The Hankyoreh's Kim Yeong-hun interviewed some native speaker English teachers here to get an overview of the challenges they face, including: inattentive students, co-teachers who don't cooperate, consult, or participate, directors who don't know English or anything about teaching techniques, and surprisingly large class sizes.
The article also incorporates perhaps the most overused "English" word of the season, "loser" (루저), and says that NSETs feel like losers in school---"학교에선 우리가 ‘루저’다"---because of these challenges. I've written numerous times that NSETs are often set up to fail in public schools because of the lack of planning and support given them, say what you want about their youth or lack of "qualifications."
11 comments:
The English teachers are wearing suits.
Blond Hair x2 but no blue eyes
Well, anyway, I think it's nice that these issues get some treatment in Korean, in a paper Korean teachers read.
The noses aren't nearly big or pointy enough
The Hani is the only major paper that hasn't given AES a forum, so it's heartening to see this article. Actually, I think it's odd, considering how anti-American the Hani tends to be, and considering how the other two lefty papers, Kyunghyang Shinmun and Seoul Shinmun, have possibly given AES the most in-depth coverage (allowing Lee to write an article in the former, and publishing a lengthy interview with him in the latter).
Bear with me here. This may seem like it's off topic, but I will get to the point eventually.
With all the discussion that's been going on surrounding the proposed mandatory Korean culture classes for English instructors, I've started revisiting some of the cultural awareness information already available for English teachers in Korea. One area that struck me as being of particular importance is the low context/high context difference between the two languages (and thereby cultures).
As an example of this difference, ATEK's "The English Teacher's Guide to Korea" recounts the story of the teacher coming to Korea who didn't know enough to actually get a visa with his visa issuance number. Said teacher was then upset with the employer for not passing on sufficient information when he arrived in Korea without a visa. Said employer was upset with the teacher for not having sufficient information.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons for a perceived failure by NESTs in the Korean public school system. The schools/school boards expect the incoming teachers to know what to do without being told and the incoming teachers expect to be told what to do.
Should we be happy this wasn't written by Keystone Kang?
matt wrote:
Actually, I think it's odd, considering how anti-American the Hani tends to be
The Hankyoreh's brand of "anti-American" is more of a mixture of a little bit of anti-Washington and a lot of anti-USFK. They have no reason to be anti-American"s" and if anything, they might be very pro-American"s" insofar as American individuals in Korea are "the little guy" suffering from corporate, governmental, or managerial Koreans.
Anyway, my comment about the suits, I guess I should elaborate, is that they are either portraying the teachers as professionals worthy of respect, or at least that's how the cartoonist sees the job.
Looks like this was written and compiled by a student. I just saw now that somebody was on Dave's trying to get responses:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=171427
An excerpt:
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I'm posting this for a student so that she can get better sample to write her article. Please take some time and do this survey if you can spare it. You can PM me your responses and I'll forward them to her or you can send them to the email below. Thanks.
Hello, we're the student reporters from the 'Hankyoreh' newspaper. We're planning to write a feature article for our newspaper's education section '함께하는 교육'. The subject of it is "Korean schools and students through foreign teachers' eyes". As one of the foreign teachers in Korea, please write about honestly what you have been felt while teaching and living in Korea. We're going to write an article about the cultural diversity and tolerance based on your statement. The article will be published on our newspaper on 30th Nov.
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Wow, hats off to the Hani.
Thanks for the part about the public school gigs, totally on the money. BTW I read BLOG's for affirmation. Yep, I'm still sane. =)
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