I know what you’re thinking. “Oh no, not another gyopo bitching about hagwon hiring only white folk.”
Fear not, however. This time, we have gyopo bitching about discrimination that favors Korean citizens over them.
The Busan Ilbo tells the sad tale of young Mr. Yang, a 25-year-old Korean-American who hasn’t quite finished his four-year degree from UCLA. Having recently gotten hitched to a Korean woman and now living in Busan, Yang tried to get a job as a hagwon teacher. The evil minions at the Busan Seobu Department of Education, however, refused to register him as a teacher, citing his failure to complete a four-year degree. Under current law, foreigners must complete a four-year degree in order to register as hagwon teachers.
Clearly upset and this grave injustice, Yang complained to the Busan Ilbo, “It’s unfair that overseas Koreans cannot receive the same treatment as locals.”
Gee, and you thought it was only “expats” with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement?
Anyway, the Busan Ilbo noted the controversy surrounding laws that made it difficult for overseas Koreans to get jobs at Korean hagwon.
You see, under current laws, locals need only a two-year degree or more in order to work as a hagwon instructor, while foreigners — as noted above — need a four-year degree or more. Mr. Yang, who does not have Korean citizenship (a phenomenon called in most countries “being a foreigner”), needs a four-year degree. Which, according to him, sucks, because he has 140 college credits to his name, well in excess of the 80 college credits needed for Korean citizens to get teaching jobs.
According to the Busan Ilbo, because of the laws, many Busan-area hagwon have given up on hiring talented gyopo. Said one Busan hagwon, “I want to hire overseas Korean graduates of two-year colleges in the United States and Canada, but unfortunately I can’t because of relevant laws.” In particular, hagwon laws seem to contradict the Overseas Korean Law of 1999, which says the government must give necessary assistance so that overseas Koreans do not receive unfair restrictions or treatment in Korea.
An official from the Busan Office of Education, however, noted that hagwon laws contains nothing about overseas Koreans, and that authorities were considering measures to fix any blind spots in the law, such as offering an authoritative interpretation on the issue.
Well, anyway, it looks like Mr. Yang’s ship has come in, with the government considering lowering E-2 visa requirements to two-year degree holders.
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
He certainly has a point if he has an F-2 or F-5. These visas would entitle him to pursue any occupation he is qualified to do. If 80 credits is all that is needed for Korean citizens,then the same should apply to him. I still don’t understand why he doesn’t want to tutor high school kids instead, though.
Is the two year requirement only for gaining the E-2, or for being hired at an institute? If he’s married to a Korean woman, he could work on a spousal visa instead. Actually, if he’s smart, he’ll work privately on the spousal visa, rather than in a hagwon.
And, this problem could be solved most fairly, for all those with hagwon career dreams, by requiring the same standards for teachers of all backgrounds, regardless of nationality. But then, I suppose, Korean teachers would expect the same working conditions, and salary as the foreigners, which could be controversial.
Well, if Mr.Yang feels so prejudiced against, I suppose he could give up his American citizenship and take on Korean citizenship. Oh wait, then he’d probably have to do 2 years of military service… Can’t have your cake and eat it too buddy.
I’m guessing the hagwon in question is one those cram schools for rich kids that overcharges its students and overpays its teachers, all Koreans who claim to have graduated from ‘brand name’ American universities.
(We once had a student who claimed he had a degree from an Ivy League school. Our Korean colleagues were all excited about it. I was hinted that we should exempt the guy from taking our conversation classes. We said, “Fine, we’ll give him an A+ if he comes in for an interview.” The student never came to our office. We never met the guy in all the time he was at our school. He made sure he registered for classes given by Korean professors only.)
2 year degree = taking some courses towards a 4 year degree but not graduating?
Wah?
What an idiot.
140 credits and no degree?
Why do kyopos bother with the hagwons? There are better opportunities in the Korean entertainment industry.
#7,
It’s possible. He could have changed majors, had a double major, or simply transfered to UCLA in his last semester from a lesser-known school like so many people do.
What’s this about lowering the requirement for an E2 visa to only a two year degree? (Perhaps certificate or diploma is a more appropriate word?) People already complain about unqualified foreigners teaching their kids – I can only see this adding fuel to the fire not to mention driving down salaries. You (or at least many Koreans) wouldn’t pay the same rate to a diploma holder.
BTW all through the article it mentions 4 year degrees. British, and New Zealand (and Aussie?) have three year undergraduate programmer usually (the exceptions I can think of being law and engineering). It’s something that I have always wondered about when it comes to getting a visa. Any comments?
I’m a Brit and have never had a problem getting an E2 in the past. I have a BA(hons) 3year. Some Britons do indeed do a four year degree, but it is really more a case of upgrading a 2 year diploma with an extra two years study.
I think a degree is a minimum qualification you should have to be allowed to teach. It’s not rocket science teaching English, but a degree is at least a sign that you take education a little seriously.
I think the wingeing gyopo should get himself back into school
and upgrade his qualifications.
It has nothing to do with his qualifications and has everything to do with the shape of his tongue.
So I’m told.
“I think a degree is a minimum qualification you should have to be allowed to teach.”
If Bill Gates ever taught a business or computer class, I would count myself lucky to sit in on it. I worked for the late Dave Thomas )of Wendy’s fame) and his GED was worth more than most people’s advanced degrees will ever be. A four year degreee does not a teacher make, and common sense sometimes makes more sense, and cents, than book smarts.
A-hah! So the stereotype of English teachers being burger flippers back home is true.
Pawi, meet your new bestest buddy, John. Vindication is yours.
“I think a degree is a minimum qualification you should have to be allowed to teach.”
An advanced degree should be required for teaching at the university level, but honestly, do you really think it’s necessary for the average hagwon English conversation course? Foreigners are primarily brought over for teaching conversation classes, which requires Isaac Durst-like entertainment skills more than analytical thinking. Writing composition, sure, you need an education to teach that – but conversation? Pretty monotonous stuff.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I got a contract to mow and landscape the grounds of three Wendy’s restaurants. I ate plenty of the burgers, but I never flipped a single patty.
And here I was thinking you were working next to Dave planning expansion strategies, developing marketing plans, and bagging fries.
Mowing lawns?! Indeed my bubble has been burst. Good show, sir!
“Conversation as pretty monotonus stuff.”
See, there’s your problem right there. The fact that conversation forms a large part of what you could term “communication” seems to be lost on many people, the least of which being Koreans. I’ve always found it the most interesting and rewarding part of any course I’ve taught.
It’s about interacting with your students, going beyond meaning and input and output and getting into a bit of fluency and trying to get students to stop subscribing to the “groupthink” they’ve been brainwashed with all there lives and think outside the square for that 40 minutes they’re in your classroom.
Pushing shit up a hill…? A battle of epic proportions…? Maybe. What you are being paid to do as a teacher…? Hell yes!
Monotonus…? No sir!
should be *their* lives. Stoooopid iPod keyboard.
Effective teaching requires much more than common sense. This is especially true of younger learners who have not yet developed their own learning strategies and are more dependent on interaction with a teacher. Most of the teaching strategies I use in the classroom aren’t common sense. They were acquired through professional development. A colleague with 30 years of experience says, “There is always something new to learn, something I can do better as a teacher.” Teaching is an art and a science.
Well Stafford, if you’re an English teacher, you must be teaching conversation rather than composition, because it’s ‘monotonous’, not ‘monotonus.’ Irving Janis’ ‘Group Think’ is often a topic of discussion in undergrad Political Science IR courses – but it’s not necessary for Koreans looking to practice their English skills to find the local library or park. The whole point of a conversation course is for students to converse – not for the teacher to lecture on about cultural difference or whatever else. The teacher needs to have the basic ability to stimulate student interest in coversation – primarily social skills, rather than high intelligence or elite academic training.
Geez, what do you expect from a UCLA guy…
Sadly, “common sense” is not at play in both the United States’ and South Korea’s educational systems. Children of different learning levels should not be grouped together just because they are the same age as it currently stands. This system hinders all that are in it: the brightest, the average, and those who are much, much slower. The powers that be are doing a great disservice to these kids who fall by the wayside while the system pushes them through without thinking about “their” futures or the impact it will have on a country’s “educated” workforce.
Then, there are those that aren’t even pushed through.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.....003/NEWS01
These kids would be better off jettisoning the broken school-based education for a friendlier trade-based one, but the law won’t allow it. Just how many heads are buried in the sand that allow this nonsense to continue without abatement? Having these children drop-out of high school with no job opportunities other than those involving crime is a crime in, and of, itself.
COMMON SENSE would infer that the system is broken and needs to be fixed. Some of my students are smart enough to realize that adults don’t seem to know what they are doing in running this broken planet of ours. These kids just don’t have the power (i.e., money) to do anything about it.
In South Korea, the difficulties young students have in dealing with personal problems, or struggling in school, seem to be even more overwhelming as indicated by the high number of suicides which we aren’t supposed to notice or comment on. I see kids struggling and in dire need of help, but I can’t help them because it might cause someone to lose face when faced with the fact that their child needs some help and isn’t a absolutely perfect specimen of the race, after all. What a Crock!!!
There are no mulligans, or take backs, in a child’s life. I just wonder when we’ll get some leadership with large enough balls to say, “enough is enough.”
Somebody already figured that one out. It’s called differentiated instruction. About 2/3 of elementary instruction is devoted to literacy and numeracy. Both subjects are taught through whole group instruction and through small group instruction which focuses on specific needs.
Are you suggesting retention (failing or holding a child back)? This happens but is discouraged because research clearly shows students held back fall behind again in later grades and are more likely to drop out.
http://education.stateuniversi.....otion.html
The law does allow school districts to operate vocational programs and vocational high schools.
Forgive me poor spelling – I was in bed at about 2 this morning tapping out comments on my iPod! And guilty as charged – I am both an English teacher and a Political science graduate.
Likewise I agree that a “conversation course” needs a teacher who will stimulate their students. It’s not a basic skill – it’s one that usually only comes with (a fair bit of) time teaching, and tends to be lacking in most language classrooms (not to mention public schools) in Korea.
I usually play a few porn clips at the start of my English conversation classes and that always gets chins a waggin’ pretty good.
As far as Korean-Americans in Korea go, I believe they should have all the benefits of being American when it is convenient for them, and all the benefits of being ethnically Korean when it is convenient for them.
After all, they’ve earned it!
“I usually play a few porn clips at the start of my English conversation classes and that always gets chins a waggin’ pretty good.”
My old gen. chem professor had a similar approach, but he stuck to Youtube…
But I like your approach better.
Bum, if you like that approach, you should see what goes on during class presentations!
Baeksu likes the hands-on teaching style.
#24,
“Are you suggesting retention (failing or holding a child back)?” No, I am suggesting grouping students according to their levels. A and B students should not be hindered by teachers spending obscene amounts of time ignoring them while focusing most of their attention on those failing and being left behind to make sure they keep their jobs.
Separation into classes, and lengths of school years, based on one’s educational level could do wonders. Just how far could those at the forefront go if pushed by a group of equals? The same can be inferred if those in the slower classes were all on the same footing, even if it means year-round schooling. They might actually develop some confidence without always judging themselves against the best. This could also streamline much of the difficulties that teachers face when dealing with such a wide range of student abilities within one classroom—playing catch-up with some while trying to keep those at the other end of the spectrum interested and away from mischief themselves.
I grew up and taught in rural America. We barely had the money for out-dated computers, much less for starting a vocational school to supplement the Future Homemakers of America and Future Farmers of America classes in our high schools. Yes, in my district, we still teach as if it were the 1950’s. You know with the heavy emphasis on cursive penmanship. So, rather than dropping this relic of a time long ago in favor of preparing kids for the future, and teaching the skill sets required to survive in it, those in charge act like the status quo is good enough for the future of our children and their children.
You talk as if your school is head and shoulders above the rest in methodology and graduation rates. If it is, please, please, advise Congress on how to raise the standards of all the schools in the nation to the same level. Most children have no say so in where they are schooled, but changing this antiquated system is one way of making it better for all. I know Bill Gates would rather his employees be from the United States instead of having to search for them overseas and then begging Congress to allocate more and more visas to bring these highly skilled workers over every year.
If this Yang kid is Korean American, married to a Korean, and speaks both Korean and English, he is already more qualified to teach English at a Korean hagwon than 99% of all the expat teachers and local Korean teachers there.
If he is an upperclassman at UCLA, he is more qualified to teach at a hagwon than 100% of all the expat teachers and local Korean teachers, and 90% more qualified than all the Korean American teachers.
For people to laugh at him or bitch about him is an exercise in sour grapes, in my opinion.
Just an observation.
#31: Er, do you really mean to say that he is more qualified than the thousands of expats here who have ESL teaching certificates, advanced degrees and years of teaching experience?
I’m no math expert, but surely that makes up more than 1% and 0% respectively.
#32
Maybe he’s been in Korea too long, certainly seems to follow a fairly typical mindset here!! To hell, with ability, aptitude, training, experience, qualifications in the relevant field, he went to SNU / UCLA therefore he’s clearly better than anyone who did not!!
Indeed even in this case an apparant UCLA drop out is superior to anyone else, not from UCLA!!!
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