Song also stressed that Korean teachers should replace native English-speaking teachers as soon as possible. "Currently, only 20.5 percent of native English speaking teachers (at schools) have teaching licenses (according to data from the Education Ministry, November 2008), so it is urgent for us to foster teachers who have excellent English proficiency," Song said.
"The native speakers are not qualified and are often involved in sexual harassment and drugs."
This was posted to Gusts of Popular Feeling, which rightly points out it was written by Kang Shin-who, the worst journalist in Korea's English-language press. He links to a post I did in June, bringing into question some of the controversial comments the head of the International Graduate School of English said about native speaker English teachers. Here's what Park Nam-sheik was quoted as saying in the Times in April:
The president [Park Nam-sheik] stressed that a teaching license doesn't mean competence as an English teacher. ``Schools should open their doors more to those who can speak English well. Still many teachers are opposing to give opportunities to English teachers without teaching certificates to teach students at public schools,'' Park said. At the same time, he was very pessimistic about the increasing number of foreign English teachers from the U.S., Canada and the U.K.
``Most of the native English speakers don't have much affection toward our children because they came here to earn money and they often cause problems,'' Park said. ``If we need native English speakers, it would be better inviting young ethnic Koreans who have hometowns here. Also, we have to invite qualified English teachers from India, Malaysia and the Philippines as English is not a language only for Americans and British people.''
``Above all, we should produce qualified teachers who can replace native English speakers. I can assure you our school will produce such teachers,'' he added.
This post provides some commentary on that, and I have it on pretty good authority that Kang twisted and even fabricated some of what's attributed to Park.
I most recently brought up Kang Shin-who on the 13th, when Professor Douglas Gress of Seoul National University claimed Kang distorted what he said in an interview about foreign professors and their hardships at that university.
And Gusts of Popular Feeling links to another of his own posts:
Another article by Kang from March this year has the supervisor of the Incheon education office, Koo Young-sun, on record saying that, "Many foreign teachers lack teaching methodology and some of them are not ethically qualified to treat children." A Yonhap article on the same topic (in Korean) has no mention of these controversial statements from the supervisor.
So either the people in charge of English education and its development in Korea are terribly ignorant, or some journalists feel compelled to create such a belief. Either way, it doesn't help us. I've written several times that there's a profound ignorance among many Koreans about who native speaker English teachers are and what they do, and articles like this, articles that perpetuate this ignorance, are dangerous. University presidents, or plenary speakers at KOTESOL conferences, can get a round of applause by pointing out how bad native speaker English teachers can be, but perhaps it would be more useful to point out just how broken the system is, just how many "unqualified" Korean "English" teachers there are, how the system sets up native speaker English teachers to fail, and that South Korea has decided not to make certificates and other "qualifications" necessary in its quest for quantity over quality.
I'd encourage you to browse the "English in the news" category for more about, well, English in the local news.
43 comments:
Yes Brian. The English education system is as broken as my G.I. Joes from 1986.
Today my coteacher told me the students were bored with a long power point about illnesses. Then after the next class told me that I went to fast and they didn't learn anything. So the third class I just sort of meandered around the whole thing and made a point of being terrible and she smiled.
I met someone who knows Kang Shin-who in a professional context last week. He described him as 'an absolute fucking prick'. He also said he has a hard-on for E2s, though no-one knows why.
Maybe it's time to make an official complaint to some official body about Mr Kang...
Riiiight - they're going to get English teachers from India and the Philippines? I guess that would work in a country that isn't so blatantly racist towards people of colour.
A friend of mine worked with a female English teacher from the Philippines in a Korean school. She had to work on Saturdays (for free) and was paid less than he was - and why? Because she was Filipina and therefore worth "less" than a nice white Canadian.
I do, however, agree with the idea that a teaching degree doesn't make for a good teacher, as I worked with plenty of Korean teachers who demonstrated some of the worst teaching practices I've ever seen in my life.
Finally, if the criteria of the job is a university degree and a passport from an English-speaking country, they can't start freaking out when the people working there don't have an MA in Education and 12 years of experience. Basically, Korea doesn't pay enough to attract experienced licensed teachers, the pedagogy is out-dated and their habit of screwing people out of contracted money owed and/or vacation time, coupled with false accusations of child molestation and drug use means that Korea probably will never end up being a permanent move for most teachers.
End of rant.
"Currently, only 20.5 percent of native English speaking teachers (at schools) have teaching licenses (according to data from the Education Ministry, November 2008)"
How are they gathering that data exactly?
@fattycat - hey that's a hellava good question!
It's like the pot calling the kettle black. The level of corruption in the Korean university system is huge: plagiarism, professors lining their pockets selling positions and demanding bribes from grad students. Golly, if only Korean profs smoked pot and chased skirts like any other prof at a Western college.
You'd wish the president of a major Korean university would first worry about cleaning up his own turf.
Check out the president's message on the SNUE web site:
http://www.snue.ac.kr/snue_english/president.html
It's probably the most intelligent thing he can say.
Steve Bee - that's pure urban myth. I've met the Kang a couple times and he might be a shitty journalist but he's as nice as the next guy in person. Mild mannered little dude.
The puppetmaster is a guy named C.S. Lee. The managing editor. Calls himself "C.S." and takes pride in running a sensationalist paper. Every time you scream ahhhh! its on cue, like a fireworks show its just where the pyrotechnicians wanted it.
Once you know what the KT is it takes some of the sting out of it. Sure its bizarre that one of Korea's only English dailies is a tabloid, but there it is.
You don't pick up the New York Post everyday and say, 'oh my god! you won't believe wtf they're printing now!' You know, it's the fucking Post.
You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. You read the KT, you get your hands dirty.
They are all unqualified.
With agism recruiters go for people that just graduated from the university because they are young, not qualified.
Here's an idea. This is the president of an teacher's college? Why don't they start a night program (or some sort of part-time program) for getting M.Ed. in Second Language education, taught in English. I'm sure a lot of "unqualified" teachers would make an effort at professional development if they could earn an accredited degree, unlike those crap certification programs.
JSK - I was just reporting what I was told. (Just between you and I, I would use similar terms to describe the person that gave me that information, so do with that what you will...)
However, whatever opinions people may have about the content of Kang's character, the fact is that he remains a fucking awful journalist, and the Korea Times remains a woeful rag. Perhaps it is time for some official complaint to be made to some official body about the paper itself.
'SNU' huh?
Hmm... yeah, I think I heard of it.
That's that cheap hagwon down in Ddong Gu, isn't it?
John B, that's a great point. Perhaps it teachers actually had options to get themselves certified or quote-unquote qualified---and I'm not talking about doing some online TEFL course that may or may not have any value---more of them would do it. I would have loved training or professional development opportunities in Jeollanam-do, but we only had one three-hour session in the three years I was there. And I think you'd find simliar answers from other PS teachers.
If we actually had chances for professional development, and if these were provided and at least partially subsidized by the government, you'd obviously have more teachers taking advantage of them. Instead, as it is we don't have much of a stake in the system here.
But, I fully expect them to faze NSETs in every public school over the next few years. They're moving toward that anyway. Instead of reflecting on why the experiment failed, though, I'm sure it'll just be rounds of xenophobia and NSET-bashing.
If you pitch it in terms of competition (which groups like AES do), i.e. Korean teachers vs. foreign teachers, then isn't it just good business to smear the reputation of your competitor (if you can get away with it)?
Might that be what's going on? The prez of Korean Teachers Inc. tells his audience what they want to hear. He's a 'real leader' and the more people believe it the more opportunities for his school to get support for their curriculum, develop new programs, get gov. funding, etc.
"...it is urgent for us to foster [Korean] teachers who have excellent English proficiency" - which means more work for SNU...
"The native speakers are not qualified and are often involved in sexual harassment and drugs."
All the more reason to focus the money and attention on Koreans.
My uni offers an MA in TESOL, I think partnered with UPenn. Every year, several instructors take them up on it.
So, yes, offering people the opportunity to improve their skills beyond a useless 100-hour TEFL cert, and many will take advantage of it.
"Ajosshis ruin everything." Rob from Roboseyo
The Korean ajosshi is a top class player hater. He has blinders on and can only see the world in tunnel vision. This country has many highly educated stupid people.
ROK Hound, that is a university. Most of us are talking about public schools.
What I really hate is the unqualified thing all of the time. How many of the Korean English teachers are competent? Some of them are re-trained German or whatever other subject teachers. Some are passable, others dare not speak English in class.
Another way to think about this:
Universities should be a meritocracy and in most western nations they are: more you publish, more research dollars you bring in, more bright grad students you attract, the faster your promotion. In Korea, it's about age and bribes.
So, the head of a non-meritocracy, a system he himself could change at the wave of a hand, suddenly wants a meritocracy where only foreigners are concerned but wants someone else to implement it.
Okay.
"The native speakers are not qualified and are often involved in sexual harassment and drugs."
I find the expression "sexual harassment" highly inappropriate and inflammatory in this context. I can imagine that any number of Korean ethnic nationalists might object to "consensual casual sex" between Korean women and Western ESL teachers, which is probably what Song Kwang-yong really means, but this is a huge categorical distinction and difference. One might object morally to "consensual casual sex" between Korean women and Western males here, but South Korea is in theory now a democracy with certain individual rights that are supposedly protected and guaranteed, including the right of ROK female citizens to do what they want with their own bodies and free will. In other words, if certain Korean women want to consort with or date Western males in Korea, that's fully within their rights, and there's certainly nothing illegal about it, unlike "sexual harassment," which is not a moralistic term but rather a legal one. Of course, "sexual harassment" is both illegal and highly objectionable to most people, but this term cannot simply be substituted for "consensual casual sex" in this context, especially if the data and statistics do not warrant use of such language.
I'd like to know the precise Korean term that Song Kwang-yong used for "sexual harassment" here. If he used similar language in Korean, then his substitution of a legal term for a moral objection is irresponsible and potentially libelous. If the problem lies with reporter Kang Shin-who's biased and distorted translation, then it is he who is being irresponsible and defamatory, and proper complaints should be filed in mass to the editors of the Korea Times.
I believe the onus is on Kang Shin-who to provide the original Korean of the sentence in question, so that it can be determined if the problem lies in his reporting or not. Those seeking clarification should call the Korea Times directly, since emails are too easily and too often ignored here in Korea in my experience:
Political Desk : 02-724-2343
City Desk : 02-724-2346
Editorial Room : 02-724-2859
Once it has been clarified what Korean term was actually used by Song Kwang-yong, if it is he who is guilty of being inflammatory towards native ESL teachers in Korea, then formal complaints should in turn be made directly to him, and ideally en masse.
Whoever first contacts reporter Kang Shin-who, be sure to report here (and on other sites highly trafficked by native ESL teachers in Korea) on the Korean language originally used by Song Kwang-yong, so that the word can get out quickly to the larger native ESL teacher community here.
Now is the time for action, is it not?
"ROK Hound, that is a university. Most of us are talking about public schools."
Are you saying public school teachers are not able to attend university classes to upgrade their skills?
Brent: If I read ROKHound's post correctly, he is speaking about an English language-taught MA program offered jointly with a US university, and several instructors that taught at that Korean university have enrolled in that program. However, ANYONE could apply to apply to that program. If I understand correctly.
Hey, all press is good press.
It works for inner city blacks to rise to fame, why not ET's?
Now everyone will think an ET is hard as heck! Thugs yo!
Thanks, Baeksu.
By the way, SNUE is NOT SNU. SNU is a large, comprehensive university in Kwanak Gu. SNUE is a small,non-affiliated university in Kangnam Gu that only trains elementary school teachers.
Does anyone have andy statistics on how many NETs have come to Korea in the last few years, or if there is an inclining number of aplications for E2 visas?
I understand that the words of some cunt president of a university may sound hurtful, but I think by and large NET's are and will be a hot commodity for now and a few years comming. A lot of the press is like Lou Dobbs to our being like Mexicans. I'm not trying to sound like everything is all good and stuff, but if newspapers exagerrate the situation, then the opinions of ordinary people are probably less drastic. (or they just don't give a fuck)
Still we gotta fight them nonetheless, don't let these guys just make stuff up.
Puffin Watch wrote:
You'd wish the president of a major Korean university would first worry about cleaning up his own turf.
To what are you referring? Do you know something that's been going down at SNUE? I'd like to hear.
SNUE's turf would include much of nation's elementary school educators.
Rep. Kwon Chul-Hyun tried to alert citizens to a crisis in Korean education in 2005. His report listed 1,733 cases of serious misconduct by Korean teachers. These included 35 cases of sexual assault and the rape of minors, 294 cases of assault and injuries whereby death resulted, and 5 straight up murders.
I'd say Puffin's statement has relevance. Shouldn't SNUE be concerned with addressing such issues in training the next wave of educators? Or perhaps we should just keep blaming this all on foreigners just like the Na-Young case is all about foreign English teachers?
JSK wrote:
I'd say Puffin's statement has relevance. Shouldn't SNUE be concerned with addressing such issues in training the next wave of educators? Or perhaps we should just keep blaming this all on foreigners just like the Na-Young case is all about foreign English teachers?
Whoa... Of these 1733 cases of serious misconduct, including rape, assault, and murder, how many were of SNUE students or alumni? Or is SNUE to blame for all elementary English teachers?
SNUE's student body is overwhelmingly women, so I really wonder how many of the thirty-five sexual assaults and rapes its grads were responsible for. A few maybe, but if you're going to hold one group accountable for the worst actions of different individuals who happen to share the same profession... well that's something Kang Shin-who could really get behind, I suppose.
I asked my question because I thought Puffin Watch actually knew something about something really happening at SNUE, not that he was just taking a swipe at SNUE because it's a teachers college and there are some really horrible specimens of human beings in Korea who are teachers.
It's been entertaining watching your arguments become more and more threadbare as time goes on.
1733 cases of Korean teacher misconduct is clearly a concern for a national teachers college.
I think the criticism offered by Puffin is very much in the spirit of
"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
I think it's a good point, and I think your reply smacks of the vulgar apologist and doesn't detract from it in the slightest.
What is the beam in the eye of SNUE? That was all I was asking. Puffin Watch said the president of SNUE should clean up his own turf, and I thought he was talking about some mess at SNUE, not some mess among all teachers across the country including those who did not attend that competitive school.
Among the 1733 teachers, what is the breakdown? Primary? Secondary? SNUE grads versus non-SNUE grads?
And what makes you so certain SNUE is not doing anything about problems like the 1733 teachers, whether they're SNUE-associated or not?
All I was asking was what specific thing Puffin Watch was talking about, because I had assumed it was something other than them just being a teachers college in a country where there are bad teachers.
And I'm not defending the remarks on the SNUE president either, so don't lay that on me. I haven't made any argument at all, threadbare or otherwise, just asked a question (which still hasn't been answered) in the sole two comments I've made here, so I don't see how you've been so entertained "watching [my] arguments become more and more threadbare as time goes on."
King Baeksu wrote:
I'd like to know the precise Korean term that Song Kwang-yong used for "sexual harassment" here. If he used similar language in Korean, then his substitution of a legal term for a moral objection is irresponsible and potentially libelous.
I'd also like to know what he said in Korean. Depending on what it was, a public objection would be in order. But if Kang Shin-who is playing fast and furious with real quotes made in English, what's to stop him from making self-servingly inflammatory English translations of quotes given in Korean.
The second part of this sentence...
"The native speakers are not qualified and are often involved in sexual harassment and drugs."
... is such a non-sequiteur that it sounds more like Kang's sentiment than Song's, given Kang's track record.
Kushibo, Song was misquoted. See Ben Wagner's last comment at the end of this thread:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=12946845&postID=7872215871764060869
Brian, can you make a screaming new post and headline for this?
One could laugh at the fact that someone so incredibly ignorant could actually hold a position of importance at a Korean University. It boggles the mind. But who are we to even care about this guy, or whatever he says?
Being insulted by the President of Seoul National University has about as much social importance as being insulted by a 6 year old child. This man is a nobody. Obviously he didn't achieve his position through intelligence, nor through problem solving. He is probably one of those old Korean men who just came to the office every day for 30 years, and slept at his desk until he was promoted due to his advanced age.
Greedy Korean people hire sleazy foreign teachers. Greedy Korean people profit from sleazy foreign teachers. Greedy Korean hagwon owners expose innocent children to sleazy foreign teachers. Greedy Koreans even provide them with housing, money, and plane tickets.
I think this man has an unhealthy obsession with E2 visa holders because he has some kind of inferiority complex. He wants to be able to talk down to, and spit on immigrants, but when importing large numbers of immigrants from countries that are richer, more powerful, more developed, and to top it off, they have lighter skin - he must find himself stuck in a frustrating situation, where in the eyes of the rest of he world, he's just a Korean, not at the top of the social ladder. It must be so frustrating.
Hence, his comments about importing teachers with darker skin, whom I'm sure he would feel more entitled to degrade, abuse, exploit, and ultimately feel superior to. The ultimate root of Kang's aggression and hatred probably originates from his feeling of sheer inferiority to the White man. He externalizes this by talking a lot, and taking no action. No one ever mentions that for every pervert English teacher brought to Korea, somewhere there is a Korean hagwon owner profiting, and the only thing they care about is if the foreigner shows up to work every day, so they can squeeze more money out of more ignorant parents.
"However, ANYONE could apply to apply to that program. If I understand correctly."
You are correct. It is a university-offered MA program. Anyone can enrol. At the mo, it is mostly Koreans, but teachers on staff also enroll every year.
King Baeksu wrote:
Kushibo, Song was misquoted.
Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't been following this at Popular Gusts as diligently as I normally would.
This didn't sound like something President Song would say.
I'll believe the after-the-fact claim he was misquoted if he takes some kind of official action against the paper.
I struggle to understand the KT's game. Isn't a large % of its readers from the English teacher community? It's like the National Review being out for Neocons.
Here's an easy solution: complain to the advertisers. Let the advertisers know when you see this kind of muck racking journalism sitting on the same page as their ad, you're left with a negative impression.
Puffin Watch wrote:
I'll believe the after-the-fact claim he was misquoted if he takes some kind of official action against the paper.
Because the president of a prestigious university going after a low-level mudslinging journalist who's willing to use unethical means to smear whomever he feels like that day is the most prudent course of action.
As George Bernard Shaw supposedly once said, "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."
I struggle to understand the KT's game. Isn't a large % of its readers from the English teacher community? It's like the National Review being out for Neocons.
Maybe your premises are off. Maybe it's not KT's game but Kang's game.
In which case complaining to the higher-ups and doing the other stuff you mentioned with the advertisers might be effective.
After reading Brian's follow up post where he laid out a history of the KT making up quotes, I'm more inclined to believe Song was misquoted.
http://atek.or.kr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=218%3A2009-august-20-association-files-complaint-with-press-ethics-commission&catid=41%3Atop-headlines&Itemid=110
Has everyone read this? I am curous to see if there has been a response to this official complaint
Urgent. Please would Na Young An (aka "Jessica") aged about 35, height 160 cm who holds an MA
English Philology degree from UK Sussex University 2008 and also has a maths degree and TESOL
experience) contact Nigel in Brighton ASAP about her UK pension. His email is: surname followed by his initial surnameN@googlemail.com
Also if you recognize her please send her this message. Thanks Nigel
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