Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jajdude]

Just read about that today in the newspaper. There are plans to start developing an "English Village" in Kyonggi province (a town called Paju I think) next year, and have it operating in late 2006. Sounds interesting. Any thoughts on the matter? The idea is that it will be an English immersion area for Koreans, and English will be used to conduct some business or whatever. Perhaps it could be good for some teachers too.

[posco's trumpet]

[Harpeau]

I heard back in September that they were going to open an English village in Yongin. Anybody hear of this?

Cheers!
Harpeau

[Pyongshin Sangja]

An English village? Will Noddy and Gollywog be there?

[Chopster]

[weatherman]

Personally I see this 'English Vilage' as a complete admittance of the failure of the governments current English educational policies. Nobody is really learning English in the system they have now, so they have to do something drastic to try to make results. They cant change the larger system, so they create a bubble of English to compensate. And this also keeps the the rest of the country xenophobicly true, for English is used in the special zone, but not out here.

The same can be said about Korea setting up SEZs (speical economic zones) Korea can't attract foreign capital to the cities of Korea because of past policies to do so didn't address the requirements of the investors. It would be too drastic and radical to open up the whole of the country, so they make special zones that are safe, and the rest of the country can continue as usual in the famous Korean way, while somehow milking these zones for money.

[rapier]

Will it act as a human shield against north korea? A tripwire defence waeguk ghetto. Kill all the foreign invaders with one strategically-placed stone.

[wormholes101]

I heard about it while working at an English Summer camp in Kyeongi-Do. It seems the people responsible for English education in the Kyeongi Province are investing a lot of money these days. The head of something or other was there talking about it. Apparently they put 200 million won just into that camp alone.

[waggo]

I heard the village will be well defended because Captain Manwaring and his men will be in residence.

"Those fuzzy wuzzie rice eaters dont like it up em' they dont like it up em'!"


"Who do you think you are kidding Mr Kim Jung Il.......?'


DONT PANIC!

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

I'm running a teacher training course for high-school teachers as part of my work at the U of S. I have had the chance to look at the text book and English exam used for the big uni entrance examinations. The book contains several errors and lots of very non-colloquial usage, and very scanty grammatical explanations. The exam is entirely based on listening comprehension with only multiple choice answers. No speaking, no reading, no writing. No wonder!