Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crashlanding]

"Antagonism between well qualified local teachers and under-qualified foreigners" is one of the "Results of importing young native speakers in China, Japan, Korea" that will be highlighted by an internationally recognized British scholar who has been paid to give a conference talk in Seoul later this year.

I've thankfully left South Korea and will never go back, but an email jumped into my inbox about Robert Phillipson, who has written books about "language imperialism" and who has been invited to speak about English language teaching. Phillipson is a professor at the Copenhagen School of Business and he has worked for decades fighting the tide of native speaker teachers and promoting instead local, non-native speakers teaching English because of their superior confidence.

Phillipson was kind enough to email me the Powerpoint for his presentation. The quotes above are from slide 36. Here are other quotes from that slide:

"Proof of the incompetence of local decision-makers who are responsible for such policies"
"Proof of the opportunism, economic and political of organizations in the UK, Australia, USA, Canada supplying models of an Anglo-American way of life rather than appropriately qualified teachers."

Again, as I've said I've left South Korea (and I wasn't really an EFL teacher per se, so this isn't really an issue for me), but my heart really does go out to all of you guys who are struggling in that filthy, angry place. I wanted all of you to know what's going on.

I'm not well versed in Korea politics, but I've been told Phillipson is being used as a pawn by certain political groups to give international credence to the growing anti-English movement in the upper echelons of Korean society, and his presentation will probably be used to cut budgets to hire native speakers in public schools and encourage Korean universities to abandon English-language instruction.

I imagine the lower middle class of South Korea will suffer the most from this. For them, linguistic talent and the drive to learn English are collectively one of the few socioeconomic equalizers in a deeply unfair and hierarchical society.

I have a copy of his speech and Powerpoint presentation if anyone's interested. Just PM me.

[Zackback]

I have met plenty of Korean teachers with "superior confidence" but their English pronunciation was far from superior.

[some waygug-in]

It's been a long time coming.

There's arguments to be made for both sides in this issue.

No point in re-hashing it all again.

[newb]

Korean moms will decide, but not another whitey who's from an English speaking country.

[Malislamusrex]

Phillipson just hates capitalism and wants to live in his perceived perfect socialist society. His agenda is more anti West than anything to do with teaching. If he likes communism so much he should go to North Korea.

[Seoulman69]

[edwardcatflap]

[nero]

[crashlanding]

[transmogrifier]