Yonhap News reports that half the foreign English teachers in Seoul elementary, middle and high schools are unqualified.
According data submitted by the Seoul Office of Education to Seoul councilman Nam Jae-gyeong (Grand National Party), only 166 of the 810 foreign English teachers (20.5%) in city schools were certified teachers.
Only 303, or 37.4%, had TESOL certifications, while 44 (5.4%) had both teaching and TESOL certifications.
Only 136 (16.8%) had majors related to English education, and only 102 (12.6%) were education majors.
Meanwhile, 385 teachers — 48% — had neither teacher certifications or TESOL certifications.
Seoul Office of Education gives preference to foreign applicants with teaching credentials, those with over 100 hours of TESOL/TEFL experience, and those with education majors.
Nevertheless, the city can hire anyone with a degree and a year’s experience teaching English at a public institution.
About this, Councilman Nam said that according to current hiring standards, just about anyone with a degree can become an English teacher, and pointed out the need to strengthen hiring standards to bring outstanding talent into the personnel pool.
MARMOT’S NOTE: This strikes me as a “you get what you pay for” issue. If this is what Seoul is offering, they might have a tough time getting the kind of people they want.
{ 61 comments… read them below or add one }
The teachers are qualified if they have a bachelor’s degree, and speak English as a first language. Those are the government’s own criteria. What a crock of sh*t for them to turn around and claim that the teachers are not qualified, even though they meet the governments own standards.
(Still fuming)…and how many of the Korean English teachers are qualified to teach English, and can’t speak English I wonder?
(last rant)…They can’t meet their quota’s as it is… how in God’s name do they expect certified teachers to come here in droves to make less money, have no chance of advancement, and give up pensionable years in their own countries to be treated like second class citizens ?
Thank goodness we have people “Seoul Office of Education to Seoul councilman Nam Jae-gyeong” looking after us.
After all we need more qualified teaches like Christopher Paul Neil (Mr. Swirl) looking after the kids.
Anyways good on for you Mr. Nam your ability to judge people, is I am sure is ‘sparkling’.
More rules – more government – the solution to all problems.
I agree…they get what they pay for. At the current exchange rate, a new teacher is probably only making about $16,000 US dollars a year plus a tiny apartment. Who the heck would want to move to South Korea to do that? Even though the American economy is bad, it isn’t that bad, and these schools just aren’t offering anything sweet to any “real” teachers. You want teaching degrees? Put your money where your mouth is and maybe they will listen.
hell, with the won at 1500, the need to double their offer…
Don’t have much to add here that hasn’t been said by hitest and the Marmot.
. . . except to question Mr. Nam’s solution. Wouldn’t having stricter hiring policies simply decrease the number of teachers you can hire? Does the SOE believe they will suddenly have an influx of highly qualified teachers just because they’ve toughened up their hiring?
You have to love that a master’s degree is worth an entire $80 a month extra. When they are willing to pay for quality they will get it.
And the fact that government education offices are getting serious about enforcing only 2 weeks vacation per year- no more!
2 weeks? F*ck that!
Something tells me this is just a ‘show’ proposal to placate the teachers’ unions and certain activist groups who are pissed that any waygook can get a job teaching.
In the US, there is a huge teacher shortage as most sane people do not want to enter the profession for low pay and even less respect. Passing the teacher certification exam is rather easy- if you’ve been through education courses, you don’t really need to study for it. I passed without a second of preparation.
Conversely, passing the teacher’s certification exam in Korea is extremely difficult. It’s very competitive as there are so many who want the lifetime security and good vacation time of a teaching position. Most people who take the test don’t pass it. Because if this, I’m sure that the teachers who do pass it feel that they are in some sort of elite group just like doctors and prosecutors.
For a waygook without teaching credentials to enter their teaching profession must feel like a real insult to them.
I am not saying they are right to feel this way. It’s just the way it is.
Now, we all know that having teaching credentials does not automatically make one a good teacher.
I came here just out of teacher’s college and I sucked at teaching. After getting a lot of experience, I was able to learn how to be a good teacher.
There are teachers with no credentials, but the right experience and attitude, who are great at their job. There are credentialed teachers, some with Masters degrees or even Ph.D’s who really such at teaching.
I have seen both and I am sure all of you have, too.
Most Koreans believe that if you have the credentials, then you must be worthy. We know that is not always true.
A for more accurate judge of “qualifications” would be teaching experience and reagular review of teachers in action.
I don’t think we’ll see that attitude change, though.
They keep talking about changing the rules where we know it will be much harder to attract the number of teachers they need.
I think it’s just lip service to placate some upset people!
Raging stupidity never ceases to amaze me. I have spent the greater part of the last 9 years amazed….
I see W2.7 million is the max you can make in this program if you have the shit-hot credentials. Good luck finding qualified talent, asshat, at two weeks’ vacation and $1800 a month.
When I started in ’92, we did four 10-week terms per year. To me, the fairness of the deal was that one didn’t make all that much money, but there was a load of vacation time. No more, I guess.
SMOE’s foreign teachers, or Native Speaking English Teachers (NSETs) are routinely described as “assistant teachers.” SMOE knows they aren’t certified to teach in Korea and are supposed to teach with a co-teacher (Korean English teacher) in the same room.
Why is Mr. Nam bitching? Maybe because a lot of co-teachers don’t do shit and often skip classes. Not the fault of the NSETs.
Also, for clarification, SMOE offers 21 business days of vacation in the contract. More can be gained from teaching at sleep-away camps and more can be gained by renewing after 1 year.
Contractual vacation days and actual vacation days are two separate things anyway, and that largely comes down to the individual school. In general it exceeds 21 days by quite a margin.
I’m pretty much one of those people who Mr Nam describes, having little beyond the practical experience I’ve accrued here. However, I agree with the man. There isn’t actually anything in what he’s saying that isn’t true, which is why I find the reactions of some on here pretty amusing.
I think higher hiring standards wouldn’t go astray in increasing the quality over the quantity. It would suck for me, personally, if they did that, but I’d be thinking about doing it if I was them. A lot of NSET’s are pretty lazy and useless for the most part, and I include myself, at least the first year I was here, along with that. Korean teachers can get justifiably pissed off about that, and I don’t blame them.
Anger directed at foreign teachers by Korean teachers. Anger directed at Korean officials by foreign teachers.
Still on the anger thing. It strikes me that Korea is one giant cesspool of people banging their foreheads into each other. Hey.. maybe THAT is the definition of Han.
I’m surprised that as many as 52% have either a teaching certificate from a western country or TESOL certificate given the minimun requirements and salary.
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/11/28/a-chicken-in-every-pot-2/#comment-120324
#14 you are more right than you know!
It seems Koreans are born pissed off and all the sh*t they have to put up with from everyone else throwing all their sh*t around on everyone just makes them more angry.
That’s “han”!
#18 You’re right in a way. Koreans aren’t born angry but this is not an easy society to live in as a local. I’d be pissed off too if I lived the lives that my Korean friends do.
“I’m surprised that as many as 52% have either a teaching certificate from a western country or TESOL certificate given the minimun requirements and salary.”
If you could print a TESOL certificate at home that got you a pay raise, wouldn’t you?
If the requirements state that teachers must “[b]e a citizen from a country where the only official language is English” (as per Marmot’s link) doesn’t that rule out all Irish, Welsh, Scots, Canadians, South Africans and Kiwis?
English is not technically an official language in the US or Australia either, so I’m sure you could get their statement – that half of foreign English teachers are unqualified – to come out right if you just make a bit of effort.
They clearly need to get more Jamaicans in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_official_languages_by_state
“enforcing only 2 weeks vacation per year”
Actually, I knew a few SMOE NSET’s. They were browbeaten and abused if they took any sick days at all and were never told in advance when their vacations would be, if they got them at all. Second-class citizens or just another example of foreigners being treated the way Koreans treat each other? I think it’s the latter.
““[b]e a citizen from a country where the only official language is English””
Actually, that rules out everyone on that list. But that would require a) specific knowledge of other countries and b) meaningful communication in English. When Korea has those, put some roses on my grave.
I agree with hitest. Those who have four-year degrees are qualified under the current system. That’s the requirement, and there are no others with respect to education.
You can’t hire people and then afterwards claim they aren’t qualified. But that’s the point isn’t it? The people who write articles about unqualified teachers are not the same people who are doing the hiring.
So who is to blame? Certainly not the chump who comes here to make a buck. People take jobs when they are offered. If they are unqualified, it is the hiring party who is at fault.
Directors are given too much leeway with hiring, but the gov’t won’t or can’t do anything about it because the industry will go into the crapper.
These kinds of articles just make me tired. The present situation is not difficult to understand, but it always get misrepresented. English teachers are so bad. BADDDDDDDDD. bad. bad. bad. Not qualified.
Councilman Nam, the simple solution to this deluge of “unqualified” teachers is to simply STOP HIRING THEM. Duh. They can’t get jobs in your public schools if you don’t give them one.
The addage you get what you pay for is no more true than in Korean EFL. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Duh. An extra $80 a month for a Masters? Yeah, that’s an incentive to spend thousands of dollars and two years of your life.
Give NETs the chance to upgrade their qualifications (with incentives to do so like longer vacations or monetary bonuses as Korean teachers get), and many will do it. a-less-obvious-Duh. If I’m going to have to work my ass off all summer and winter long regardless of my education, why should I break my back trying to upgrade?
“You can’t hire people and then afterwards claim they aren’t qualified.”
You can if you live in a country that can sell a bank that nobody wants and then accuse the buyer of illegalities when he turns the bank around and sells it. Or a country where you can attack a foreigner on the street and then get them arrested just for being there. Or a country where you can destroy a city, murder thousands of people and spend a month in a temple to show how sorry you are. Know anywhere like that?
MrMao wrote: “If you could print a TESOL certificate at home that got you a pay raise, wouldn’t you?”
Especially if it got me the same raise as an MA, yes. In that respect I guess it’s quite surprising the other 48% don’t have one.
MrMao,
“Actually, that rules out everyone on that list. But that would require a) specific knowledge of other countries and b) meaningful communication in English. When Korea has those, put some roses on my grave.”
Perhaps the Korea Immigration/Education Ministries have their own list of countries where English is the only official language? In which case they might be ripe for a few e-mails from the Voluntary Agency Network of French/Maori/Welsh/Gaelic/Afrikaans…Speakers.
Anti-weigook rally in the news last week, Unqualified English teacher/immoral English teacher dead horse whipping this week.
Is next week going to be anti-US Army, or pro-Korea vs another Asian country, (WE’RE better than them, or my favorite, We were better than them hundreds of years ago, and still are)? I can’t quite seem to remember which comes next.
Really should make a news cycle wheel…..
You guys…
Kachru describes World English as being made up of three concentric circles, the ‘inner circle’, made up countries that have been traditionally English speaking, and its ‘periphery’ (the outer and expanding circles). Arguing whether a country has English as an official language or not is missing the fact that people at Immigration probably know more about public administration than linguistics.
Concerning the qualifications of the teachers…What do they suggest to improve the situation? I certainly hope they don’t want to further complicate the visa application process, without offering a competitive salary to boot.
What have they done to train the teachers? What was done to give them a good understanding of second language acquisition theory? How much money has the Korean government invested in classroom research (a must, if you ask me)? Probably a lot less than they would want to admit.
Hey Councilman(D*ck Head) Nam, Jae-gyeong! How/why was your father hired? How/why were you hired? How/why are many Koreans hired in S. Korea? Answer…Nepotism. Get that crap out of your mouth before you talk.
A past Education Minister was hired with ZERO experience in the Education field, so why would you care if teachers don’t have certificates?
I wonder if this DORK from Yonhap has any writing experience? I’d bet the DORK was hired simply because of the picture attached to the resume and school attended.
“Korea is one giant cesspool of people banging their foreheads into each other.”
America is one giant Heaven with its angelic citizens making love with each other everyday.
English education in this country is a mess, they need to look a little closer to home to look for the culprits of why this is so though.
Many Korean English teachers simply can’t speak English, and teach 99% of the class in Korean. The homework they set is usually mindless copying of vocabulary that the kids have no idea of the meaning of. It’s all about getting the kids to pass, the completely, pointless exams.
It’s just another xenophobic,sparkling incidence of idiocy.
Teachers of math, science, special education, and foreign languages are in short supply. Elementary and secondary social studies and English vacancies typically attract hundreds of applicants.
Teachers of math, science, special education, and foreign languages are in short supply. Elementary and secondary social studies and English vacancies typically attract hundreds of applicants.
The Marmot’s original point about crappy pay and short vacations is the reason why the SMOE, EPIK, and GEPIK are unable to fill most foreign assistant English teaching positions with certified teachers. The maximum salary is less than the minimum one can make teaching in the poorest district in the US and almost certainly less than what a Korean teacher makes. In the US, we hire VIFs (Visiting International Faculty) to fill positions in shortage subjects like math or at tough urban or isolaed rural schools where American teachers don’t want to work. Our VIFs are paid according to the district salary scale. Not surprisingly, the VIF program attracts highly qualified applicants.
You get what you pay for indeed.
#22, Mr. Mao,
To be fair, I worked for SMOE. I had a good school. I found out the dates of my winter vacation at least 2 months in advance because I asked and my co-teachers were good. But many of my friends had a hard time nailing down their vacation dates. Some were approved, bought tickets and were told later the dates had changed. Some paid the fees to change the ticket dates. The smart ones told the school, “Your mistake, not mine” and went on the original dates.
Sick days are in the contract, so all an NSET has to do is say “I am following the contract, just like you do.” Some schools do bitch and moan, but with unless you are gone 5 days in a row, they can’t demand proof of sickness. One co-teacher told me, “Korean teachers have sick days, but they don’t really take them.” I replied, “I’m not Korean, I’m on a different contract and if either of us stop following the contract the we have some major problems.” It worked and I never got flak for taking a sick day again.
#33,
It depends on how you define the roles played by English in Korean society. If you believe the government’s position that English is a means to ‘internationalize’ Korea, that it enables Koreans to communicate with foreigners, then, yes, it probably is a mess. But, one could also argue that it is a success if it plays the role of preventing certain classes of people from entering the best schools and getting the best jobs through the use of standardized tests (many of which have an English language section).
Conspiracy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“The maximum salary is less than the minimum one can make teaching in the poorest district in the US and almost certainly less than what a Korean teacher makes.”
How much does an average public school teacher make per month in the US?
I\m gonna say 2700 dollars. Anyone?
Oops.
/ EAN / Resource Center / US Teacher Salaries
US Teacher Salaries
Average teacher salaries. California had the nation’s highest average salary in 2002-03, at $55,693. States joining California in the top tier were Michigan, at $54,020; Connecticut, at $53,962; New Jersey, at $53,872; and the District of Columbia, at $53,194.
South Dakota had the lowest average salary in 2002-03, at $32,414. The other states in the bottom tier were Montana, at $35,754; Mississippi, at $35,135; North Dakota, at $33,869; and Oklahoma, at $33,277. Also in the lowest tier were the Virgin Islands, at $34,764; Guam at $34,738; and Puerto Rico, at $22,164.
Average beginning teacher salaries. Alaska had the highest average beginning salary in 2002-03, at $37,401. States joining Alaska in the top tier were New Jersey, at $35,673; District of Columbia, at $35,260; New York, at $35,259; and California, at $34,805.
Montana had the lowest average beginning salary in 2002-03, at $23,052. The other states in the bottom tier were Maine, at $24,631; South Dakota, at $24,311; North Dakota, at $23,591; and Arizona, at $23,548.
#29 continual news cycle wheel indeed!
I really think these “unqualified teacher” stories along with the periodic news stories from Hongdae of one or two drunk waygooks representing a wave of foreign indecency destroying Korean purity are just a distraction tactic.
They are continuing to blame us for the sorry state of English education in Korea- why their kids are still not understanding nor speaking English well.
They- the offices of education, the ministers of education, the school heads, the hagwon bosses- do not want attention brought to the fact that it is them who are fouling it up with lack of proper planning, disorganization, poor decision making, laziness, incompetence, and lacking resources. They are failing at their jobs of making English learning programs work properly, but they don’t want people to know that.
It’s much better for them to have the public distracted by waygook teachers not having qualifications and displaying “immoral behavior”!
If they did get all certified teachers and the kids are still failing, then they may be looked at.
It seems like they need this “problem” to continue!
My earlier comment aside…it likely won’t help us much to try to understand, well,…anything. The Korean media is, for lack of a better word, retarded.
I just watched a commercial for the SM5–the one where the very young boy goes dashing into his mother’s arms at the beach, burying his face in her comparatively ample breasts. It then quickly cuts to a shot of the SM5′s airbag deploying. The intended implication being, of course, that the SM5′s airbag, or the SM5 more generally, is the adult equivalent of mom’s bigguns.
A public that could respond favorably to that, or even take it in stride, is a public I don’t understand, and never will.
The next commercial involved that huge Korean weightlifter chick getting a fill-up at s-oil. One guy filled her tank whilst acting like he’d overdosed on prozac, while the other polished her dumb bells. Good stuff.
# 3 Pohang
Where were her dumbells and what’s it suppose to mean, she’s dumb?
A womens group used to complain about such sexist commercials back when but I haven’t seen an article explaining/discussing all the sexist commercials in a long time. Does anyone have a list with explanations of all the sexist commercials? It would be a good communicative lesson.
Oops that’s # 43 not # 3
To be fair, it seems like what ETIS is offering for inexperienced and less qualified teachers is reasonably competitive, if we grant some leeway for 1.) housing, 2.) the weak won and 3.) that the ETIS teachers likely have far less paperwork than US public school teachers.
However, ETIS falls way off after that. For an experienced, well-credentialed teacher, there’s no comparison. Such a teacher has no financial incentive to come to Korea.
I recently got my school to throw me an extra 100,000 won per month because I completed my master’s (in education) over the summer. This raise was something I had to fight for, not something granted automatically. Considering that so many US schools will subsidize graduate study, in many cases paying for it 100%, the Korean option does not compare for serious teachers.
It does, however, look decent for backpackers who ran out of money.
Yeah, Korean women have taken the lead over Korean men in English language proficency and they will find positions previously held by unqualified foreigners rather than compete for positions in Korean corporations.
Korea wants to grasp English, understand the best way to teach it, tell you to fuck off and then pay a Korean woman less money to teach it.
“Conspiracy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Not at all. It’s a matter of socio-linguistics.
Read up on the history of English education since the Korean War, particularly in the 60′s when Koreans who had studied abroad (namely in the US) returned to get high positions in government, corporations, and academia. In the early 70′s, corporations began demanding that applicants and employees take standardized English. Getting high scores on these tests open many doors, which is why many Koreans study English (at a great financial cost). It’s a fact that those who are unable to afford the time and money to study English are not likely to get accepted at certain universities or programs, and ultimately, certain jobs.
#42,
You’re touching something that a Korean ESL researcher (can’t remember her name, unfortunately) mentioned, which is that those who are capable of improving the system (ultimately, teachers) aren’t given a voice and many Korean experts are unwilling to voice their opinions on the matter, content with being in the ivory towers of academia and fearful of threatening their positions.
With the Korean won taking a nosedive, its gonna start looking like Dec 1997 IMF all over again….foreigners bailing out for greener pastures.
I stayed through that crisis and I prospered in the recovering years but I don’t think I’d want to do it again. I think a lot of people saw this coming and got while the gettin was good; myself included.
I moved to Abu Dhabi in September and when I accepted the job here the salary was double my university salary…now, thanks to the depreciation of the won it’s almost triple my uni salary in the land of Han(plus the insane bennies making it worth somewhere around 70-100,000US per year). The middle east is not for everyone but the UAE is the most progressive of the GCC states and Abu Dhabi and Dubai (Al Ain and Sharjah too) are definitely livable places. Higher education is well-rewarded here. I have to say I miss Korea daily but I’m glad I got out before this all went down.
#51 Can you elaborate on the atmosphere in the UAE? Are you in the HCT?
“Where were her dumbells and what’s it suppose to mean, she’s dumb?”
No, it isn’t supposed to mean that.
But it sure does confirm that you are.
“socio-linguistics”
Yup. It’s a hard row to hoe.
My wife informed me tonight that her brother (a hagwon director) told her that he has been reading some news articles that suggested that the degree requirement will be dropped next year, and from then on just being a native speaker will suffice for work here.
I’m gonna chat with him about it tomorrow and check his sources. It there is anything to it, well,…that will definitely put the icing on this shit cake.
If anything resembling that actually happens, we’ll all have no choice but to conclude that up is indeed down, bananas eat people, and our educations (which we may have vainly supposed we were putting to at least SOME kind of trivial use) are worth nothing. And that’s when I pack my bags. But I’ll leave this prospective rant until I know more. It may be nonsense.
Has anyone else run across anything like this?
Umm…on a brighter note, if that did come to pass, what would anti-English spectrum, and all the rest of the “low-quality” brooders do I wonder?
“the degree requirement will be dropped next year, ”
In a way, it already has been dropped for the TaLK program. You only need 2 years of college to do that one, although the pay does suck and I hear they will send you to the boondocks. Then again, isn’t all of Korea “the boondocks”?
#54,
I’d say it’s just wishful thinking on the part of some hagwon owners.
Koreans should clean up their own act before carrying on about us . I have taught in 6 countries, and , Koreans are by far , the most unqualified , unskilled “teachers” I have ever seen . They have no idea about appropriate teaching strategies . It is criminal the damage they do to the future of most Korean students .
Criminal? How juicy. Tell us more. About Korean teachers, not the others.
(today I’m editing an 87-page bid to host an international conference slated for 2012. very dull….)
It is criminal to pay a westerner to write your thesis . It is criminal to fake degrees on a trip to Thailand .It is criminal to claim your degree is from the U.S.A when you go to a community college in Saipan .
It is criminal to beat students leaving huge bruises on their bodies . It is criminal to receive expensive payments in return for higher grades .
etc etc etc etc etc
It is criminal to pay a westerner to write your thesis . It is criminal to fake degrees on a trip to Thailand .It is criminal to claim your degree is from the U.S.A when you go to a community college in Saipan .
It is criminal to beat students leaving huge bruises on their bodies . It is criminal to receive expensive payments in return for higher grades .
etc etc etc etc etc
this was legal until maybe recently. Probably someone in Noh Moohyun or Kim Daejung’s time made it illegal.
this kept the students afraid of the teacher and made them behave better. I’m not glorifying it, I was the recipient many times.
This is what inner city US highschool students need. They are not smart enough nor motivated enough to be reasoned with. But, they carry knives and guns, and there is a doctrine of never touching the student.
the strongest verbal abuse I ever took, and was apparently a favorite of many teachers, “Did you mother and father teach you to do this?”–”nee aemi, aebi ga, guh rut kae harago garuh chi dun?” Even if you hated your father/mother, this was guarantteed to fire up some rage. Fuel it up with some stick hits to the head. Refer to Chingoo, the movie, for a graphic.
Parents regularly sent the teacher envelopes of money on a regular basis. Even in elementary school. This didn’t earn higher grades, as in you’ll jump from rank 50 to rank number 1. It merely meant the teacher wouldn’t pick on you or neglect you. Still, poor Koreans who didn’t do this can still do the following, versus US students in inner cities whose teachers don’t take these extra-funds for the teacher. I think this may have been illegal on the books, but in reality universally practiced. The amount wasn’t big. I think it was subpar to hagwon money. I’m glad this is illegal and enforced?
Koreans can universally
1/ read
2/ write
3/ do arithmetic.
Black and Latino inner city US students don’t do this and have been graduating high school.
US teachers can be enormously fat, versus Korean teachers.
Korean teachers can and do take care of a class size of 60.
US teachers claim there is no way to teach such a class…sounds like bullshit union-pseudo science to me. University profs deal with student sizes of 150 and lecture fine.
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