Korean Job Discussion Forums

[wylies99]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/09/117_30362.html

TaLK Program Teachers Start to Teach Children

By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

Assistant English teachers recruited under the ``Teach and Learn in Korea (TaLK)�program, started Monday to teach elementary school students in rural areas. The program, introduced by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology last April, aims to increase opportunities for students in the provinces to learn English from native English speakers.

For this, the ministry recruited last July a total of 380 native English speakers from five countries ㅡ the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. They mainly consist of ethnic Koreans from the countries who completed teacher-training programs last month and were sent to the underprivileged elementary schools across the country.

The foreign teachers will team up with local college students during after-school programs, helping students improve their English-speaking skills. They are scheduled to stay for six months or one year in coordination with 13 regional offices of education across the nation.

They will have opportunities to learn Korean language, culture and history through various programs. The National Institute for International Education under the ministry will assist and oversee the assistant English teachers.

Among the assistant teachers, 245 hold American citizenships, 69 are from Canada, 22 from Australia, 12 from New Zealand and five from the U.K. Some 300 are undergraduate students and the rest are university graduates. Of the TaLK participants, 314 are under 25 years old.

TaLK participants will receive benefits such as round-trip airfare and allowances of about 1.5 million won ($ 1,500) per month as well as a monthly accommodation allowance of 400,000 won.

[email protected]

[garykasparov]

Teachers, including wylies99, will have to deal with headaches associated with the new Talk Program. There will always be plenty of employment options outside of Korea for teachers who can't cope with the problems associated with the new program.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Weren't they hoping for rather more than 380?

[marlow]

[Otherside]

[hugekebab]

[bassexpander]

* They live in homestays

* Most are under 25, will be leaving town for the big city whenever possible (possibly returning drunk). This actually happened at the 1st orientation.

* Talk attempted to over-hire, expecting a large amount of runners.

[jellobean]

Why would anyone with a degree (especially someone able to get an F-4) do this? Perhaps a few for cultural reasons, but really I can't imagine that close to 25% are doing it for the culture.

[ticktock]

They get some sort of presidential certificate (no mention of monetary incentive with the cert though). Have had the opportunity to work with some of these TaLK candidates and no offence but the majority of them are just kids looking to lounge about in Korea for a short period of time (getting paid doing so) totally lacking in teaching skills and commitment. The central government and the GOE's been making them go through 3-4 weeks of orientation throwing jargons like task based learning, teaching with heart at them in hopes that these kids will suddenly transform themselves into competent English teachers which is so totally not the case right now. For the sake of the Korean students though, I do hope they've picked up some stuff along the way and will do a good job.

[wylies99]