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| Public school jobs will be more organised, demand higher qualifications, and pay better. |
| Public school jobs will be better in some ways. |
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42% |
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| Nothing will change. |
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| Public school programs will be worse. |
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| Public school programs will no longer exist. |
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| Total Votes : 14 |
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bosintang
Joined: 01 Dec 2003
Location: In the pot with the rest of the mutts
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 Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 4:40 pm Post subject: Public School Programs -- Where in five years? |
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Where will public school programs be five years from now?
My guess is that most schools and boards of educations will tire of the program, but for political reasons will not cancel it. The trend will then be that they will shift to hiring foreign teachers through the cheapest, least accountable route possible by outsourcing to private companies to supply foreign teachers. |
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JD1982
Joined: 19 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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I seriously doubt that PS in Korea will ever change.
Just look at the way they take serious emphasis on the "Sports Day". They waste about a whole month on preparing and practicing for this stupdi 1/2 day event by cancelling classes day after day.
Korean teachers agree that it's stupid and waste of time and effort for the teachers and students, but they continue their mindless effort on this event. |
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mrsquirrel
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 4:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Do they do it at companies as well? Have a huge build up to sports day? |
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bosintang
Joined: 01 Dec 2003
Location: In the pot with the rest of the mutts
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| Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 4:54 pm Post subject: |
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| JD1982 wrote: |
| I seriously doubt that PS in Korea will ever change. |
I don't know about that.. this program is still very new in the sense that most foreigners starting at a school right now are likely to be only the first or second foreigner to have worked there, and are still a novelty. I think it's rare to find schools that have had more than three teachers.
Five years from now, supposedly every school will have a foreign teacher, and principals and boards of educations will have been exposed to a whole string of foreign teachers, bringing with them the good, the bad, and the ugly."Sports Day" might be useless, but it doesn't make news headlines like a foreign teacher working at an elementary school getting caught with drugs and fake degrees. It doesn't need housing, language support, and visa sponsorship.
Outsourcing would allows schools to shift off sponsoring and babysitting foreign teachers. Companies can also get away with things like making you do private English camps or hagwon work during school vacation time. |
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ilovebdt
Joined: 03 Jun 2005
Location: Nr Seoul
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| Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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Personally, I think in 5 years time only those schools which are really keen to have a native speaker will have one. In other schools the programme will just fizzle out and things will return to the way they were before.
ilovebdt |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 5:23 pm Post subject: |
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I agree with ilovebdt.
My county is moving all the native speakers to an English Town, so by this semester's end there will be no native speakers in the regular classrooms. And, although I read that the goal is to have a native speaker in each classroom, I think I remember mindmetoo posting that they want to phase that out by 2012 or something, and have Koreans teach English. That's already underway here. |
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bosintang
Joined: 01 Dec 2003
Location: In the pot with the rest of the mutts
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| Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Smee wrote: |
My county is moving all the native speakers to an English Town, so by this semester's end there will be no native speakers in the regular classrooms. |
That's interesting....I wonder how many elementary school teachers are keen to switch over to an English Town? That would definitely be a big incentive not to renew for me. If this represents a trend at all, there might be some bad karma coming around for some of the public school teachers on this board who put down English village and hagwon teachers...
I think one of the biggest problems for this program, is that there is no incentive for anyone to make this program work. If the program overall is a failure, education officials can shrug their shoulders like it was the only possible outcome. |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 5:34 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I just posted about it here: http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=85876&start=75
I'm not resigning for primarily that reason, and it's made me soften my stance toward hagwon (although I'll be staying in a public school for at least another year).
There are statistics books out there---in Korean, and I don't have any links, sorry---that show the trend toward hiring foreign teachers in Jeollanam-do. They're looking at nearly doubling their intake next year, and steadily increasing each year after that for the next few years. But, it looks like a good number of these teachers will be funnelled into English Towns. In my county, for example, they plan to hire NINE foreign teachers to staff the English Town. (I doubt it'll happen, but that's what they want to do). My county only has five foreigners in public schools now---down to two next month----so it strikes me as another ill-conceived, mismanaged plan. |
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bosintang
Joined: 01 Dec 2003
Location: In the pot with the rest of the mutts
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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*bump* Am I flogging a dead horse?
Maybe a better question is: How many teachers here plan to be teaching in a Korean public school in five years time? (In other words: who cares?) |
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Sody
Joined: 14 May 2006
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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| JD1982 wrote: |
I seriously doubt that PS in Korea will ever change.
Just look at the way they take serious emphasis on the "Sports Day". They waste about a whole month on preparing and practicing for this stupdi 1/2 day event by cancelling classes day after day.
Korean teachers agree that it's stupid and waste of time and effort for the teachers and students, but they continue their mindless effort on this event. |
Excellent point. However, if you think you have it bad, at my school there are actually two sports days! The first is half a day and is kind of like a practice for the second which includes parents. The second one is the whole day! I can't believe how truly dumb a tradition this is, but I'm glad my students get exercise and have some fun.
Sody |
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JD1982
Joined: 19 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Sody wrote: |
| JD1982 wrote: |
I seriously doubt that PS in Korea will ever change.
Just look at the way they take serious emphasis on the "Sports Day". They waste about a whole month on preparing and practicing for this stupdi 1/2 day event by cancelling classes day after day.
Korean teachers agree that it's stupid and waste of time and effort for the teachers and students, but they continue their mindless effort on this event. |
Excellent point. However, if you think you have it bad, at my school there are actually two sports days! The first is half a day and is kind of like a practice for the second which includes parents. The second one is the whole day! I can't believe how truly dumb a tradition this is, but I'm glad my students get exercise and have some fun.
Sody |
Yes, we have two sports days as well. During Spring and Fall. |
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The_Conservative
Joined: 15 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 5:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Smee wrote: |
I agree with ilovebdt.
My county is moving all the native speakers to an English Town, so by this semester's end there will be no native speakers in the regular classrooms. And, although I read that the goal is to have a native speaker in each classroom, I think I remember mindmetoo posting that they want to phase that out by 2012 or something, and have Koreans teach English. That's already underway here. |
Two things though:
(1) I believe it was Footprints who was pointing out that the budget for each English teacher was around 100 million won. Since they do recruit for the government one would think that they know what they are talking about. I know for sure my school isn't spending that much on me and there are other teachers who have noticed the same. So...it would seem that either Footprints is wrong...or some people somewhere are lining their pockets with the extra cash.
If the latter theory is correct, then there would be a strong incentive for these people to lobby for the continuance of this program. It could also explain why teachers are getting funneled into English villages. Whoever supplies these teachers could be getting a kickback from the villages or something.
(2) 2012? How long have Koreans been studying English? And how well do they speak it after all this time? What's going to change in five years? Also keep in mind the people at the top who run the program could lose a lot of 'face' not to consider they may be dipping their hand in the till (see point number 1), and not to consider some of them could lose their jobs. |
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The_Conservative
Joined: 15 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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| bosintang wrote: |
| Smee wrote: |
My county is moving all the native speakers to an English Town, so by this semester's end there will be no native speakers in the regular classrooms. |
That's interesting....I wonder how many elementary school teachers are keen to switch over to an English Town? That would definitely be a big incentive not to renew for me. If this represents a trend at all, there might be some bad karma coming around for some of the public school teachers on this board who put down English village and hagwon teachers...
I. |
More like bad karma for the hakwon teachers. If the public schools quit hiring, there will be a flood of teachers back to the hakwons and since the supply of teachers is much larger than in years past, the hakwons will be able to lower salaries or become more choosy.
Personally I'd just go to China... |
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ilovebdt
Joined: 03 Jun 2005
Location: Nr Seoul
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 5:08 pm Post subject: |
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| The_Conservative wrote: |
(1) I believe it was Footprints who was pointing out that the budget for each English teacher was around 100 million won. Since they do recruit for the government one would think that they know what they are talking about. I know for sure my school isn't spending that much on me and there are other teachers who have noticed the same. So...it would seem that either Footprints is wrong...or some people somewhere are lining their pockets with the extra cash. |
This is a very interesting point. If the schools do get such a large amount for each foreign teacher they have I certainly don't see it.
On two occasions at least I have been told that I can't have something because their isn't the budget for it.
However, there is budget for a nasty arse green fence and flowers in the borders.
ilovebdt |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 5:57 pm Post subject: |
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My mistake. It's by 2015 that they plan to have Korean teachers teaching English in English w/o native speakers.
| Quote: |
English teachers in schools nationwide will have to conduct English classes without the help of native English speaking teachers by 2015.
Kim Shin-il, deputy prime minister and minister of education and human resources development, Friday announced a plan to redesign English education in such a way as to reduce people�s private spending on the subject.
According to the plan, school English teachers will have to begin to conduct classes in English in 2009, and the government aims at making all schools use only English in their English classes by 2015.
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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/news_view.asp?newsIdx=3005222
I don't want to derail the topic too much, as I remember there were a few threads about this earlier in the year. However, this part still stands out:
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The government will actively seek to employ Korean residents and Korean adoptees from English-speaking countries as assistant teachers. To be qualified for a position, a university degree and E-2 visa are obligatory.
Schools, which run extra English classes after school, will also actively employ teachers for the classes from English users in multi-cultural families, foreign students studying in Korea and South Koreans with a great command of English. |
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