Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Corporal]

Over the past month I have encountered four different Korean women who live in my neighborhood, all of whom have introduced themselves out of the blue to me and, whilst exchanging pleasantries, have announced that they teach English. In their own homes, usually in the afternoons, mostly to kindergarten age kids but also some elementary.

This is great, and props to them for doing something besides making hubby's million and one side dishes or whatever it is that married Korean women do during the day, BUT...here's the thing. Their English is terrible. I mean really bad. It's not just the heavy accent and not knowing the occasional obscure vocab word. "Where come from?" or "Your baby how old are you?" do not display an acceptable level of English competency in my books.

Now, some might say, who cares? If these women's neighbours are willing to pay for little Min-Su to be out of their hair for an afternoon and maybe learn her ABCs on the side, (for it's certain they can handle at least THAT), who am I to say it's a bad idea? Perhaps it is just that ol' Corporal judgmentalism coming out in me again, but I thought it was odd that they should make such a big deal out of being English teachers, and then not understand many of my simply phrased, carefully enunciated questions or comments. Especially considering the Korean need to save face.

Just something I was thinking about today.

[Cthulhu]

I'm surprised. Most of my students who did English teaching or tutoring were pretty ashamed to say so. Ajuma pride, I suppose. Just be careful about crossing swords with them (i.e., appearing to take students from them). They might become nasty...

[weatherman]

Teaching in Korea has nothing to do with being trained. It all in the belief that that person is a teacher. Anyways, the birds in your apartment block know what to teach, so as to seem that little Min-su is learning. "Hey, Ma.. I'm learnin'!" The grammar-translation method takes no skills.

[rapier]

Good luck to them, times are hard and if their ingenuity can earn them some bucks, why not. Many Koreans can't afford greedy native tutors at the moment.
If they're teaching only kinder/elementary, so long as they can get the very basics across, its a valuable service.
God knows its hard enough for foreigners to teach this much to KG kids, and at that level, Korean teachers probably do a better job of it.
Once the kids get older/reach a higher level, they'll need a native though, if only for correct pronunciation.

[Derrek]

That's all OK -- par for the course.

A few of the Korean "English Teachers" at my old hagwon could barely speak it, either.

Welcome to Korea.

Personally, the thing that makes me laugh is the testing system here. TOEIC is a joke (is that how you spell it? *laugh*). Many people have high scores and get a job based on that -- but can barely communicate, while others I know can converse with me very well, but their scores suck.

Totally backwards. Well, thanks to Koreans thinking like Koreans, we Westerners don't have to worry about them being any sort of competition in the world political arena anytime soon.

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

[sandstorm]

These Korean women are teaching youngsters. Give them (the women) an intermediate level English reading comprehension test with some multiple choice questions and I bet they'd breeze through it. Speaking is the most difficult thing when learning another language. I have a very basic level of Korean and my speaking is really bad, but I think I'd be able to teach a five year old the Korean alpahabet (pronunciation very bad ) and some basic vocab and grammar. Give them a break! In a few years, the "correct accent" thing is not going to be important in the scheme of global english at all. Let them make their few bucks on the side.

[Saxiif]

[Skarp]

Ideally - teachers should be trained to a certain level in teaching language AND have a certain minimum level in the language. Native speaker level is much higher than actually necessary. Anybody with advanced or upper intermediate level is good enough for most purposes.

This baby sitting/English class does no real harm, I'm sure.

It's a racket, but so I gather is the hakwan business, so are the Universities.

Skarp

[bucheon bum]

During the year I've been at my hogwon, we've had at least one teacher who could not hold a conversation in english beyond the basic greetings and convo. Most of the time it was only one of the 3 teachers, but for a couple months, 2 of them were awful. Thankfully one left so now its back to 1 bad english speaking teacher.

The kids still manage to learn at least. What drives me nuts is when they totally mispronounce a word and when I correct them, they inform me that the Korean teacher taught them that. When I politely say she's wrong, the kids still insist that it is the right way to say the word. Yeah ok guys, its my native tongue and yet the Korean teacher, who is poor at English, can say a word the right way, while I cannot .

[Seoultrader]

[rapier]

Yeah, be careful when bursting some "english pro's" bubble. My Director claimed to know more about some aspects of the English language than me- and he'd never even left the country. I started to argue , then realised it was more important to let him save face as other staff were there. His English classes were an abomination.

[Homer]

Corporal,

How do you survive here?

[Cthulhu]

[VanIslander]

I am English teacher. Here me roar: SOME is better than NONE as long as ONE doesn't do MORE.

My high school French class in Canada was taught be a prairie hick who couldn't even pronounce the 'r' and resented those who could.