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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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 Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 9:49 pm Post subject: Pt 1 of a half-assed decent article by KH reporter Gelken |
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http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/archives/result_contents.asp?id=200608090054&query=school
There's not much in here that wouldn't be obvious to most of us, but at least this article addresses a few of the basic issues teachers at bad schools find. I wonder if the reporter knows that most of us who have been in Korea for a little while have actually found fairly decent jobs and like the place, all in all.
We'll see what next week's completion of this article entails. |
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buymybook
Joined: 21 Feb 2005
Location: Telluride
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 12:23 am Post subject: |
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| Crap article, said practically nothing. It certainly didn't state the true/complete "other side." |
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Otus
Joined: 09 Feb 2006
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 1:24 am Post subject: |
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Depending on what comes next, this may be as good as it gets and it has gone further than anything else I've read in the mainstream media. The first two opening sentences: 'Immature and completely unprepared to face the realities of life or or a victimized group with solid grievances? It depends on who you ask really' presented a rather narrowing dichotomy (almost an either / or fallacy) and it kind of framed the remainder of what was said.
I've known of enough cases involving people with a wealth of travel and work experience coming too Korea and getting shafted within a short period of time. Perhaps unduely ignorant of cultural dynamics here, but certainly not immature and completely unprepared. More research on the sectors of society many of the ESL teachers actually come from might be required. |
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SuperHero
Joined: 10 Dec 2003
Location: Superhero Hideout
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 2:53 am Post subject: |
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| it's a piece of shite. |
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Tiberious aka Sparkles
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 4:25 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Unofficial figures estimate there are at least twice that number of undocumented and unqualified foreigners working as teachers in Korean schools |
Balderdash.
_*_ |
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Grotto
Joined: 21 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:33 am Post subject: |
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| makes you wonder where he gets his information doesnt it! |
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chronicpride
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:34 am Post subject: |
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It's impossible to peg the illegal teacher number. There are over 3 million tourist visas issued every year. Also, given that there are over 200,000 factory workers from 3rd world countries, I wouldn't be surprised if at least 5000 of them spoke good enough half-assed english to teach the kids of their factory foremen for 10,000won/hr, if that. Then you've got all the GI spouses and kids, families of the 80,000+ business, embassy staff. 20,000 here on student visas. That's a lot of potential moonlighters there.
But, people form their beliefs solely around the idea of how many scruffy backpackers there are teaching and think 'well, shucks, I've only met one illegal teacher in my two years, so there can't be very much' or vice versa. |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 7:14 am Post subject: |
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| chronicpride wrote: |
It's impossible to peg the illegal teacher number. There are over 3 million tourist visas issued every year. Also, given that there are over 200,000 factory workers from 3rd world countries, I wouldn't be surprised if at least 5000 of them spoke good enough half-assed english to teach the kids of their factory foremen for 10,000won/hr, if that. Then you've got all the GI spouses and kids, families of the 80,000+ business, embassy staff. 20,000 here on student visas. That's a lot of potential moonlighters there.
But, people form their beliefs solely around the idea of how many scruffy backpackers there are teaching and think 'well, shucks, I've only met one illegal teacher in my two years, so there can't be very much' or vice versa. |
But the line Tibs quotes above specifically mentions "Korean schools", not hagwons or factories. (I didn't read the article -- maybe you're talking about some other figure.) So as many thousands of potential illegal teachers there may be, each school needs only to verify that one or however few foreigners they hire are legal. Is the article suggesting that Korea's _schools_ are as shady as hagwons? Or when it says "schools", does it mean institutes, actual schools, and all other places English teachers might work? |
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dbee
Joined: 29 Dec 2004
Location: korea
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:22 am Post subject: |
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| Only in Korea, the future 'hub of Asia', where learning of English is high on the list of national priorities. Could they think of making the teaching of English to someone an act worthy of deportation and incarceration. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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| JongnoGuru wrote: |
| chronicpride wrote: |
It's impossible to peg the illegal teacher number. There are over 3 million tourist visas issued every year. Also, given that there are over 200,000 factory workers from 3rd world countries, I wouldn't be surprised if at least 5000 of them spoke good enough half-assed english to teach the kids of their factory foremen for 10,000won/hr, if that. Then you've got all the GI spouses and kids, families of the 80,000+ business, embassy staff. 20,000 here on student visas. That's a lot of potential moonlighters there.
But, people form their beliefs solely around the idea of how many scruffy backpackers there are teaching and think 'well, shucks, I've only met one illegal teacher in my two years, so there can't be very much' or vice versa. |
But the line Tibs quotes above specifically mentions "Korean schools", not hagwons or factories. (I didn't read the article -- maybe you're talking about some other figure.) So as many thousands of potential illegal teachers there may be, each school needs only to verify that one or however few foreigners they hire are legal. Is the article suggesting that Korea's _schools_ are as shady as hagwons? Or when it says "schools", does it mean institutes, actual schools, and all other places English teachers might work? |
By 'school' I think he means all types of teaching institutes. |
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chronicpride
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 1:03 pm Post subject: |
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| JongnoGuru wrote: |
| chronicpride wrote: |
It's impossible to peg the illegal teacher number. There are over 3 million tourist visas issued every year. Also, given that there are over 200,000 factory workers from 3rd world countries, I wouldn't be surprised if at least 5000 of them spoke good enough half-assed english to teach the kids of their factory foremen for 10,000won/hr, if that. Then you've got all the GI spouses and kids, families of the 80,000+ business, embassy staff. 20,000 here on student visas. That's a lot of potential moonlighters there.
But, people form their beliefs solely around the idea of how many scruffy backpackers there are teaching and think 'well, shucks, I've only met one illegal teacher in my two years, so there can't be very much' or vice versa. |
But the line Tibs quotes above specifically mentions "Korean schools", not hagwons or factories. (I didn't read the article -- maybe you're talking about some other figure.) So as many thousands of potential illegal teachers there may be, each school needs only to verify that one or however few foreigners they hire are legal. Is the article suggesting that Korea's _schools_ are as shady as hagwons? Or when it says "schools", does it mean institutes, actual schools, and all other places English teachers might work? |
Oh, ok, I overlooked that they were just talking about schools and not inclusive of all the people doing privates.
If the guy is saying that there are twice as many illegals teaching in hagwons and public schools as there are E2s, I call total BS on that, for sure. 13,000 E2s and 26,000 illegals teaching in the same schools? If that was the case, this board would be busting at the seams with all the threads about illegal teachers encroaching on legal teachers turf. With that many illegals in hogwans, you'd hear newbs say stuff like 'hmm...how come my lucky co-worker gets to do visa runs every 3 months, while I got stuck with this 1 year visa crap?' or 'hmm...I work 30 hrs a week at my school and two other guys show up for 10 hrs a week each..what gives?', 'hey, you too? Same things going on at my school.", "Hey, yeah, me too."
Unofficial figures, my ass. Investigative journalism, my ass.  |
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EdInstead
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Tiberious aka Sparkles wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Unofficial figures estimate there are at least twice that number of undocumented and unqualified foreigners working as teachers in Korean schools |
Balderdash.
_*_ |
And where do you get your figures? |
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EdInstead
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:23 pm Post subject: |
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| chronicpride wrote: |
| JongnoGuru wrote: |
| chronicpride wrote: |
It's impossible to peg the illegal teacher number. There are over 3 million tourist visas issued every year. Also, given that there are over 200,000 factory workers from 3rd world countries, I wouldn't be surprised if at least 5000 of them spoke good enough half-assed english to teach the kids of their factory foremen for 10,000won/hr, if that. Then you've got all the GI spouses and kids, families of the 80,000+ business, embassy staff. 20,000 here on student visas. That's a lot of potential moonlighters there.
But, people form their beliefs solely around the idea of how many scruffy backpackers there are teaching and think 'well, shucks, I've only met one illegal teacher in my two years, so there can't be very much' or vice versa. |
But the line Tibs quotes above specifically mentions "Korean schools", not hagwons or factories. (I didn't read the article -- maybe you're talking about some other figure.) So as many thousands of potential illegal teachers there may be, each school needs only to verify that one or however few foreigners they hire are legal. Is the article suggesting that Korea's _schools_ are as shady as hagwons? Or when it says "schools", does it mean institutes, actual schools, and all other places English teachers might work? |
Oh, ok, I overlooked that they were just talking about schools and not inclusive of all the people doing privates.
If the guy is saying that there are twice as many illegals teaching in hagwons and public schools as there are E2s, I call total BS on that, for sure. 13,000 E2s and 26,000 illegals teaching in the same schools? If that was the case, this board would be busting at the seams with all the threads about illegal teachers encroaching on legal teachers turf. With that many illegals in hogwans, you'd hear newbs say stuff like 'hmm...how come my lucky co-worker gets to do visa runs every 3 months, while I got stuck with this 1 year visa crap?' or 'hmm...I work 30 hrs a week at my school and two other guys show up for 10 hrs a week each..what gives?', 'hey, you too? Same things going on at my school.", "Hey, yeah, me too."
Unofficial figures, my ass. Investigative journalism, my ass. |
The illegals aren't in public schools. Their main source of income comes from adults schools, kiddie-hagwons, company work, recruiter outsourcing of company work, etc.
I've heard that some pretty solid estimates given by immigration to Korean newspapers is that the figure is as high as 20,000 illegals. This information was given by them based on the numbers of tourist visa renewals, and the belief that people were renewing the tourist visas for illegal work purposes.
And what makes this such a shit article? I think some people in this thread are still trying to call all articles written by this guy as shit just because he ticked you off by what he wrote about this board recently. |
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EdInstead
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:28 pm Post subject: Re: Pt 1 of a half-assed decent article by KH reporter Gelke |
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| Yu_Bum_suk wrote: |
wonder if the reporter knows that most of us who have been in Korea for a little while have actually found fairly decent jobs and like the place, all in all.
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You like your job now. But let's see how happy you are in a few years when you find they won't up your salary, and the gov't starts messing around with your contract.
I've seen it time and time again: teachers so thrilled with a great job, saying Korea is so wonderful. Then they end up hitting a wall when a rough contract time comes, and the game is changed on them.
Then, suddenly, Korea isn't so shiny and exciting.
In six months to a year, we'll probably be hearing you say, "I worked hard, taught well, was loved, and even took students on trips out of the country. But they won't even give me a raise, and only increased my hours!"
Best of luck to you in keeping a great thing going, though. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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| dbee wrote: |
| Only in Korea, the future 'hub of Asia', where learning of English is high on the list of national priorities. Could they think of making the teaching of English to someone an act worthy of deportation and incarceration. |
Dodging taxation is the issue. |
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