Korean Job Discussion Forums

[iggyb]

Who said Korean high school students were going to reach advanced levels in an immersion program?

I said that spending 1 hour a day, with a teacher who uses English 90% of the time, every school day for 9 or more years --- is enough time and contact with the language to reach the advanced level.

I've seen hakwon low beginners climb to intermediate level in 1 year.

I have seen students in an American high school move from surivial level Spanish to advanced level in 4 years of study. I've seen students who spent 2 years with them get mostly nothing out of it...

So, the desire of the student is a factor.

But, if you start studying English in 3rd grade and have 1 hour a day until you graduate high school, you should walk away with advanced level skills ---- if you're teachers will teach in English and not spend the bulk of their time pushing antiquated methods.

[edwardcatflap]

[viciousdinosaur]

Olympians don't train to get the bronze medal.
Korean kids don't study to get into Hanguk University.
And people don't study a language so they can say "hi" and "good-bye" in a fancy way.

The goal of every Korean student should be to learn English perfectly and get an awesome score on their university entrance exam. This is what parents want, this should be the goal of the MOE, and to achieve that goal you need a good curriculum, fluent teachers, lots of study time, and a supportive staff. A good curriculum can make up for a lot of what native teachers lack. This is what hagwons have, mostly, particularly the more successful ones (Chungdahm, Poly, YBM etc...) And guess what, the kids learn English. The model is there. Public schools are either going to acknowledge that model and copy it or just waste their time with stupid programs like the ones being describe here.

[slothrop]

edit

[iggyb]

How many years do students in the UK study French? How many hours a week?

Do UK teachers use French 90% of the time in class or much English?

1 hour a day with 90% English for 9 years is enough for an average student to go from surival level English to advanced. Not native speaker fluency, but advanced enough to handle virtually any situation in which they need to use it --- and enough for them to read contemporary English novels if they want and so on...

Even with the crappy hakwon and public school situation in Korea, the level of English skill has increased noticably.

That is what I thought when I came back to Korea in 2009 after leaving at the end of 1999, and at least 1 other person with similar experience said the same thing above.

If I were a dictator in the Korean government, I'd put in a system whereby Korean ESL teachers were held accountable for teaching English in English.

If they didn't have the language skills to do it, they'd be gone. If they were observed a few times and failed to teach using 90% or better, they'd be gone.

I'd make it mandatory that they go through an intensive program like the one I worked at every 5 years or so.

The teachers we taught came there on a volunteer basis and a significant percentage of them (but probably lower than 50%) came there as a way to get out of teaching and a way to get a free trip overseas for a month.

There was no accountability.

I'd make such courses mandatory and set up a few of those centers around the country.

If they want to replace the NSETs, they could do it, but they aren't ready yet.

They will need to shake up the Korean teachers to do it right...

[viciousdinosaur]

[NQ]

Will this news affect the GEPIK program next year or does this only apply to NET jobs based in Seoul?

[tiger fancini]

[iggyb]

NQ,

They are separate programs, but both are cutting back significantly and I'd expect other provinces are too.

This has been in the news here and there since early spring.

A few months ago, Gyonggi Province's board that sets the budget cut funding for ALL NSETs. There was a lot of talk about it here. The school board and schools and city education departments scrambled to reverse the decision and/or find enough funding elsewhere to keep whatever number of NSETs they wanted to keep.

[Weigookin74]

I would say that more heavy English usage with a focus on speaking and listening on the young ones beginning in Grade one would be the best way to go. Focus on grade ones to four and let it be an extra class a week. Then, as they get older, their English levels will be higher. They can go on to learn grammar and "study for the test" which is all the middle and high school teachers focus on. They don't really teach English, per se. Put in place a solid useful curriculum for grades one to four and any native speaker can teach it. No use requiring "certified teachers" unless the pay levels match. Has to be far more than 2 million won a month. Otherwise, no certified teacher will leave home to come over here for teaching ESL. I'd say maybe pay 3.5 to 4 million won a month. Fat chance of that!

[Weigookin74]

Let me also say, the kids practice using their English with me outside of class. Without me, they would only speak in Korean. It's the unofficial part that counts too. Korea, if it wants good English, shouldn't cut us out now. I can understand the shift to elementary, but it's too soon to get rid of us. However, we should be used to teach speaking and listening from Grade one to four.

[Seoulman69]

Here's an interesting side note to the claim that there are enough Korean teachers who are fluent enough to teach English.
I met two Korean female lecturers today who were studying for their Phd in English. One had fairly good English but the other was using a mix of Konglish and grammatically incorrect English. How she can be taking a Phd in English is beyond me. I fear that removing the native teachers will lower the speaking abilities of the students. I don't doubt that Koreans can explain the grammar better than we can but when it comes to spoken English the majority are not up to par.

[schwa]

Korea Times ran an editorial this morning urging SMOE to reconsider: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/08/137_116679.html

Similar to my thinking, they point out how this unfairly advantages kids from well-off families & makes a mockery of the current & overdue push to promote english speaking & writing skills among secondary schoolers.

The ill-conceived free lunch program seems to be the budgetary culprit.

[JustinC]

It seems there is no such thing as a free lunch.

[slothrop]

edit