What is happening in South Korea is part of the global expansion of Western schools — a complex trend fueled by parents in Asia and elsewhere who want to be able to keep their families together while giving their children a more global and English-language curriculum beginning with elementary school, and by governments hoping for economic rewards from making their countries more attractive to foreigners with money to invest.
Though not mentioned by name, the "Global Education City" has been the topic of numerous articles in the domestic English-language newspapers like the Korea Times and JoongAng Daily, and has been covered by local blogger Lost on Jeju the past year (here, here, and here for instance). Given the high numbers of Korean students who attend other domestic international schools, the lengths some Korean families go to obtain foreign citizenship for their children for education purposes, and the potential for limited international involvement in the Korean project, it remains to see how "international" these programs in/on Jeju will remain, and thus how authentic and beneficial they will be to Koreans and expatriates alike.
7 comments:
What I've never understood about this place is why it is so impossible to reform the school system since everyone agrees it's a mess. This latest scheme to bring in private academies from abroad will not address the systemic problems in education here. Only allow another exit for those with enough money. It's almost like they are admitting that Koreans can't be trusted to run their own education system.
Douglas + 1!
Is this just going to be like the English Village concept? It will start of as these little english island but then quickly devolve into very expensive hagwons where the only people speaking english are the foreign teachers?
@ Puffin,
Not even the foreign teachers, judging by the Russians and other eastern Europeans now working at the English Villages instead of native speakers that SHOULD be there.
It’s laughable to think that everybody will speak English in this utopian village. In my academy Korean teachers seldom speak English. It’s just another ploy from the government to appease parents and still take their money.
But, I must agree that Immersion is the best approach to second language acquisition, better yet; maintenance, i.e. retaining the first language and acquiring a second language would be the ultimate goal of a truly bilingual person. In my hometown of El Paso, the goal is to have kids pass the state test but at the shameful cost of losing one’s L1. Few schools have a dual language program.
BTW- does anybody know the legality of installing cameras in the classroom? I feel offended that the new owners in my academy are monitoring teachers from the office to see "what we're doing."
For those of you discussing age, I’m a retired teacher from El Paso, Texas and 65 years old. I met Brain briefly at the TESOL conference before he went to the States.
Thanks,
BTW- does anybody know the legality of installing cameras in the classroom? I feel offended that the new owners in my academy are monitoring teachers from the office to see "what we're doing."
While more often than not those cameras are likely used by the admins to nit pick your teaching style, they can also be there to help protect you. Parents deciding they can use a growing hysteria about foreigners in the class with ill intent to make a quick buck in blood money from you and a school claiming sexual assault. Little johnny claiming he's the model of behavior in class and keeps getting F's because the teacher hates him when the video reveals he's running around like a pure savage.
Those schools aren't hagwons, they're fully accredited international schools with strict limits on the number of Korean students allowed to enroll in the schools. I've taught at an international school in Seoul for 5 years, and while there is some concern regarding Korean students that have, in one way or another, gained foreign citizenship, the majority of students at my (and other international schools in Korea) are students that legitimately couldn't attend a regular Korean school. There are over 30 nationalities represented at my school, and my classes are a huge mix of students from the US, Japan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, France, Gabon, Canada, Colombia, Spain, etc. I also have plenty of Korean students that lived abroad for the majority of their lives and who speak little to no Korean. There are long waiting lists at every international school that I know of in Seoul, so if these schools in Jeju can offer more high quality accredited Western schools, then that would be great.
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