Korean Job Discussion Forums

ThePoet · Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 7:20 am Post subject:

I am one of the teacher trainers in the program that was reported in the news. I think we have all seen the reliable and unbiased (yeah, sure) reporting that comes from the Korean media but I will mention a couple things here that were improperly or inadequately covered in the news articles:

1) TOEIC is not used by Korean English teachers...it is normally used for the business community. As such, for teachers here, it is like taking a written drivers test 10 - 20 years after getting your drivers license with no time to prep and for a transportation classification you have never driven.

2) The TOEIC scores that were reported in the news were internal placement scores. they have no scores after improvement in the program to be compared to. and they did not report the scores used by the trainees to get into the program in the first place.

there are a lot of other problems/inconsistencies with the news article, but I don't really want to vent publicly about it.

Poet

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

Derrek · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

mithridates · Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:27 am Post subject:

Who makes all the money from administering the TOEIC test?

ThePoet · Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 5:48 pm Post subject:

Derrek,

Remember a couple of months back the Ministry of Education decided it wanted to hire a foreign teacher for every middle and high school in Korea through the ETIK program?

And remember how the Korean public and the Korean teachers said that it would be a waste of resources to do this?

Do you see an agenda from pro-ETIK cabinet ministers looming here?

Poet

Derrek · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

The thing that really irks me no matter what side they argue on is when they say things like, "Most foreign teachers are not qualified."

Totally wrong!

If you have a BA, YOU ARE QUALIFIED to teach English in Korea.

Now who is wrong here? It's not the teachers' fault that Korea sets its barometer lower than everyone else.

If they want to raise their qualifications higher to require, say, a BA in Education with teaching certification, like in the US -- THEN they can argue that most teachers here are not qualified!

But they won't/can't do that. It would mean getting rid of (a guess here) 95% of the people teaching English in Korea. There aren't enough "certified" teachers who would want to come here.

If they start paying 4+ million per month, plus housing, then I'd venture to say a lot more "certified" teachers would come. And I'd be going back home for 1 1/2 years to get my certification!

joe_doufu · Joined: 09 May 2005 Location: Elsewhere