Korean Job Discussion Forums

[aq8knyus]

On my CELTA course in Poland they were quite a few non-natives who had studied in the UK and they were fluent. They were also able to relate really well to the challenges of their Polish students.

That being said when I say fluent I mean word(ish) perfect, maybe I just live and work in a poor area but I have never met a Korean who comes close to this standard. Malaysians, Indians, Russians, Japanese and Philipinnos but never a Korean who wasn't bilingual.

Anyway isn't the biggest problem for Korean learners beside grammar pronunciation?

Also I understand the Korean mindset, when I am learning Korean I dont have unlimited funds, I need to be sure that I am getting good value. I will therefore always go for the native Korean speaker.

[sirius black]

Many of this talk about South Africans not being able speak this or Koreans not being able to explain irony and what is native, being said by some, not all, but some, is their fear that the Koreans will notice the emperor has no clothes and they can be replaced by a cheaper teacher en masse.

There are many Fililipinos, SAs, etc. who can't speak standard english well. Just as there are many degree awarded Americans who have an accept you can't understand unless you're from Boston, Lousiana and other regional accented Americans. Same goes for Geordies and Scousers in England.

If the Koreans were smart, they'd hire either an American or Brit or a Gyopo to head their education ministry. It would be end of the gravy train for a lot of us. Right now for all intent and purposes a degree and a passport and a pulse gets you a job. That wide net brings with it a lot of people who should not be in a classroom for a myriad of reasons.

They could conceivably get a larger pool of qualified teachers by expanding the countries and I'm surprised a few english speaking or predominantly english countries like Jamaica, Bermuda etc. are left out. I've also met Koreans who were children of reigious missionaries who were schooled at international schools in Africa and poorer areas of Asia who spoke totally unaccented perfect American english. You would not know the difference at all.

Some of us on here have this exalted view of our jobs as if we're the only ones who can do it right or effectively. Complete BS. The hidden fear in some of these posts, not all, is as I said, is that the Koreans will one day wake up to the fact that they really could do as good or better for a lot cheaper.

PS: Most Brits I know honestly believe Americans have no concept of irony. I've been told what we call irony is in fact not true irony.

[northway]

[Feloria]

Sirius--
As apalling as it is, I think you know why countries such as Bermuda and Jamaica are left out; especially when it comes to teaching children

[sirius black]

[sirius black]

[aq8knyus]

@Sirius Black

As conversation teachers focusing on pronunciation a native speaker will inately have a an advantage over someone who learned it as a second langauge. I know most of us have the bare bones when it comes to quals but we have more than just a pulse, as natives we have between 21-22 years at least of practice in English. Thats gonna trump anyone who has just learnt it as a second language.

Surely the Koreans could do it cheaper but I think on average they couldn't do it better...yet.

Also I dont think there is any fear, I mean the job only pays 16000 grand a year and for the vast majority of jobs offers no career progression. Its a gap year nothing more.

[isisaredead]

[tomstar86]

WOW at all the South African bashing! True, some of the accents are tough, but to say they're not fully educated in English - that's a bit of generalisation! The SAs I've met who've been teaching English have all been incredibly intelligent and articulate.

Every country has tough accents - what about teachers from Ireland, or certain areas of the UK or USA?

To say SAs are less competent when it comes to teaching English is ridiculous. For the record, most of the lousy teachers I know who can't teach English to save their lives are American...

http://waegook-tom.com

[Yaya]

Say what you want about us bashing S. Africans, but I tend to agree that many are not qualified to teach English. It's also likely that most Korean parents will pass if offered a South African tutor.

[tomstar86]

Most people in Korea aren't qualified to teach English full stop - I know very few with any formal teaching qualification, let alone a TESOL/TEFL certificate, and that applies to all nationalities!

http://waegook-tom.com

[jinks]

I have been listening to Radio New Zealand news reports on the killings in Norway. The Norwegian nurses, police officers, government officials and journalists who have been interviewed on RNZ all speak beautiful English. None of them are native speakers and none of them are language experts, yet their second (or in some cases third or fourth after Swedish and/or German) language skill would blow many native English-speakers out of the water.

I can understand why some English teachers in Korea believe that only a native speaker could do the job we do, because many of us have been raised completely monolingually, and we find it difficult to believe that people can be fluent in two or more languages.

Sure, we can point to some low-level second language speakers and say - "s/he shouldn't be teaching English, because his/her accent is terrible" or "their grammar sucks", but I can point to educated native English-speakers working in Korea who try to explain why we say "a" universe, rather than "an" universe by going down some long, convoluted track of "there is more than one universe, so we say 'a' not 'an'". Really! I actually overheard this from a native speaker in a teachers' room in my first year in Korea.

I know that we are not writing a dissertation when we are posting messages in forums, nor are we checking for typos, and using a variety of non-standard written forms is quite common, but some posters are truly rotten writers and their errors and clumsiness can't JUST be because we are writing casually or quickly. These people are native speakers, but their writing skills suck, but they are still qualified to teach English (for God's sake!) because they are "native speakers".

Yes some non-natives should not be teaching English, not just because they are not native speakers, but because they are not skilled enough. Likewise, native speakers should also be required to bring more than their native speakerness to the classroom as well.

[isisaredead]

[metalhead]

[LURKER]

Ironically, in many ways, South Africa today is arguably more English-dominant than Canada - while the Canadian government is obliged to support bilingual policies to appease Quebec, the South African government seems happy enough to watch Afrikaans and the black languages go into terminal decline - and those who vote for the Government don't appear to be troubled.

Of course, market forces are helping this process accelerate as well.

Not that there isn't still a vast population of un- and under-educated blacks who have poor or no English in the country of course (along with a smaller minority of the Afrikaner population who are also unable or unwilling to learn English to any level of fluency). But increasingly, people like this are old or middle aged.