From what I can tell, 17 of the 22 cities and counties in Jeollanam-do have opened English Towns. Suncheon doesn't have one, but one is apparently on the way. I couldn't find any information on Jindo, Shinan, Wando, or Hampyeong counties. You can find a lot of articles---here and here, for example---that talk about how every county and city planned to open them, and when they were set to debut, but often these predictions proved inaccurate.
English Towns are generally staffed by a couple of foreigners and a couple of Korean teachers, and aim to provide English immersion experiences. Students will visit for a day or two and will proceed through a variety of stations that require them to use "real-life" English: at a hotel, for example, or a restaurant, an airport, a bank, a taxi, and so forth. Many of the press releases, and even the titles of the schools themselves, talk about 체험 ("experience") and about exposing students to foreign cuultures. Teachers will see a new set of students every few days, and thus use the same lesson plans over and over for the entire semester.
When I was set to work in Gangjin's English Town, I was told I had to design all the materials for each station. That line of thinking didn't last long, though, because a little while later I was given a set of situational dialogues written by (and stolen from) a Korean teacher at an English Village in Gyeonggi-do, and told we would use these. I proofread them and made changes, although---hahaha, typical---my coteacher didn't apply any of these changes to the dialogues because the Korean teacher who made them didn't agree with my corrections. Didn't really matter, because a little while later I was given a book of dialogues and told to practice them with the students. These were based on a CD-ROM produced by another English Town in Jeollanam-do, starring a Canadian with an expression-less face and an inflection-less voice. Then, eventually, the idea of me working at an English Town was dropped, because its opening was delayed by 18 months.
Anyway, there isn't much firsthand information available about local English Towns. Sadly most foreigners are not interested in sharing their experiences or connecting with the foreign community down here
Here's what I could find, and I would encourage those with firsthand information to share it, either here or on the local message board Waygook.org. Some of the information is dated, but since nothing else has turned up, I've let it stand. I've included citations for the staff lists, although outside of reading the articles and checking the sites I have no way of confirming how accurate these figures are because I have no idea who any of these people are. Most of the external links are in Korean, and only a handful of these English Towns have their own websites. They all look pretty much the same, though, so have a look around the website for the one in Mokpo or Jangheung to get a sense of what these Towns entail.
Boseong English Town (보성영어타운)
* Located at Boseong South Elementary School
* Staff: 1 foreigner, 2 Koreans [here, here]
* Other links: 광주매일신문 article.
Damyang Foreign Language Center (담양외국어체험센터)
* Located at Damyang East Elementary School
* Opened February, 2008 [here]
* Staff: 1 foreigner, 2 Koreans [here]
* Other links: Naver news article.
Gangjin Foreign Language Town (강진외국어타운)
* Official site
* Located on the site of the former Chilryang Elementary School
* Opened March, 2008
* Staff: 3 foreigners, 1 Korean
* Other links: My earlier blog entry.
Goheung English Town (고흥영어타운)
* Opened February, 2007
Gokseong English Town (곡성영어타운)
* Located at Gokseong Central Elementary School
* Opened December, 2006, apparently the 8th English Town in Jeollanam-do [here]
* Staff: 1 foreigner, 1 Korean [here]
* Other links: 나주영상강인터넷방송 article; 데이리NK article; photo (complete with arbitrary spacing).
Gurye Foreign Language Town (구례외국어타운)
* Located at Gurye Central Elementary School
* Opened 2005
* Evidentally also classes in Japanese and Chinese [here]
* Other links: 한국미래신문 article
Gwangyang English Town (광양용강영어타운)
* Official site
* Located at Yonggang Elementary School
* Opened 2004, among the first in the country.
* Staff: 1 American, 1 Korean [here]
* Other links: Photos of 옥곡초교's visit.
Haenam English Town (해남영어타운)
* Located at Haenam East Elementary School
* Opened October, 2005 [here]
Hwasun English Town (화순영어타운)
* Located at Hwasun Elementary School
* Opened October, 2007
* Staff: 2 foreigners, 4 Koreans [here]
* Other links: 화순신문 article; Yonhap article.
Jangheung English Town (장흥영어타운)
* Official site
* Located at Jangheung West Elementary School
* Opened January, 2006
* Staff: 1 Canadian, 1 Filipino, 3 Koreans
Jangseong Foreign Language Town (장성외국어타운)
* Located at Jangseong Central Elementary School
* Opened: February, 2008
* Staff: 2 Koreans, 1 Foreigner [here]
* Other links: 데이리안 article.
Mokpo English Village (목포영어체험마을)
* Official site
* Located inside Mokpo Central Elementary School
* Opened December, 2006
* Staff; 7 foreigners, 5 Koreans
* Other links: Korea Herald article.
Muan English Town (무안영어타운)
* Official site
* Opened November, 2006
* Located at Muan Elementary School
* Staff: 2 Koreans, 1 American
Naju English Town (나주영어타운)
* Opened September, 2006
* Other links: 희망교육 article; a few photos from a Canadian former employee; photos from a class trip here and here; 나주북초교 visits (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
Suncheon English Town
There is no English Town in Suncheon, although one source says one will open in 2010. A meeting was held in February, 2006, among local English teachers and parents where 39.5% of those assembled said an English Town would be a good idea (있으면, 좋을 것 같다) and 37.6% said it is extremely necessary (매우 필요).
Yeongam Foreign Language Center (영암외국어체헙센터 / 영암영어타운)
* Located at Jangcheon Elementary School
* Opened: December, 2007 [here]
* Other links: Various .hwp files available on the 장천초교 bulletin board.
Yeonggwang English Town (영광영어타운)
* Located at Yeonggwang Elementary School
* Opened September, 2005 [here]
* Staff: 1 Caucasian, 1 Filipino, 1 Korean [here]
* More links: Yonhap article; a few remarks from Waygook.org.
Yeosu English Town (여수영어타운)
* Official site
* Located at Yeosu West Elementary School
* Opened December, 2005
* Staff: 2 Canadians, 3 Koreans
* Other links: Blog of two employees.
8 comments:
Just out of interest, why do some centres have foreigners and some mention nationalities?
Also, are all the centres at Elementary Schools? I hear we are opening one up here in Icheon. My one co-teacher attended a meeting, but I haven't heard anything since.
I agree about the people in the rural areas not wanting to do anything. may of them want to either get out of the country or get to Seoul. the rest just do not see how it will help anyone. The children can hardy say hello, so how will this help them if they go there once a month or whatever the time frames would me.
When the nationalities are given, I've written them. But the only time I can figure out their nationalities are if the Towns have their own webpages or if the Town employees are listed on the host school's website. Normally, though, in the Korean news articles it'll just say 원어민교사 x명, or something, so I can't tell. And for the Mokpo one, I didn't write nationalities because there were too many. They're listed on the homepage, along with an introduction from each teacher, so people can check for themselves.
The ones down here, from what I can tell, are all located at elementary schools. The one in Gangjin occupies its own building, on the site of an elementary school that closed.
The ones in Gyeonggi-do---like in Asan or Paju---are huge English Villages, with scores of native speakers. The biggest one down is the one in Mokpo with 7 foreigners.
I don't think the idea of English Towns are necessarily bad . . . students in rural areas generally don't have many opportunities to learn or use English. However, it just looked to me as the ghettoization of English/foreigners by putting them all in one place. The stuff that goes on at an English town is nothing that can't happen in a regular classroom (provided the Korean and foreign staff work together). Hell, in Gangjin there already was an English Only Zone at a local elementary school that had all the same stations as the Town.
But yeah, it does bother me that most foreigners aren't active in sharing information down here. A lot of the collaborative efforts we've tried haven't worked, because people are too selfish and disinterested in helping others. I've grown pretty cynical about the idea of "community" in the past few months or so, and am generally tempted to let people down here to their own devices.
My high school is a five minute walk from the Mokpo English Town. It's a pretty nice facility! I'm friends with several of the staff too. Nice people!
I can say I'm glad I didn't end up working at the Gangjin one.
Hello. Today is the first day of school for me as a teacher in Korea, and aside from some smiling and bowing in the morning, it has been endless hours of surfing the Internet, clicking on all the links that a google search for Guyre turns up, which is where I have been placed, through EPIK. With all the time, I figure I can take a second to update what I know about the English Town situation here in Guyre.
I think I work at mini-English town. I'm not really sure though. There's a sign on the building in Hanguel that says something about "English Experience Center." I know very little Korean thus far and that's how my co-teacher, who speaks so-so English, translated it. It sounds like on Mondays and Tuesdays, a different group of 6th graders from across Guyre county will be coming to my "center" from 9-12. For that time I suppose I should find a way to put the 64-inch HD digital canvasES, "space experience center" rocket ship, laptops, webcams, digital readers, and other piles of money in this room to use. I think the other days I will just be teaching students from Jung Ang Elementary, which is my school, and it's regular 40-minute class sessions, not the three-hour chunks. I may or may not be going to other schools one day a week; I've been told both.
There is a real English town in Guyre. It's outside of town near Jirisan National Park, unattached to a school I believe. One American works there with a co-teacher and I think classes spend the whole day there doing outdoorsy stuff. I've never been but it sounds nice - driving range, tennis courts, etc.
Of course it's only my first day so who knows how many more English towns I might stumble across tomorrow.
GURYE.
I keep spelling it closer to its pronunciation. My bad.
Very interesting, thanks for the comment. It's always neat to hear about foreigners---English teachers or otherwise---out in rural Jeollanam-do. I hope you can find out more information and get yourself acclimated. Are you there five days a week? Do you live near the Town? I know when they wanted me to work at the Gangjin Town I would have had to live out there, in the middle of nowhere in a town of a few hundred without so much as a place to buy water for miles. In hindsight, though . . . eh, would have been an experience, but lonely as hell.
I spent this past winter camp at an English Experience Center like that in Suncheon, and it was all right. Provided the Town is organized---some aren't---it could be pretty good.
I am here five days a week, but it seems like we're only using the center as a center for two days. The center is at Jung Ang Elementary, which is in Gurye town, and I live in Gurye, about a ten minute walk from school. I just posted a little more about my situation on waygook.org.
I've taught down in Goheung gun for 3 years and just stumbled onto your blog.
Goheung Boy's middle school is really well run... the co-teachers are great (with the exception of teh first one who made me feel so worthless I almost left after 2 months) and the "travel schools are pretty hit-or- miss. SOme great...some pretty poor with co-teachers unsure what really to do with us. Almost universally at these "satellite" schools they want to get out of teh classroom as soon as possible and once out are imposssible to come back in even for major class disruptions. Again, I emphasize ALMOST. @ teachers have been great and really trty to work with you and 2 others treat you as a useless appendage getting in the way. I'm really going to miss working here at my main school.
In a few weeks I'm moving up to Damyang and I'll give you teh skinny on what I see there.
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