Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rws5501]

I have seen posts that have lambasted US citizens for teaching in Korea. Is this a new thing? I am coming over in 4 - 6 weeks and am just curious. Was the Korean teaching gig a Euro or Canadian thing in the past? What makes these ethnicities more qualified to teach?

[Carla]

[rws5501]

Again, why? There has to be a reason. If we all are native tounged english speaking people. It feeds into the fact that everyone is inferior to americans. Why? I am from the US and cannot understand this. Why would someone want to hire me because of my nationality over someone who has more experience. Is it the accent?

[Carla]

[iggyb]

I came into Korea just as the explosion in ESL with native speakers was happening. When there weren't so many schools (hakwons) with native speakers, most seemed to be Americans - which makes sense given the long, close relation between the two.

Within a couple of years, say around 1998, as the market mushroomed, it became a Canadian thing. The American economy was going well and it was harder for Canadian college grads to find a job. Most of the Americans you found in Korea were there for experience and travel while many Canadians were there for that and to have a job.

By the time I left the ESL market in 2000, the economic troubles in Korea and the general way in which TESOLers were mistreated had given ESL in Korea a very bad name. You started to see a lot more fake degrees and people from New Zealand coming in.

(Before anybody starts -- that is not a slam of NZ. They just weren't accepted much in the ESL industry before it got harder to find Americans and Canadians willing to risk falling into one of the common ESL horror stories).

I can't speak for what has been going on between 2000 and now. I was back in Korea for 2002-2003 but not connected to the ESL industry.

I have noticed more people from the England and Ireland posting on the Korea expat-related sites...

As for Carla's statement, like I said on another post, it isn't right that Koreans have long believed the American accent and English were key and were prejudiced against non-American native speakers.

But, if you look at the TESOL world outside of Asia, you'll see that British English has (had) LONG held a dominate position.

And it was not simply the preference of the consumers for it that drove the preference -- it was codified.

In the US, we have no official, standard American dialect. The TV news anchors and actors try to pick up the Midwest accent, but it is not codified like I believe it is in the UK.

And while Korean schools have a preference for American English, it is not a statutory law or act as such as it does in other ESL markets outside of Asia.

For example, when I studied in France for a semester, I did a language exchange with a French girl, and she said her university made students pick between two different study tracks: American English or British English with most picking British. That makes sense given geography, but it codifies the preference, no?

Before I came to Korea in the mid-1990s, I looked at the TESOL opportunities around the world.

As I remember it, East Asia was almost only region with a sizable ESL community that did not state a direct preference for British English and only hire for British English. And back then, China wasn't really much of a choice in ESL unless you wanted it to be like a Peace Corps gig.

At least in Japan and Korea, people from the UK, NZ, and Australia can join the market...

[Carla]

[rws5501]

Iggyb, very well worded. I am very careful about what I do and I just want a chance.

[bassexpander]

You think it's bad now?

You should have seen it a few years back.

[iggyb]

I know Kyopos and other Korean-American/Canadian/Whatever and other TESOLers are often at each others throats - and at times for good reason in individual cases ---

--- but I think they were the ones who got screwed the most in the past when it came to accent prejudices.

I don't know how much the F series visa has changed that...

Back in the day, as my American high school students say, it was hardest for native-speaking English language Koreans to get a job than any other group (with the possible exception of black people in many regions), because Korean adults simply would not believe a Korean born in or raised from an early age in an English speaking country would speak English exactly like any other native speaker.

That was a step or two beyond a misguided preference for British vs Aussie vs American/Canadian accent...

[Carla]

[polonius]

[Big Mac]

[iggyb]

I'm from Georgia, and I have an accent that people in Atlanta make note of, and I was asked once or twice about trying to pronounce certain words differently - like the number 10 - but only once or twice and they accepted when I told them "No."

Newfoundland? Pretty much every Canadian teacher I came across in Korea in the late 1990s was from Newfoundland. I think I only worked with 1 out of about 10 Canadians that wasn't...

My standard response to all this when teaching in Korea was that -- Americans don't think in terms of "standard dialect" unlike the Brits. There are so many different immigrant groups in the country and that have shaped different areas of the country, and the country is so large, accents are not a big deal ---- just being able to communicate is all that is needed.

So, no, I'm not going to stop pronouncing 10 and "tin"...

[lifeinkorea]

I worked in Japan, and students wanted Britons. Schools wanted Australians because they could exploit them more. Here in Korea, it's Americans.

I have seen some exclusive sounding groups both in Japan and Korea which are Canadian based.

I don't see one being better or worse than the others.

[wesharris]