Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Smee]

From the EPIK website:

[air76]

12 out of 50-some thousand? I would hardly see this as the writing on the wall.

Personally I have no problem with it...if Indians and Filipinos can do the job just as well as we can for less money why shouldn't they be allowed to come and do it? This is the free market system at work. If anything, it would push all of the non-teachers to improve their skills, get more training, and move up into the better positions.

I believe that any experienced and qualified teacher who wishes to stay in Korea will have a job guaranteed to them for as long as they'd like and that the salaries for these better jobs will not be affected by an influx of non-native English teachers. Overall most Korean employers (schools) will prefer to have true native speakers anyhow, and most of the jobs taken by Indians and Filipinos will be the entry level positions that would have been filled by any Joe-shmoe with a degree, a face, and the right passport.

I don't understand how people can possibly have this "they're taking our jobs" attitude....why do you deserve the job simply because you are from the UK, USA, Canada, or wherever?? And really what it boils down to for a lot of people is that you're saying you deserve to keep these jobs because you are white. I am not saying that this is what the OP is saying, but I think that it's comical that a lot of people are working in Korea, which is not their home country, and then complain that they might lose their job to someone from another country. Competition is good for everyone, except for the lazy and the talentless.

[dumpring]

All power to them, but I fear they're going to catch hell from students/student's parents.

[Smee]

I don't think it's 12 out of 50,000 . . . it's 12 out of a few hundred, or however many EPIK can afford to hire this time.

I also don't see it as fear of them taking jobs, though I do think eventually NSETs will be out of public schools. The problem I have is that native speaker English teachers were imported with little thought or planning, were thus of course set up to fail without really being given a chance. I don't think native English speakers necessarily make the best English teachers . . . but Korea wasn't after teachers, they were after native English speakers, so any subsequent talk about "qualifications" is stupid since the government and schools determined them.

[misher]

[furtakk]

[AsiaESLbound]

A control subject group to determine how their qualities meet the need vs. their lower cost analysis?

[PatrickGHBusan]

This is a test run.

If it works out this is one of the potential results:

Indian English Teachers would cost less (for now). There would also be quite a few with Education degrees or even ESL-EFL related degrees as well as certified educators.

So...cheaper and on paper better qualified than surfer boy Tom with a BA in Liberal Arts and East Coast Jane with her BA in sociology...

That is just one potential outcome.

[marlow]

[Troglodyte]

If they simply added India (or other countries) to the list of "English countries" whose citizens can get the E2 visa, then I really don't see it as a problem for the rest of us.

Even if the people that they are giving E2 visa to are not native speakers, I don't see a problem. I totally agree that people who have formally learned a language likely know more about the language and have a better ability to teach it than the average native speakers, but what it comes right down to at the end of the day is that Koreans don't think that way. They think that if you aren't a native speaker, you'll never be as fluent as or speak as correctly as a native speaker. They also want to learn what they consider a mainstream variety/dialect/accent of English, usually American, but also British or Australian.

I also don't see how it would improve the situation for the students. Are Indians really that much better educated than Americans or Australians? Are there that many more people in India with an ELT certification or training than in South Africa?

If immigration completely did away with their list of countries which they consider English speaking countries I doubt that we'd see an large influx of NETs from other countries. Sure, there would be an increase, but I doubt it would be anything drastic. Why not? Because the hogwans will still only want teachers from certain countries. Look at Taiwan. They hire non-native speaker foreign English teachers but still the majority of foreign English teachers are from the same places as in Korea. What you MIGHT see is an increase in shady hogwans hiring Russians, other east Europeans and South Americans, paying them less and getting the teacher to lie to the students about where they are from (i.e. they are from America or Canada). Think it wouldn't happen? Think again. It already does. Only difference is that now the teachers are working on a tourist visa.

[PatrickGHBusan]

[ontheway]

[Seoulio]

[Senior]

[marlow]