morning, “helping” teachers’ kids, “talking” with other staff members, and “bonding” with the coworkers at lunch. Expect six months of servitude . . . in the middle of nowhere.
Good post Brian. Get it translated so that it will actually make a difference.
I agree with Mr. Bevers about Filipino teachers, and don’t forget Indians, too. Last week I had a very pleasant phone chat with a certain Waseem at Apple’s Service & Support call center in India regarding a battery problem I was having in my MacBook. He was exceedlingly courteous, had impeccable grammar and was very patient in answering all my questions. Perfect qualities for an ESL teacher in Korea, in my opinion.
SomeguyinKorea: a lot of the SAT teachers really are from elite universities. How good they are as actual teachers and whether they deserve their salaries is another matter. A lot of them are maniacal overachievers who do great work but a lot have no idea how to control a class of kids only a few years younger then themselves and are worthless.
Overall, I’d say they do a better job than the average expat though, probably because they’re not here long enough to burn out.
I don’t know what all this nonsense about getting people from top universities to work here. Is a Cambridge, Oxford, Princeton or MIT graduate going to come here and work for the peanuts they’re offering in so many schools. Do they really believe that graduates from those schools are so keen to come to sparkling Korea?
You don’t need a graduate degree in biochemical engineering to teach some Korean kids English, a basic honours degree, maybe a celta, a clear and neutral accented voice, complete fluency yes. Teaching kids basic stuff is not rocket science. The biggest problem is the whole school system and their shoddy textbooks.
Wow. So, the floodgates have opened. The sacreed covenant of “passport from one of 7 countries+ degree in anything” has been broken. Now “university professors” in Seoul have the same status as volunteer 19-year olds in the countryside. Time to find another racket.
Wow. So, the floodgates have opened. The sacred covenant of “passport from one of 7 countries+ degree in anything” has been broken. Now “university professors” in Seoul have the same status as volunteer 19-year olds in the countryside. Time to find another racket.
haha classic! More white LBH (loser’s back home) who have come to Korea, think they’ve shed their loser status, have become the shit because they’re white, but complain about hard reality here.
Wow, drive-by trolling! Cool!
Only winners do that, eh?
Coming from some nerd who lives on this web site?
today’s “Which is Worse” courtesy of The Marmot commenters:
Which is worse?
1. the one who types “first”
2. the drive-by troll (one-time)
3. the steadfast troll (repeat)
4. the one who calls other commenters nerds/losers (see also: “pot calling the kettle black” –by surfing comment boards, aren’t we all kind of de facto nerds?)
5. the axe-grinder (only has one point; repeated on numerous comment boards)
6. the sarcastic meta-commenter who doesn’t talk about the original topic, but instead comments on other commenters, and never adds anything to the discussion
7. the grandstanding site-pimper (posts links to his/her own site)
8. the troll-responder (takes the trolls’ bait)
I know which one I’D rather be!
#13,
A lot of them aren’t…not that it matters. It’s not that difficult to enter ‘elite’ universities and even less so to graduate from them, especially for international students who generally eager to pay twice the tuition of the locals for the ‘privilege’ to attend these schools.
#20,
Apparently that would be a hybrid of #4 and #6.
with a big, shit-eating grin!
Newsflash to Arthur Fonzarelli: No one seriously uses the word nerd anymore.
The word Nerd was invented by Dr. Seuss. Unlike the word dork, which originally meant “whale penis”
sweet! gaekujangi, the thread-killer strikes again!
Rumor has it that it’s hip to be square.
Oh, Beaksu, you’re so ‘L7′.
I have a friend who is basically doing this already… it works like this:
A korean university offers a full scholarship and some extra spending cash in exchange for you commiting to speaking practice with students from its english language program. The expat gets a visa, some cash, an education and gets to meet korean people face to face in exchange for authentic language speaking practice. A little different from how they are proposing but it seems to be working out.
the problem with thier proposal is i think it will attract the wrong types and you will see expat crime and general jackassery on the rise.
general jackassery: the firm foundation upon which all of my early friendships with Koreans were built.
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[...] government has released the details of its plan to hire gyopo students and students in Korea-related majors as English teachers for rural districts. Under the program, called Teach and Learn in Korea (TaLK), led by the Ministry of Education, [...]
[...] government has released the details of its plan to hire gyopo students and students in Korea-related majors as English teachers for rural districts. Under the program, called Teach and Learn in Korea (TaLK), led by the Ministry of Education, [...]