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cubanlord
Joined: 08 Jul 2005
Location: In Japan!
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 Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 6:36 pm Post subject: Uni. students in the US know all about teaching in Korea! |
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By Jessica Kim
``I don't have a job here, but it's okay because my fallback plan is to teach English in Korea,'' they all say, the so-called native speakers.
Everyone in Korea, regardless of age, gender or job, has a massive collective fever. It's almost like the influenza pandemic of 1918.
Sure, it doesn't shoot up the death toll, but if you are a Korean parent, it does shoot up your kid's monthly English lesson fees, and if you are ``that" kid yourself, then it shoots up your stress gauge. This peninsula, at least the southern half of it, is drowning in a large-scale English craze.
Recently, a lot of people have been calling me and emailing me, to the point where I just had to shut down my phone. Some even identify themselves as a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. That's a long social chain.
These random ``friends" who don't have a job or got fired recently have been trying to get in touch with me to ask me about teaching English in Korea. They all say in unison, as if it comes from the Holy Bible, ``I heard all you need is the 'white looks' and you are good to go." I have heard this millions of times already, but every time I hear it I can't help myself from cringing with every single muscle in my forehead. I may need Botox soon even though I'm only in my early 20s.
So why is Korea, the nation that even created a national day to celebrate the beauty and the history of the Korean language, seen as the place to go for those ``native speakers" who have no life goals? The aim of trying to learn English is healthy for the mind and soul ― it's for personal development. However, the situation here is to the point where it's almost an obsession, not to mention an embarrassing one.
Do we really want these ``white-looking" people to just stroll into Korea, who probably scored less than 500 out of 800 on their verbal portion of their SATs or don't even know what they SATs are, to be hailed as kings by Korean parents? This leads to my point: Korean parents need to change their attitudes.
It is the Korean parents' crazy obsession with English that drives up the cram school fees; it is their obsession that creates such trouble for the government's education branch to rationally allocate their already-strained budget; and, finally, it is their obsession that leads Korea to be looked-down-upon as a Plan B by those ``native English speakers" who miserably fail in their own lives. The parents with such wrong attitudes are to be blamed for the pandemic.
Sadly, I do not have a solution and my intention was only to point out my observation of today's society. I do not know if anyone will ever have a solution. Is it even possible?
This mad English fever seems inexorable; it is how it is now, how it will be next year and the year after that. Someone needs to set an alarm clock to wake up the parents who have overdosed on their English fever.
We all need to realize that this English craze is not only pointless, but it burdens the students and their families. It ships Korea's money offshore and it pressures Korean educators to seek unqualified people who only possess the ``white looks." It leads to many indirect social problems that we have in Korea right now.
Rise and shine, it's time to wake up.
The writer is a student majoring in accounting at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. She can be reached at [email protected]. |
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/04/137_42741.html
So, who's got the alarm clock? |
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ESL Milk "Everyday
Joined: 12 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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It seems there's no limit to the amount of hateful, racist, ignorant opinion pieces this paper can publish.
All that this kind of thing does is drive away the people who actually might have cared.
I can't wait to get out of here. |
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samcheokguy
Joined: 02 Nov 2008
Location: Samcheok G-do
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 6:58 pm Post subject: |
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My WHITE family went to America. It took 4 generations for ONE to get a post grad. The only one in my extended family with a degree was my Dad, prior to my generation.
-*$(%$($( ing Korean-Americans getting academic scholarships to ivy league schools so they can write articles criticizing me for needing a job.
-You cry racism, you say asians are a hated minority. No, blacks are. Hispanics are. No body gives a damn when some glasses wearing dork buys a candy bar...but send a black man into those korean grocery stores and watch the effect.
-An article like this would be unprintable in America. Unless it was in like SOuthern Partisan or some other racist drivel rag.
-Just *$*% her. |
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cubanlord
Joined: 08 Jul 2005
Location: In Japan!
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 6:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah, this morning has been a bit sad for me. Usually, I wake up and read the "new" stuff on Korea Times, NY Times, & CNN. Man, nothing bad sadness everywhere! |
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Xuanzang
Joined: 10 Apr 2007
Location: Sadang
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| She`ll come out over here. After she graduates from the Montecito and has no job. The call of the mothership beckons you Miss Kim. |
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Blueberry
Joined: 15 Apr 2009
Location: Wonju
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 7:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Ironically, I know her, and she dates a black GI. Huge dude. |
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Cheonmunka
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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She should come and meet me and my family, my wife and two children, then I'll show her my degree and my post-graduate teaching diploma, I'll show her my work load and my materials, 맛있는 식사까지도 대접하고, 그다음에 엿먹으라고 할건데..
BTW Jessica, cram schools here don't employ native speakers. They employ Korean staff who lecture - in order that students can pass the multichoice English tests that are necessary when they wish to enter uni or enter internships with companies. Nothing to do with native speakers there.
The government drive in fact has been to include native speakers in public schools because they want students to have a more global perspective from an early age.
The English madness is all about entry to uni and so called foreign elite language schools - nothing to do with native speakers.
You, are a dㅣck. |
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Cheonmunka
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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PPS: If it weren't for all these young white men sixty years ago, rather than being a well-fed international student in an American university, you, along with your entire family, would be a bunch of hand-to-mouth peasants wearing Kim Jong Il badges on your raggy shirts. BEcause, you are not 양반 either.
Have some respect. |
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carpetdope
Joined: 13 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Cheonmunka wrote: |
Have some respect. |
Well said. |
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strange_brew
Joined: 12 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:29 pm Post subject: |
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| I guess if white people are so bad, she could take the advice that people on here throw out often. She is going to school in the U.S., and so just leave all those failures! Stop learning English and leave! They are all useless bums anyways, why would you want to learn off them! Back to Korea where everyone is a success. |
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justaguy
Joined: 01 Jan 2008
Location: seoul
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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I have a suggestion for you all. Just stop reading the newspaper. Save your money, save a tree and free yourself from the stress.
I'm really starting to believe that there are so many foreigners and Koreans who spend way too much time looking for things to get upset about. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:51 pm Post subject: Re: Uni. students in the US know all about teaching in Korea |
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| cubanlord wrote: |
| Quote: |
By Jessica Kim
``I don't have a job here, but it's okay because my fallback plan is to teach English in Korea,'' they all say, the so-called native speakers.
Everyone in Korea, regardless of age, gender or job, has a massive collective fever. It's almost like the influenza pandemic of 1918.
Sure, it doesn't shoot up the death toll, but if you are a Korean parent, it does shoot up your kid's monthly English lesson fees, and if you are ``that" kid yourself, then it shoots up your stress gauge. This peninsula, at least the southern half of it, is drowning in a large-scale English craze.
Recently, a lot of people have been calling me and emailing me, to the point where I just had to shut down my phone. Some even identify themselves as a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. That's a long social chain.
These random ``friends" who don't have a job or got fired recently have been trying to get in touch with me to ask me about teaching English in Korea. They all say in unison, as if it comes from the Holy Bible, ``I heard all you need is the 'white looks' and you are good to go." I have heard this millions of times already, but every time I hear it I can't help myself from cringing with every single muscle in my forehead. I may need Botox soon even though I'm only in my early 20s.
So why is Korea, the nation that even created a national day to celebrate the beauty and the history of the Korean language, seen as the place to go for those ``native speakers" who have no life goals? The aim of trying to learn English is healthy for the mind and soul ― it's for personal development. However, the situation here is to the point where it's almost an obsession, not to mention an embarrassing one.
Do we really want these ``white-looking" people to just stroll into Korea, who probably scored less than 500 out of 800 on their verbal portion of their SATs or don't even know what they SATs are, to be hailed as kings by Korean parents? This leads to my point: Korean parents need to change their attitudes.
It is the Korean parents' crazy obsession with English that drives up the cram school fees; it is their obsession that creates such trouble for the government's education branch to rationally allocate their already-strained budget; and, finally, it is their obsession that leads Korea to be looked-down-upon as a Plan B by those ``native English speakers" who miserably fail in their own lives. The parents with such wrong attitudes are to be blamed for the pandemic.
Sadly, I do not have a solution and my intention was only to point out my observation of today's society. I do not know if anyone will ever have a solution. Is it even possible?
This mad English fever seems inexorable; it is how it is now, how it will be next year and the year after that. Someone needs to set an alarm clock to wake up the parents who have overdosed on their English fever.
We all need to realize that this English craze is not only pointless, but it burdens the students and their families. It ships Korea's money offshore and it pressures Korean educators to seek unqualified people who only possess the ``white looks." It leads to many indirect social problems that we have in Korea right now.
Rise and shine, it's time to wake up.
The writer is a student majoring in accounting at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. She can be reached at [email protected]. |
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/04/137_42741.html
So, who's got the alarm clock? |
I certainly got over 500 on the verbal portion of the SAT, but I took it many years ago. She is assuming, without any evidence, that most would score lower than a 500 on the SAT. Also, many people who come to Korea are young. Yes, many don't know exactly what their next career move is like Miss Kim, but that's normal for many in that age bracket, and if Korea just tried to attract people who know exactly what they were going to do in their lives like some computer program, then no one would learn much English here. So even if Miss Kim scored high on the verbal section of the SAT, she is not using logic.
If Korea wants to increase the requirements for teaching ESL, they will have a shortage of teachers. Japan has the same basic requirements.
Korea doesn't pay enough to have most of their teachers certified in English or any subject for that matter.
Korea is not doing a lot to attract highly qualified teachers and doesn't encourage highly qualified people to say in the country and teach.
It's just interested in people with diplomas. That's not the fault of the teachers, and it doesn't mean they haven't scored over 500 on the SAT.
Also, some people do poor on the SAT, though they can get 4.0s in university.
Korea is lucky to have the people they have, in my opinion. |
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Milwaukiedave
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Location: Goseong
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:58 pm Post subject: |
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| I think she's going to get a lot of really angry emails. It sounds like she is a Korean studying overseas, not a Korean-American. That explains why she can't follow basic logic since they don't bother teaching that here in Korea. If our (disclaimer: I am an American) system of education is so inferior that it would allow people to attend college with 500/800 on the verbal portion of the SAT test, then why is she studying there? |
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bundangbabo
Joined: 01 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 12:13 am Post subject: |
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I am as qualified (and a better teacher) as many of the younger Korean teachers who can't pass the teachers exam - many of them working at my school are as qualified as me - it's always a good idea to look at your own first before pointing the finger at us.  |
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Sadebugo1
Joined: 11 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 2:39 am Post subject: |
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She seems to put the onus on the 'unqualified' instructors who venture to Korea's shores. I've always felt it was Korea's fault in that the corrupt hagwon owners and overall idiocy of the Korean educational system ran the best instructors away. I taught in Korea for four years beginning in the early 90s. After enduring as much as I could, I moved on to Saudi Arabia (much better believe it or not) and ultimately, to my current job in the US which is wonderful. I imagine many others have followed a similar path. Ms. Kim needs to consider that conditions in Korea itself create the 'problem' that she describes and lay the blame where it belongs.
For the record, I'm a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. They're quite discriminating in their admissions. I wonder if Ms. Kim would have been accepted had she applied. Oops! Please forgive me for being so elitist.
Sadebugo
http://travldawrld.blogspot.com/ |
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