Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Geckoman]

Indians to Teach English via Internet!

Looks like India is tapping into Korea's ESL market. Any thoughts?

Everything is getting outsourced to India these days.


_______________

See The Korea Times article at http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2007/08/123_7682.html
or see below.

Indians to Teach English via Internet

By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter

An Indian company is tapping the lucrative English education market in South Korea with a person-to-person online tutoring service at an Indian price _ known as e-tutoring, or ``education outsourcing.''

Krishnan Ganesh, the founder and the CEO of TutorVista, said the Bangalore-based firm is preparing to open a Korean-language site this month to launch full e-tutoring programs for individual students and for companies.

He also said that some 50 Korean students are already enrolled at its pilot program that offers unlimited, 24-hour-open tutoring at only $100 per month, and about 200 more are in more expensive SAT, TOEFL, GMAT and GRE examination preparation courses taught by Indian teachers in real time.

``We spent six months of research in the Korean and Chinese markets,'' he said in a telephone interview with The Korea Times this week. ``There is a small market on the top of the pyramid for native English-speaking teachers. That comes at $30 or $40 per hour and that is affordable only by the rich.

But we will see the different segment of the market. Like you will have people buy BMWs, you will also have people buy Hyundai cars, which also have good qualities,'' he continued. ``You find there is a huge market for affordable English education with a lot of practice. That is something not affordable with native teachers.''

The e-tutoring course uses broadband Internet, which has already been quite popular in the United States since its launch last year, especially among the students from low-income households. Some have joked that the firm's slogan should be ``outsource your homework to India.''

In its class, the tutor and the student come together in a virtual classroom set up with voice chat and an electronic whiteboard. It is different from existing online classes in Korea such as MegaStudy since it is not a one-way lecture, where the student watches recorded course materials, but private tutoring, where the teacher gives personal attention and care.

The company said it currently has more than 2,000 students in the United States, 200 in Britain, and some 700 teachers in India who work at home. The aim is to secure 10,000 students from all over the world by the end of this year.

The company expects that it can appeal to the mass market in South Korea and China, too, where qualified native-speaking teachers are rare and expensive. The private tutoring market in Korea is evaluated to be around 15 trillion won ($16.3 billion) every year, with 4 trillion won of them spending in English education.

Ganesh admitted that many Koreans would still prefer native-speaking Western teachers than to have Indian tutors, who have distinctive accents in pronunciation. But at the same time, there are benefits in learning from non-native English speakers, he said.

``We are all Asians so we can relate better to non-Americans, non-English students and non-native students wanting to study English,'' he said. ``There is a lot of benefits when you lean English from somebody who is not a native speaker, someone who knows Asian customs and the Asian way of thinking.''

Korea is one of the strategic markets for TutorVista since it is one the most wired nations in the world, as well as for the people's high interest in English as second language.

``We have found that Korean students are some of the most hard-working students and have a very strong desire to learn English,'' said Ankit Chaudhary of TutorVista. ``We have had students as young as 4 years requesting to be part of the trial.''

Ganesh said that he is also introducing a program for Business English to cater to Korean firms, and is currently talking with two firms though he cannot name them.

Hiring more teachers is a problem that he is looking forward to having, Ganesh said, as India has some 400 million English-speaking population, which is even larger than that of the United States.

``We are talking about a huge number of people. Right now we have 700 teachers, and we have applications from 12,000 teachers,'' he said.

[email protected]

08-03-2007

The Korea Times

[Nowhere Man]

When I was working in Thailand, I was offered a job e-tutoring students in Japan. At Thailand rates, of course. Pretty sneaky, eh?

[Junior]

I doubt Koreans will want to learn from "inferior" asians.

I also have no doubt Indian english, while functional, is still below par.

You need to go to the source- and Koreans will always happily pay big $ for education.

[Tony_Balony]

Yea I'm not impressed with the idea, it won't last long. E teaching is here already and its a dud.

[okokok]

I live in India now, and the other day I couldn't even order a damn pizza because I couldn't comprehend, due to the guy's accent. Very hard to understand. They use some different vocab too. Those lessons would just be a waste of time IMHO.

[ddeubel]

[IlIlNine]

.... we are the BMWs of english teaching! Maybe not for everyone, but there's no denying the quality!

[some waygug-in]

I like the basic idea behind it, but I doubt whether it will ever catch on in a significant way. Unless of course it is free.

Personally, I wish there were more (not less) on-line resources that we as
EFL instructors could point our students to.

The reason I say this is that often, my students have had little or no time to study outside of the classroom and they really needed some outside source from which they could work on their own.

I was always very restricted in what I could do with many of them as their levels were so low that they couldn't really keep up with what we were doing in class. They needed something that they could do on their own, that was set up for adults, but not advanced. Something to help them with basics, get them making sentences, get them able to read English at a more than grade 1 level.

An on-line resource would never replace EFL teachers because it's just too boring. I know from my experience of trying to study Korean that way.
It might help beginners and false beginners to work on the basics however, and free us up as teachers to then work with students at higher levels.

A pipe dream perhaps, but that's my 2 centimos.

[ddeubel]

If you go to my EFL community, you can talk to a "bot", an intelligent robot that will answer your questions and speak back to you. Click the TALK TO DAVE link.

Just one form of learning online. Also, there are great new networking sites out there which are dedicated to English language learning and offer the students access to immediate conversation (voice) with others. Also, would mention all the interactive sites/quizzes/games which give feedback to learners. Many more coming everyday besides all the technologically revolutionizing teaching applications that are appearing every day. (just to mention one go to www.voicethread.com and check it out.).

DD

[some waygug-in]

Thanks. Great site and great work on your part.

My hat goes off to you.

Cheers

[JMO]

Seems like a decent idea. Cheaper and you are learning English. I'm sure the teachers work on their accents to be more clear.

[Junior]

DD what will you do then when your job vanishes? you seem keen for it to happen.

[JMO]

[FistFace]

This bothers me very little.

[caniff]

Fistface, your students are correct. Your face really does look like a fist. At least they don't call you 'F*ckface'. I hate when my students call me that.

On topic: I think the elitist nature of education will continue to run English education in this country, especially at the hagwon level.

Koreans may, over time, realize that there is a large percentage of Indians who can effectively teach English. It could start with the internet, but what about in-country? Given a change in visa requirements, I would expect this to start in public schools, especially in rural areas that have difficulty filling positions.

Indians, in my experience, generally seem to be good people. I wish them the best, and more power to them in getting a slice of the Korean English education pie. But I think that the stereotypes will persist in favor of a 'Westerner' being the 'proper' face of English education in Korea.