Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Fredbob]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/03/116_41059.html
E-2 Visa Holders Can Teach at Firms Legally

By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter

E-2 visa holders will be able to open English classes at corporations and government offices, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) announced, Tuesday.

Its spokesman said that the regulations that discourage companies and government organizations from staging English classes in their own buildings will be eased.

Under the current law, E-2 visa holders, eligible for teaching a foreign language, cannot teach at corporations and government offices unless they work full time.

Even organizations with an excellent education environment, such as the Incheon International Airport Corp. and the National Assembly Research and Training Institute, have been reluctant to hire full-time E-2 visa holders, due to high costs and the lack of experience in language teaching.

Currently, the law prohibits organizations from hiring teachers on a short-term basis or outsourcing language education from private academies,

However, a director of an English-language academy in Seoul said on condition of anonymity that many private academies and brokers have long been providing English teachers to companies, with some of them not even aware that the practice has been illegal.

``Frankly, we have never told them about the regulation unless they ask. Unfortunately, we have had no other way of providing the education they need in this era of globalization," the director said.

On the plan to amend the regulation, Kim Dong-il, a senior official at the Council for Foreign Language Education, expressed his deep appreciation.

``I'm glad to hear that the government is finally making efforts to address the problem," Kim said. ``This will enhance transparency and make private-language academies compete in order to provide a more competitive and better curriculum and teachers for businesses or government bodies."

An ACRC official said the commission will continue efforts to help improve the English education system in Korea.

As of April 2008, there were 18,029 foreign-language teachers in Korea and English-language teachers accounted for 16,751, or 92.7 percent.

Forty percent of foreign-language teachers are from the United States, 29.4 percent from Canada and 9.3 percent from Britain. Others include those from South American (4.1 percent), Australia (3.9 percent) and New Zealand (3.8 percent).

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The hits just keep on coming, I'm thinking this is going to put a dent in some pocketbooks, including my own. I don't know about other people, but corporate work is what keeps my family fed. At least, this is going to beef up supply enough that some recruiters are going to bring down the compensation, which they've already been trying to do. I wish I could say that I had faith that companies would hire me based on my experience (business and teaching). But, the bottom line is that Koreans like young faces and low wages. Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but this market is marginally better in terms of working conditions and quality than your average hagwon, in part because of the limited pool of workers, teachers have to produce in order to maintain their reputations and the recruiting companies have to act somewhat fairly for the same reasons.

O, and yes, most major companies require 3 years of ESL experience, but few check and recruiters have no qualms about beefing up resumes.

One step closer to the edge! (For me anyway.)

[Young FRANKenstein]

That's not the final straw. Making it legal for E2s to teach privates would be the final straw.

[itaewonguy]

[Captain Corea]

[aquaponics08]

[Young FRANKenstein]

[PRagic]

Complete cop out on the part of the hakwons and the companies doing the outsourcing of E2s or illegals over the years. Cop out on the part of the people hiring the teachers, too. Give me a freakin break. For those of us who have been here for a while, we've come to know of ministers, prosecutors, judges, government owned networks (TV and radio) and...well, hell, the list goes on...who have employed E2s illegally or, even better, unqualified teachers who don't even HAVE visas!

We didn't know it was illegal? Yeah, right. Funny how the foreigner new to the country who didn't speak the language somehow knew it was illegal!

Total joke.

[Beej]