Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

( http://english-village.gg.go.kr/eng/ )

Yesterday a friend of mine and a Korean teacher from his school were up at the DMZ near Paju, and while in the area we decided to check out the new 'English Village' that has just opened there. Were we ever blown away. English theme park, English circus, white elephant, farce, and anomaly would all be suitable descriptions. I cannot fathom how much money has been poured into this place. Their athletic facilities are simply amazing - one would only find such equipment at the poshist gyms in the country. They have both indoor and outdoor swimming pools. I also couldn't believe how much staff was there working on a government holiday.

However, I also cannot for the life of me imagine what the pathetically low ratio of won spent to English learned will be. The place is nothing but entertainment attempted largely in English. Employees are dressed up in all manner of silly costume, and many of the service staff are not native speakers, but white people with an adequate level of English to take orders, give directions, etc. I never saw anthing resembling a classroom, and after wandering all over the place the only English instruction I saw was some very young, muscular guy with dyed hair in a studio room of some sort, who had a class of about 20 middle school girls crowded around him as he tried to keep order. Amid 70-decible schoolgirl babble all I heard was 'no, I don't have a phone number; no, I don't have an email address; no, I can't give you my phone number - I don't have one; no, I don't have an email, really ... ALL RIGHT!!! EVERYONE BE QUIET!!!!!'.

This place has facilities for everything you could imagine and a few you couldn't. Apparently it has 100 foreign staff and about 50 Koreans. I've heard that the foreigners are on 2.6+, and after seeing the sort of shit some of them are supposed to do and the hours they have to work (mostly when Koreans have free time, I suppose), I'd say that's still not enough. It must also be very strange living on a theme park with 100 foreigners, most of whom have never been to Korea, out in the middle of nowhere, with the nearest big attraction being the North Korean border. It must be a truly bizzare place to work. Has anyone else been to the place? At a W2,000 entry fee it's well worth the amusement.

[Roch]

Thank you for such an informative post.

Roch

[Aussiekimchi]

It is astounding how much money the koreans are pouring into these villages. And as the OP stated, there doesn't seem to be too much focus on the content of language learning. This makes me wonder if it will just be another fad like the "Macarena".
Isn't great how so many things in Korea look great but just do not perform the function they were created for.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

What really got me about this place was the architecture and landscape. I kept thinking 'what is this supposed to be - what country am I supposed to be in?'. Then my friend said 'this looks just like Whistler', and I thought yes, that's exactly what it looks like - something that lots of money built very quickly.

I heard a figure of 80 billion won going into this. That would be enough to put 800 FTs in public schools for three years.

[Aussiekimchi]

I think 80 billion could be modest. Our company has a bit to do with contracting stuff out for these villages and also the English Apartments. The budgets are amazing. And of course, the people forking out all the cash have absolutely no idea of what they need in a place of learning. It is all just aesthetics. ( spelling?) dunno

[cruisemonkey]

I didn't see much, if any, English being taught at Ansan English Village when I visited last year. Paju sounds even worse... I can picture a surreal, Korean, English-language 'Disneyland'.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[anyway]

It seems the idea for the villages (and camps) is to offer a chance for immersion without leaving Korea. Korean is losing lots of money on study abroad.

The funniest part of the arguments (from many of my students) about the whole study abroad movement is the "wild-goose father" baloney. You know, the fathers who stay at home in Korea and work those six figure jobs to pay for the kids and mom to live abroad so the rugrats can say tomato like you and I do...

Well, apparently these fathers suffer seriously because they are apart from their family (I mean oceans apart). They don't eat properly because they must dine out often (unable to cook) and their health declines. They are depressed and drink a lot (what's new?). AND to top it all off, their wives are tempted by the lusty men in the foreign countries, so the long suffering wild-goose fathers end up getting a divorce as reward for all their suffering (i.e. dining out, drinking, and whatever rich-men-whose-wives-are-out-of-town-for-a-long-time-do-after that......hmmm....bowling maybe?) If that doesn't that prove how much the man loves his family, I don't know what does.

Thank god, visionaries in the Korean government are sparing no expense to give poor kids the chance to utter something in the presence of a foreigner in the proper surroundings at least once in their life, not to mention allowing lots of rich mums and kids to stay home and spare dad some suffering.

[Aussiekimchi]

I'm not sure if any of you have worked in an American summer camp before, but those places are great for getting about 40 or 50 young people from all around the world together to work in a confined professional and social environment. Makes for some interesting nightlife and workplace politics. The actual job at hand quickly starts to play second fiddle.
Wonder what life is really like in these Villages for a newbie.

[Aussiekimchi]

Thank god, visionaries in the Korean government are sparing no expense to give poor kids the chance to utter something in the presence of a foreigner in the proper surroundings at least once in their life, not to mention allowing lots of rich mums and kids to stay home and spare dad some suffering.

mate I wholeheartedly agree with it being a great concept and I really do hope it works. I think what most of us here do want is for the Koreans to be provided with a rich learning environment. If the villages do provide some relief for the long suffering dads, great! But I assume they were developed to improve the quality of English learning not save marriages. And if what you say is true, there should be even more importance placed on quality of education in them to prevent them from becoming a flash in the pan.

[JongnoGuru]

Sounds like too many wasteful, unregulated, poorly planned & executed projects all willy-nilly, higglety-pigglety.

Sounds like a herd of white elephants on the rampage.

Sounds like dancing monkeys.

Sounds like a job for Korean Bureaucrat-Man!!

Welcome to ENGLISH ISLAND!

Three years of dredging and land reclamation works are now nearing completion, the result: A man-made island about the size of Yoido off Korea's west coast, lovely "English Island"!!

Under our plan, all existing English theme parks, English summer/winter camps, "English Towns", "English Farms" and "English Barnyards" are to be closed by the end of this year and relocated to lovely English Island, where everything will of course be in English. Schools, banks, hospitals, shops, supermarkets, restaurants, bars, transportation, Arirang Radio, Arirang TV, etc. -- all in English, 24/7.

To staff English Island, native-speaking foreign English teachers currently in the Republic and those who follow will henceforth be sent to lovely English Island, where they will be provided government-set salaries, basic accommodations, a year's supply of chalk, costumes & uniforms, regular free medical exams & drugs tests, and ankle bracelets for GSP tracking purposes. There will also be a merit-based furlough system allowing non-Korean staff to apply for special weekend passes to visit the mainland accompanied by Korean minders, or to Incheon Int'l Airport at the time of their departure.

Transportation for students to and from lovely English Island will be covered by government subsidies, and round-the-clock surveillance cameras will be installed at all locations for anytime, anywhere monitoring via the Internet or mobile phone by concerned parents and administrators.

Timed with the opening of English Island and to help ensure its success, international travel restrictions on Korean nationals will revert to their pre-1989 status. (no more korean kiddiewinkles in kanada)

[anyway]

Free love is a great concept too. Rarely works in the real world.

To understand if it works, we must consider what it is intended to do. If I ask any Korean English teachers this question, I will get a simple answer like "improve English education" or "provide a rich learning environment".
Ok, sure, sounds good, looks good.

If I ask them to explain "how" it improves English education or "why it provides a rich learning environment", the majority would be at a loss. So, how about you? Can you explain to me how it might improve or provide for the kiddies? I'm sure it is fun. So is yelling "hello" at foreigners, apparently.

I would think that 80 billion won could improve or provide a WHOLE lot more...

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[UncleAlex]

What next? A noteworthy observation, to say the least. These villages are
another example of governmental misdirected spending. Meanwhile, the
provinces are paying a lowly monthly salary of 2.2 to certified teachers and
MTESOL holders in the public school curcuit and as low as 1.9 mil to
veteran teachers who hold no certificate or post-graduate degree at all,
but have up to 10 years experience and an excellent track record. With a
higher pay-scale, the quality of teaching staff should improve. There is
also the problem of underfunding that deprive most public schools of well-
facilitated classrooms (English Zones) designed primarily for regular
conversation classes with foreign English teachers. I guess the old goats
in charge think it's more wothwhile to have groups of students from sur-
rounding schools visit an English camp once or twice a year just to ask a
muscular guy with dyed hair whether he has a cellphone number or email
address, instead of having weekly classes all year at their own schools
with an experienced and well-trained teacher. Last year my high school
could not afford to buy me a portable cassette recorder because of the
'low government budget'. I mean it, what next? An Englsh Safari Park? [/list]

[jinju]

I cant believe how much money they are pumping into this. Its insane. With that sort of money not only could they pay teachers with either qualifications and/or a lot of experience with great trackrecords a proper salary, give them proper budgets and support them in creating quality English programmes at their schools. Pay overtime for extra classes for advanced students or beginner students. Properly recruit qualified people and retain those who have proven themselves by offring them incentives in the form of better salary, vacation time, professional development opportunities. Instead of doing that they choose to build these idiotic English villages and hire a bunch of clowns to dress up in costumes so kids can go to these places a couple of times a year and get nothing out of the experience. Its all show. But lots of things in this country are all show. Its like these Koreans with their huge cameras and huge lenses. yes, its all impressive but your photos suck and you dont even know what an f-stop is. Again, the level of idiocy in Kyeonggido is astounding.