Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Smee]

President of the International Graduate School of English, and Seoul National University professor for 35 years Park Nam-sheik shared his thoughts on native speaker teachers, in the Korea Times yesterday.

[wylies99]

[Unposter]

I didn't read the whole article but I thought it was reasonable.

1) He thought public school teachers who want native English-speaking teachers to have teaching credentials were being unreasonable.

2) He thought the English language was not the exclusive property of Americans and Brits and that access to other English speakers was reasonable.

3) Sometime native English-speakers don't care enough about Korean children to find a way to educate them properly (though I hope he believe many do)

4) In the long run, Korea should produce teachers who can speak English well enough to teach communicatively and/or in English.

I can't argue with any of those points, though I hope he does realize that there are many good NESTs in Korea and that Korea has benefited from the use of NESTs in Korea.

[cdninkorea]

[stevieg4ever]

I thought it was reasonable too to be fair Mr. Smee, but little more than to be honest. You can see where he is coming from more than with Jessica Park and the other one (easy to lose count and forget as they are really adding up at quite some pace these days).

But once again here is an education professional who fails to address the real issues at the heart of ESL. 'Affection towards children' or - as I presume he is implying - lack there of is not unique to natives alone. Once again he demonstrates how disenfranchised some of these so called 'experts' are from the real issues at hand.

I mean would a Philipino, Malaysian or Indian really have any different motives to that of someone from the US or Canada? Migrant workers are migrant workers, doesnt matter whether they work at SNU or in a Samsung factory: their intentions and motives are the same.

He is oblivious to the day to day problems existing teachers have. For a start, the issue of respect that natives receive in the classroom and from Korean peers obviously doesnt concern him a great deal: lord can only imagine what an Indian or Philipino or Malaysian (particularly of Chinese decent) would receive. Hiring teachers from other neighbouring Asian countries would bring out all the worst elements of Korean racism that we are all well aware of.

Right now there doesn't exist many reasons, other than money, for people to commit and stay in Korea.

[Ilsanman]

He's right. I don't give a lick about 80% of my students. Probably because they don't give a lick about my class. They think sitting quietly, speaking English only for 1 hour and doing their homework are optional.

The other 20% see a different side of me.

Korea needs to clean up its own backyard before letting another 'educated' yutz make stupid comments again. What a ricetard!!

[CentralCali]

[bogey666]

importing Hindi or Malay of Filipino/a teachers to teach English is like importing Koreans from China to Korea to teach Korean (actually worse)

they'd be ok for very low level students, but for any REAL levels of proficiency, you would need a highly educated English speaker from those countries, and they DO exist ,but in small numbers and are likely working in a good job back in their home countries.

They could never explain English idioms and the entire concept of "making a global individual" which the Korean govt is so in love with would fall flat on its face.

btw this clown merely sounds like a PR hack for his private institute.

[raulfd4]

what is so unreasonable in that statement?

[justaguy]

Smee he is not a big wig. He just wants people to think he is.

[CentralCali]

[T-J]

[Captain Corea]

[T-J]

[CentralCali]