Korean Job Discussion Forums

[World Traveler]

[mayorhaggar]

Those jobs are mostly low-wage service jobs. And a lot of college grads have moved back in with mom and dad and stopped looking for work. And many have gone back to grad school, but we're 5 years into a recession now. Grad school only lasts so long.

[World Traveler]

[Zyzyfer]

[World Traveler]

[Weigookin74]

EPIK didn't start it's expansion until 2007. It spent the first two years, especially in rural areas having shortages and not being able to fill those positions, until 2009, after the recession started.

Prior to this, and since it's beginning in the 90's, most rural towns and small cities only had one, maybe two NETS.

As I understand it, Gyeonggi Do and Seoul had started their expansion around 2005? Someone correct me on that.

As for Korea, when the recession first began, many hakwons went bust. EPIK's expansion picked up the slack. The government wanted to spend, spend, spend, to keep the economy humming along until they could get back to exporting to US and Europe.

Most recessions last for a couple of years before things get back to booming. I think most of us are astounding it's still going on or at least feels like a recession. 2001 recession had a 6 point something unemployment rate. 1991 recession had a 7 point something unemployment rate. Boom in the late 80's - 5% rate. Boom in the 90's - 4%. Boom in the 2000's - 4%.

So, it still feels like a recession. The economy is not booming. Now, it's effect is being felt here as the government is cutting back it's spending. Most of us didn't expect this to last so long. Just didn't think the politicians on both sides in Washington would be this stupid!

The crash in 1997 was deeper but recovery quicker because Korea could export it's way out. Now it can't.

[Weigookin74]

Quote The law was amended in 2007 to allow teachers from South Africa to join the fray.

http://groovekorea.com/article/koreas-efl-education-failing
Maybe South Africans were allowed in public schools starting in 2007? (Or the article is incorrect?) Unquote


That groove magazine article is interesting. It's just too bad they never asked our advice. Folks at the top making decisions who don't even speak English or speak it well.

Want to get to the point of no hakwons or needing native speakers? For at least the next 10 years, intorduce native speakers into public school kindergardens and grade one, two, three, and four. Give the kids one class with the foriegners and another with just the Korean teacher. Songs, games, speaking, coloring, etc. (Get some NETS and Koreans to write a curriculum together for this new program.) You will see the next generation of kids English levels rise. It will get to the point that young teachers in the future will have near perfect English skills and they would take over the same early teaching program. Korea would become a bilingual country just like Sweden, Norway, and Finland with 90+% fluency rates.

I really think it's a waste of time to have waygooks teach with grades 5 and 6 just repeating a script from the book that the Korean co teacher tells them to do. By this time, the kids brains shut down when it comes to language acquisition. If they haven't gotten a lot of English before age 10, chances are they won't pick it up later because it's too dependant on memorization and most kids and teens can't be bothered.

But, you can't argue with stupid.

[mayorhaggar]

Korean schools just focus on teaching to the test. And they don't want to take power from the ajusshis running the country and give it to foreigners or young better-trained Koreans.

Why do hagwons hire any foreigners? Why do the Seoul elite send their kids overseas to the US/Australia/Canada/etc with mom in tow? To learn English in Korean from a Korean?

[Weigookin74]