Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Wisconsinite]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2007/09/117_10750.html

I just read this article and was shocked!! Of course, I have been saying all along that Korea has it all wrong when it comes to training their citizens to speak English. We all know that after working here for a few years. But this is just so wrong both pedagogically and theoretically. First of all, bilingualism is not the problem Bilingual teachers are most effective when the students first language is not strong or they are teaching content. I also think bilingualism is good for grammar teaching when you are teaching out of context. Bilingualism is not effective if 90% of the English language cases in Korea.

Now this is not to diminish bilingual schools that exist throughout the world, that is a different beast altogether and one I fully support. What I don't support is having perhaps unqualified and uneducated in language acquisition teachers being asked to teach. That is what is already wrong with the current systems. Public schools hire Korean teachers that are often lacking in true English skills and have no experiences abroad (this is not always the case, but many times it is) who teach in an antiquated way of rote and skill. They teach completely out of context and the students suffer the fate of poor English. Perhaps the public school does hire native teachers. Many times the native teacher has no background in education much less language acquisition and on top of that is given poor training and asked to walk into a classroom maybe once a week and teach. How will that improve anyone's language skills? If they are going to hire native teachers, hire good, qualified ones and then LET THEM TEACH ENGLISH!!! Don't ask them to play a game once a week to improve pronunciation. Make the partner teaching a true partnership.

This is exactly the reason I would love to get my PhD in English Education at SNU and just try to change it all because whoever is in charge really has no clue.......

disclaimer: I know Daves very well so I am going to say this: Of course I don't mean every public school teacher. I was one and I did a very good job and worked hard with my co teachers. Many times their English was very good and I felt they did a great job. I am more talking about the administration of the native English teacher program and not the teachers themselves.....