Korean Job Discussion Forums

kingplaya4 · Joined: 14 May 2006

The Indian accent is strange guys, face it. I have been on the phone with Dell's supposed "tech support" enough to know that for a fact. If they really could speak intelligible English, I'd be all for Korea doing this, but the fact is, they can't. Sure, maybe a few can speak without the accent, but how could these be divided from the masses that speak like the Quik E Mart clerk?

Korea needs more focused and better quality English education for those people that will actually use it, not even more exposure for many that will never use it. And can you imagine a combination between Konglish and an Indian accent? This would be totally useless when the person who was educated this way tried to communicate with a westerner. It might work if they studied this way and then lived abroad for a year or two, but otherwise....

Netz · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:11 am Post subject:

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qUbp2KX06kg

Dysupes · Joined: 24 May 2005

My wife showed me this article today and asked me if I was worried. When I laughed she laughed too and said, "Ok, why aren't you scared?" I politely explained that although we have Indian friends who are just fine at speaking English that they are not the majority and that the ones who are really well educated and speak fluent English often aspire to be something other than an English teacher.

To add to that, when I did my orientation with EPIK last year in Masan we had an Indian "Native Speaker Teacher" come present to us. He was supposedly a "Native Speaker Teacher" and had been teaching in Korean public schools for a few years already and while he seemed nice enough his English was definitely sub-standard. The grammar mistakes he made along with his accent made him difficult to understand for us real "Native Speaker Teachers" and at the end of his presentation we all looked at each other in wonderment that someone with his level of English could be teaching as a "Native Speaker Teacher."

weatherman · Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Location: Korea

JamesFord · Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Location: my personal playground

Indian English can be very difficult to understand. My gf's niece lives there and has a certified Indian tutor for English. I cannot understand most of what he says, and he teaches the wrong spelling for many, many words.

For any Indians that do speak an understandable form of English, they wouldn't be the ones coming here anyways. They would have much better jobs to choose from. The one's you would get here would be like the teacher I mentioned above.

In short, the OP's article is a joke.

SCE2AUX · Joined: 15 Dec 2007 Location: Daegu

Five years later...

"My actual name is Cho Hee, but I prefer my English name, Chandrashanka!"

jangsalgida · Joined: 11 Jan 2006

Pink Freud · Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Location: Daegu

"Perfect, hah! Maybe there grammar was good, but there pronunciation...I highly doubt it."

Perhaps so, but I'll guess that they can spell the possessive form of the third person plural pronoun correctly.

Been There, Taught That · Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:38 am Post subject:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22865130

yingwenlaoshi · Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Location: ... location, location!

Check the body bag!

Len8 · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Location: Kyungju

The rest of the world with a pool of English teachers like India,Pakistan,bangaladesh and the Phillipines are looking at Dollar signs in Korea more than they are the teaching of English.

Been There, Taught That · Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:23 am Post subject:

And I wonder if all these countries market themselves around to each other or just to Korea, where finding English teachers has appeared to reach a desperation point.

the eye · Joined: 29 Jan 2004

asylum seeker · Joined: 22 Jul 2007 Location: On your computer screen.

The main reason I think this would fail is because of Koreans' inherently competitive nature which is the whole reason for the prevalence of Hagwons in the first place. Lets say Hagwon A decides to stop hiring native teachers and hires Indian teachers instead and undercuts the prices of Hagwon B down the road. Surely the kids will flock there right? But think of the parents of the students at hagwon A, there would be this constant nagging doubt in their minds that perhaps the children at Hagwon B were going to end up with a 'better' English accent and therefore will have more chance in the future to make lots of money to support their beloved parents. It may not be logical or 'fair' but that kind of attitide is very strong in Korea, hence the popularity of Starbucks and luxury brands despite their inflated prices.
Like it or not, the NT hagwons would have a higher 'perceived value' which seems to be very important to the Korean consumer. I'm not against them opening it up to more competition but I think its a little naive to imagine that they would completely supercede NTs and take all of the jobs. It would be a good way to put a little pressure on those who are too lax and would probably flush out some of the NTs who are less serious about teaching.
In the end you shouldn't let yourself get too scared about it. If the English teaching industry dries up here for NTs we have home countries to go back to where with a little effort we can have a good standard of living, a luxury that many in the developing countries don't have.

hari seldon · Joined: 05 Dec 2004 Location: Incheon