Korean Job Discussion Forums

bosintang · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 12:16 am Post subject: Public School Madness

Does it make sense hiring native speakers in public schools? With class sizes of 40-45 students one time a week, with a good percentage of foreign teachers ill-properly trained, why bother? What exactly are you public school teachers accomplishing?

In a country with a lagging economy and high youth unemployment, it would make more sense to me to put young Korean uni grads through English bootcamps and get them up to speed on proper English-teaching certification. If you did that you could phase out native speakers rather than bring in even more, and for the same price you could have at least two Korean English-teachers for the price of one foreign teacher. In the beginning, these teachers could act in much the same role as foreign teachers do now, but over the course of a few years the English curriculum could be refined around them.

Korean public schools could eliminate current contract, visa, and recruiting headaches, and get better value for their money. Leave native speakers for the hagwons and people willing to pay for them.

fidel · Joined: 07 Feb 2003 Location: North Shore NZ

I'll go one further and say remove them from the universities and ban them from every government funded institution including the government itself. Rolling Eyes

Do you work in a public school, and are you

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

schwa · Joined: 18 Jan 2003 Location: Yap

The "young Korean uni grads" would immediately buckle under to the status quo & get sucked into the vortex of present ineffectual practices.

Native speakers in the classroom are making a difference.

plato's republic · Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Location: Ancient Greece

Bosingtang-There's a BIG difference between Korean teachers teaching English and native-english speaking teachers teaching English.
The state of English education in this country is nothing to wax lyrical about, and by increasing the number of Korean english teachers and decreasing the number of native-english speaking teachers i hardly think you're going to improve the situation.
And how exactly would the English curriculum be 'refined' around them? I think they would just end up teaching a new language....'Konglish'.

Rock · Joined: 25 Feb 2005

This sounds like one of those defeatist replies. What's the use? Really, are we of anyvalue?

Take it lightly, these streneous work loads. No, you're probably not making a great contribution, but in my eyes, you are making some.

You've got all the everyday colloquilisms down to a tee. A non-native speaker couldn't pick up on this. The Korean kids wouldn't be as interested in a Korean English teacher, let alone feel challenged to speak English. Your presence is benefitting the Korean English teachers, some of those more proficient. And you can offer them some creative means to learn English, more than a textbook can or a Korean.

The majority of students, or staff, want English teachers. We're there to bring them-the kids-out of the dark ages of learning English.

bosintang · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 4:49 am Post subject:

Daechidong Waygookin · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 4:51 am Post subject:

coolsage · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 5:02 am Post subject:

Believe it or not, we do make a difference. If one stays here long enough, progress can be seen. As important as proficiency is confidence in using English, and Korean speakers of English evaluate their own competency by their ability to converse with native speakers.

bosintang · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 5:14 am Post subject:

I'm combining a bunch of responses here...

bosintang · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 5:16 am Post subject:

Daechidong Waygookin · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 5:20 am Post subject:

jajdude · Joined: 18 Jan 2003

I believe the main thing is to expose them to foreigners, not just English. Let them get used to being in the same room as a foreigner, because they may never do so before uni or later. Hell, met a few adults who had never met a foreigner before. Could barely say hello, did not know how to act to a non-Confucian. That was an education I guess.
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PS... More than 5 out of 10 dislike DW, and perhaps more even read his junk.

Daechidong Waygookin · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 5:25 am Post subject:

d503 · Joined: 16 Oct 2004 Location: Daecheong, Seoul

I think aside from the English teaching part of what foriegn teachers do in public school, which may not be the most effective or efficient way of teaching English there are other benefits.

Foriegn teachers expose the children to:
1. foriegn teachers
2. foriegn teaching practices (meaning that if they go abroad they will be a little more familiar with what to expect)
3. Different accents-an important part of learning any langauge is learning to understand it through the accent of the place you are at
4. Current usage-a native speaker is always going to be more on top of the current way the language is spoken, because it is more natural for them to assimilate this new knowledge

In a country where the amount of exposure a child will get in their life to a non-Korean is almost neglidgible I think it is very important to have foriegners teach...if anything to break the stereotypes they get from tv programs and movies