|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
idonojacs
Joined: 07 Jun 2007
|
 Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 3:31 pm Post subject: Leader Wants No More "Goose/Penguin Daddies"??? |
 |
|
I'm having a little trouble wrapping my brain around the stuff in this article.
What age kids are parents taking abroad to study English? I assume the mother doesn't go with the kid to college, so it must be younger. Why are they doing this? Is English that important?
Why do they plan to eliminate any use of Korean in English classes within two years? My co-teacher translates many of my comments, and this seems to be helpful. How they heck do you teach English if you NEVER say anything in Korean at any age level?
Why would they teach non-English language subjects in English? What are they planning to do here in the long run, eliminate the Korean language in Korea?
Isn't this whole thing being rushed unreallistically? Doesn't it take generations to get to a level of English proficiency found in countries like Sweden, Holland, or even the Philippines or India?
If Korea wants to learn English so badly, why are they working so damn hard to alienate native speaker teachers with these 3Is (irrational, impractical, insulting) E-2 rules?
Wouldn't it be nice if the Korean English teachers could pronounce English correctly, not to mention speaking it proficiently, before getting so carried away with this timetable?
Is there any chance in hell this plan could actually work?
From Saturday's Korea Times:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/01/116_17951.html
| Quote: |
Leader Wants No More ‘Goose Daddies’
Chairwoman of the Presidential Transition Committee Lee Kyung-sook talks during a meeting at the committee headquarters in Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap
Parents, Teachers Worried Over New English Education Plan
By Kim Yon-se
Staff Reporter
The next administration will help reduce the ``separation'' of parents for the sake of English-language education for their children by implementing a program enabling students to learn English in Korea.
``The government will have to be accountable for the side effects of current English education methods. Fathers stay in Korea and make money while mothers take their children to schools in the United States and other English-speaking countries. This sad situation should be eliminated,'' said Lee Kyung-sook, chairwoman of the presidential transition committee, in a meeting with staff members Friday.
She said the next government will not sit idly for the so-called ``goose'' or ``penguin'' fathers, who remain in Korea to earn money to pay for tuition and the cost of living for their children and wives overseas.
``Penguin fathers'' are those who haven't enough money to visit their family abroad anytime.
The comments came as a reaction to parents who worry over costly private English-language tutoring for their children to help cope with non-language classes to be taught in English.
President-elect Lee Myung-bak said his government will work out measures to reinforce foreign language education in schools to enable ordinary high school graduates to speak English properly.
Meeting with education officials at the Lotte Hotel in central Seoul, he said the incoming government's policy goals are primarily aimed at normalizing school education to reduce private spending on out-of-school education and English-language study abroad.
Korean teachers of English are also uncertain of their future as many will be forced to conduct classes entirely in English in two years time. Private institutes see the transition committee's new English education plan as a golden opportunity to expand business.
``Many Koreans with doctorates don't even express their scholastic opinion freely due to their lack of proficiency in English,'' the transition team chief said. ``So we chose the drastic change in the English education system to get people to communicate in English once they graduate from high school.''
Though there are hurdles in investing in English education, the next government will devise a system in which Koreans will be good at English through ``compulsory education'' from elementary to high school, she said. She is to return to Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul as its president after the inauguration of President-elect Lee Myung-bak on Feb. 25.
The chairwoman said concrete plans for new English education will be unveiled in early February after a public hearing on Jan. 30.
High schools across the nation will be required to teach selected subjects in English from 2010, officials of the transition committee say.
English classes must also be conducted exclusively in the language beginning that year.
English-language classes will be introduced in model schools in rural areas this year, a measure that is expected to reduce the English education gap between rural and urban areas.
The program will then be adopted at public boarding high schools and autonomous private high schools, and will be expanded later to ordinary schools, officials said. |
I suppose this is good for ESL teachers in the long run. If it only made sense. Am I missing something? |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Cerriowen
Joined: 03 Jun 2006
Location: Pocheon
|
| Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 8:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The age children are being taken abroad *with* their mom is between 4 and 9. Typically (from what I've heard) after the kid turns 10 years old, they get shipped off by themselves. There are programs in New York, where you can send your 10 year old to live in an apartment and study english with a group of other foreign students, with one person managing them.
One of my 5-year-old students moved with his mom to the USA to study english while his dad stayed here. Another one is in the phillipines for a couple of months (with his mom) doing a language camp.
Another one just turned 6 years old, and when he's 7, he's being sent to the USA to live with his dad (who he hasn't seen in several years), and study english while mom stays here. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
|
| Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject: Re: Leader Wants No More "Goose/Penguin Daddies"?? |
|
|
| idonojacs wrote: |
I'm having a little trouble wrapping my brain around the stuff in this article.
What age kids are parents taking abroad to study English? I assume the mother doesn't go with the kid to college, so it must be younger. Why are they doing this? Is English that important?
Why do they plan to eliminate any use of Korean in English classes within two years? My co-teacher translates many of my comments, and this seems to be helpful. How they heck do you teach English if you NEVER say anything in Korean at any age level?
Why would they teach non-English language subjects in English? What are they planning to do here in the long run, eliminate the Korean language in Korea?
Isn't this whole thing being rushed unreallistically? Doesn't it take generations to get to a level of English proficiency found in countries like Sweden, Holland, or even the Philippines or India?
If Korea wants to learn English so badly, why are they working so damn hard to alienate native speaker teachers with these 3Is (irrational, impractical, insulting) E-2 rules?
Wouldn't it be nice if the Korean English teachers could pronounce English correctly, not to mention speaking it proficiently, before getting so carried away with this timetable?
Is there any chance in hell this plan could actually work?
|
You must be new to Korea to ask such rational questions. Perhaps you can get a job doing a feasibility study on LMB's Trans-national ditch.   It seems highly unlikely that there will be many content classes taught in English in 2 years by Korean teachers since they can't speak English. Oh, by the way, some Korean mothers do accompany their children to college in the US but I'm pretty sure that they don't sleep in their child's dorm room (though they may clean it for them ) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
