Korean Job Discussion Forums

Moldy Rutabaga · Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Location: Ansan, Korea

http://english.kbs.co.kr/news/newsview_sub.php?key=1005070410&menu=4
The Korean version of the page is more informative, if anyone can read it. The full story was on the news last night at 9 and this morning also. It is a story questioning the abilities of Koreans who teach English in public schools.

KBS came to our university last week wanting to interview people for a "feature" on my department's ESL program of skills upgrading for Korean English teachers. I suspected the worst, and it is the worst. Similar to the documentary from this spring hatcheting foreign teachers, this one names nine Korean English teachers whose TOEIC scores dropped at the end of the program and generalizes it to mean that all Korean English teachers and the people who instruct them in ESL programs are incompetent. Nice work. One person interviewed about the "shocking" quality of English teachers in the public system owns a private English institute. Good unbiased evidence, guys.

My bosses are nice people and feel terrible. I realize that this is not directly about foreigners, and certainly there are poor Korean teachers of English, but the fact that this is yet another slam against English in Korea in the media, and against my students who do try hard to improve themselves, is a little sickening. Just thought people would want to know.

Ken:>

rapier · Joined: 16 Feb 2003

I thought it was about Qinella bringing porn into his school.

It is so obviously a government-condoned hatchet job aimed at finishing off what tiny credibility hagwons had left.

Wrench · Joined: 07 Apr 2005

They should really do an interview with the Korean teachers that teach English. Now thats a joke.

FUBAR · Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Location: The Y.C.

ulsanchris · Joined: 19 Jun 2003 Location: take a wild guess

I don't see any mention of foreign teachers in there.

rok_the-boat · Joined: 24 Jan 2004

My previous univ. ran a summer program. We evaluated the students at the beginning and at the end and many fared worse. There were a couple of obvious reasons why though.

1 We taught conversation but the test was written - Doh!
2 The students took the first evaluation test seriously as they wanted to get in a good class. They were slack on the final evaluation as it meant nothing to them.

Sometimes, you just have to wonder the at stupidity of the system, like, the inability of people to spot obvious problems.

Paji eh Wong · Joined: 03 Jun 2003

jazblanc77 · Joined: 22 Feb 2004

On a related note, there was a very interesting news piece the other day (can't remember the channel now), which was all about the biased, poorly researched, tabloid styled, and ill-informed reporting which is so common in Korea these days. It talked about how reporters are just picking up sensational stories for ratings and don't do the legwork to make sure that everything they say checks out. They also talked about the effects of the 20 million Korean blogs on the media and on public opinion such that the influence is appallingly high. I don't believe foreigners were ever mentionned but, nonetheless, it is good that such observations are coming out on the airwaves.