Korean Job Discussion Forums

TECO · Joined: 20 Jan 2003

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/apr/15/yehey/top_stories/20050415top9.html

Apparantly a lot of Korean EFL students study in the Philippines.

Then come home with fake degrees that they buy there!

ajuma · Joined: 18 Feb 2003 Location: Anywere but Seoul!!

You're starting to act like RR! Laughing

TECO · Joined: 20 Jan 2003

Ajuma,

I dig what you're saying but...

I read this stuff that I find on google news related to EFL and figure there are other TEFL'ers here who might also find it interesting.

Yrs.
Teco

Real Reality · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Location: Seoul

Derrek · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

I've always told my students to go study English in the Phils. They can get private lessons there for like 3,000 won per hour.

And many Philippinos speak excellent English.

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

One of our kids just came back from a year in the Phillipines, having had two years of hogwan before that, and her conversational English is better than her KT. Not that that's saying much.

thorin · Joined: 14 Apr 2003

$15,000 for a fake diploma? Couldn't you get the real thing in the Phillipines for like half that?

crazylemongirl · Joined: 23 Mar 2003 Location: almost there...

one of my best students goes down there during vacation...

TECO · Joined: 20 Jan 2003

I just remembered this story as I was reading this thread again.

A couple of months ago one of my adult female students here in Taipei told me that she wanted to quit her job and travel - and learn English. But she told me that she didn't have that much money.

I told her that she could go to the Philippines (CEBU for example) or Singapore to study English. I told her that a lot of Japanese and Koreans study EFL in these countries and that it would be a heck of a lot cheaper than the U.S., U.K. or even Australia.

She told me that she didn't like Philippines and that she would never study English there or even want to go there. She also seemed surprised that they would have English conversation schools in the Philippines.

I asked why she felt so strongly against the Philippines. She told me that they had 'dark skin' and that they were 'dirty.'

I couldn't beleive my ears!

I didn't say much except just listen to make sure I understood her right.

I asked her what she meant by 'dirty' and she said their skin looks dirty and and that they were 'poor' and 'uneducated.'

She expressed similiar disdain towards the Thais, as well, for the same kind of reasons.

I think I kind of figured some of this out, though.

The Taiwanese, generally speaking, look down on folks from the Philippines and Thailand. They hire tens of thousands of Thais and Filippinos to do a lot of the local grunt work here in Taiwan - cooking, cleaning, looking after the kids, construction work, etc.

I've also found that many of the Taiwanese don't seem to dig the Koreans either but the Japanese are okay.

Col.Brandon · Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Location: Seoul

My Korean GF studied in the Phillipines for a while. Biggest aspect for her was potential problems with personal safety, and lack of food hygiene.

squat toilet · Joined: 08 Mar 2005

There is an office girl here at my company who studied English in the Philippines for 2 years.

Finally, after 6 months of her getting red-faced and running away whenever I tried speaking to her, she said to me yesterday in the coffee room, "Copy Gwood."

Her parents must be ecstatic about the coin they dropped to edumicate her konglish speaking ass.

Derrek · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

Don't knock the phils... a lot of the people there have received an excellent education and have a strong work ethic.

I would have no problem hiring a filipino person who graduated from a good University there.

TECO · Joined: 20 Jan 2003

I used to know a Canadian guy here in Taipei who worked for a buxiban. All the teachers at his schoold didn't get their contracts renewed.

The Taiwanese owner of the buxiban decided that he'd hire all Filippinos to staff the school and teach English, wile paying them much less.

some waygug-in · Joined: 25 Jan 2003

I think that if Koreans didn't have such a disdain for "dark-skinned" people such as filipinos or others, a lot of us would find ourselves out of work or working for substantially less. Shocked

I'm not saying I agree with it, just saying.

mithridates · Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 3:18 am Post subject:

There's a definate contradiction in the "English is the world language" and "English can only be taught by people from seven recognized countries" way of thinking. I've never been able to figure that one out.