Cherry blossoms in Jeollanam-do, and more flower festival cancellations.

The Korea Meterological Administration says Jeollanam-do can expect cherry blossoms from April 2nd, about a week later than in 2010. There are several "spots" in Jeollanam-do regionally-known for its cherry blossoms, and though Suncheon isn't really on that list I think it belongs there because of its beauty and its visitor-friendliness.



More on cherry blossoms in Suncheon.

Several flower festivals in Jeollanam-do this April have been cancelled due to foot-and-mouth disease. These include the Yeongchuisan Azalea Festival (영취산진달래축제) in Yeosu, the Wangin Culture Festival (영암왕인문화축제) in Yeongam, the Seomjin River Cherry Blossom Festival (섬진강변 벚꽃축제) in Gurye, and the Yudalsan Flower Festival (유달산꽃축제) in Mokpo.



Like other cancelled festivals based on natural events, these blossoms won't be cancelled, just some of the accompanying festivities, so don't hesitate to go and take in the sights.

Jangseong county tops in CSAT again.

From the 한국일보.

High school students in Jeollanam-do's Jangseong county received the highest average scores in the country on the 2010 CSAT. The JoongAng Daily writes:

The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation released the test results yesterday of the 450,944 high school students nationwide who took the CSAT in 2010. Among all cities and counties nationwide, students in Jangseong County scored the highest in all four subjects - 116.5 in Korean language, 113.9 in Math-Ga, 125.1 in Math-Na and 119.6 in English language. Math-Ga and Math-Na focus on different tracks of mathematics and are geared towards the sciences and the liberal arts respectively.

GEPIK hiring and renewal freeze.

It's been interesting reading about the GEPIK hiring and renewal freeze from May through August, and what it means for new and current teachers. From an email from the GEPIK coordinators, via Waygook.org:

GEPIK will not be hiring and/or renewing teachers from May 25, 2011 to August 31, 2011. At this point in time GEPIK is working to restructure the program. During this three-month period, we will be working to streamline the program so that starting September 2011 GEPIK contract dates will be aligned. We are aiming to set contract dates for September 1st and March 1st so that the GEPIK structure will be more standardized. We do realize that many of you will be affected by this change, but please understand that we found it crucial to restructure our program to improve GEPIK, not only for the program itself but for our teachers as well.

To explain this situation further, last year (2010), GEPIK reached its highest numbers of teachers. However, from the year 2011, there has been a decrease in the number of teachers in our program. At the same time, during this period of change, it is in the best interest of our program to secure as much funding as we could in order to maintain as many GEPIK teachers as possible.

Remote English classes continue for Jeollanam-do's island schools.

GFN 98.7 FM writes that the Jeollanam-do Office of Education will continue remote English classes for students on rural, geographically isolated islands in the province.

The Jeollanam-do provincial Office of Education is offering remote English courses from [March 22nd] The teachers are located in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Some 2 thousand students will benefit from the program. These include those studying at sixty-six mini schools on five islands and 52 schools with less than 60 students.
The program has been offered every year since 2009. Last year about 1,300 students learned from native English teachers.
One native teacher handles five students with the assistance of one Korean sub-teacher. Classes will be offered one hour a week for a year.

This blog has done a few posts on similar programs done throughout the country that use teachers in the state of Wyoming and other rural areas to teach Korean students via videoconferencing. Elutian, a Wyoming-based company, had the bright idea to both "insource" jobs to rural America and meet the demand of reduced-cost native speaker English teachers [NESTs] in South Korea, a place turning to robot English teachers, certified Indian teachers, and domestic instructors to cut costs. It has been working with the nearby Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education since 2010, says a September 2010 article attributed to Yonhap:

GMOE disclosed Sep. 30 that, “Surprisingly, over 31,600 students are using the video class service for English conversation with U.S public school teachers.

The project began in earnest the latter part of June and by the end of August 22,300 elementary school students, 7,300 middle school students, and 2,070 high school students are engaged in the service.

Moreover, it is reported that 5,356 students from smaller schools in the farming areas, as well as Education Welfare schools, many of whom need special social consideration, are using the service.

Participating students also study English by directly conversing with the native English speaking teachers one-on-one through their school’s internet video system after school (7:00~11:00 PM).

Early this year GMOE selected 146 instructors from a pool of former and current school teachers, mostly based in Wyoming, US, [Eleutian Technology] for the service. A number of other Korean school district offices of education are now also using live native English video for regular classes, but GMOE is the first one to utilize the service for one-on-one sessions after school hours as well.

While there continues to be a large demand for native English speaking teachers in Korea, there has also been much controversy over the hiring of unqualified instructors. The ongoing GMOE project, however, is recognized as both very cost effective and effective at helping to improve the quality of instruction, as well as student results, through utilizing experienced US public school teachers.

Youtube has examples of the TV teacher in action:



The local office of education has also been operating remote teaching programs with native speaker English teachers from within the province since 2009. For information and teacher-created resources, see the Jeollanamdo Online Program board on Waygook.org.

50,000 attend first day of Jindo Sea-Parting.

The 34th annual Jindo Sea-Parting Festival (or Jindo Sea Road Festival 진도 신비의 바닷길 축제) was one of several early-spring cancelled in February and March because of concerns over foot-and-mouth disease. However, 50,000 people---including 2,000 foreigners by Yonhap's estimation---participated in the twice-yearly sea-parting event between Gogumyeon's Hoedong-ri and the small island of Modo. The tide goes out and opens a 2.8-kilometer path, though on the 19th people could only walk out roughly 40 meters, according to the article.

In 2010, according to a Newsis article, 440,000 tourists attented the festival, among them 25,000 foreigners.

2011 Jindo Sea-Parting, Gwangyang International Apricot festivals cancelled.

One of Jeollanam-do's best-known festivals, the Jindo Sea-Parting Festival (or Jindo Sea Road Festival, 진도 신비의 바닷길 축제) has been cancelled because of concerns over the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. The festival was scheduled to run March 19th through 21st. From the official site last month:

제34회 진도신비의바닷길축제 취소 안내문

지난 1년 동안 제34회 진도 신비의 바닷길 축제를 많은 관심과 애정으로 기다려 오신 국·내외 관광객 여러분! 그리고 진도군민 여러분!

지난해 11월부터 전국적으로 발생한 구제역으로부터 청정지역인 전라남도의 확산방지와 이로 인한 우리군 축산농가의 피해를 예방하기 위하여 고심한 끝에 3년 연속 문화체육관광부 우수 축제로 선정된 제34회 진도 신비의 바닷길 축제를 부득이 취소하게 되었음을 알려드립니다.

비록 아쉽게도 축제는 취소하게 되었지만 신비의 바닷길 현상을 보기 위해 자율적으로 방문하는 관광객들을 위해 관광안내 및 편의 제공 등 불편함이 없도록 최선을 다할 계획입니다.

그동안 진도 신비의 바닷길 축제에 많은 관심과 성원을 보내주신 모든 분들께 거듭 감사말씀 드리며, 내년 신비의 바닷길 축제는 더욱 새롭고 다양한 프로그램을 준비하여 모시도록 하겠습니다.

감사합니다.

2011. 2.

진 도 군

Starting last December dozens of festivals large and small have been cancelled because of concerns over the disease's spread during South Korea's largest FMD outbreak in years.

The Gwangyang Apricot Festival---in its 15th year and calling itself the "Gwangyang International Apricot Festival" for no real reason---has also been cancelled because of foot-and-mouth disease worries. It's annually heralded as the country's first festival of spring, and was scheduled this year to run from March 12th through March 20th.


Notice from the festival's official site.

The actual blossoms won't be cancelled, and as I mentioned in 2009 you'll still find plenty to do with a trip to Hadong county.

Worst videos from Korea's elementary school English curriculum.

The Waygook Effect has collected the ten worst dialogues from Korea's elementary school English curriculum, and believe it or not this doesn't make #1:



The elementary school English textbooks have been changed for the better---for supplementary resources see Waygook.org---but for many years the flimsy books and their atrocious CD-ROMs undermined the talents and hard work of imported native English speakers and their Korean co-teachers.

GEPIK cutting 200 positions in 2011.

Gyeonggi-do English Program in Korea [GEPIK] will be cutting 200 native-speaker English teacher jobs in 2011 because of budget cuts, writes the Korea Times, picking up on discussion on teacher forums and what was blogged about here on February 18th.

According to the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, the budget allocated to hire foreign English teachers fell to 22.7 billion won ($20 million) for this year from 30 billion won in 2010.

Cho Young-min, senior supervisor of the education office, said the budget cut is in line with the plan to reduce the number of foreign teachers in phases in the years to come.

``We plan to cut about 200 teachers in 2011 from this month. We will also gradually cut the overall number in the coming years,’’ the supervisor said.

But he did not specify how many jobs will be shed at its GEPIK (Gyeonggi English Program in Korea.)

Arranged as a three-year project, the English program by the provincial office had hired more teachers over the past three years. In 2010, the number of teachers increased to some 2,252 in Gyeonggi, a 110 percent jump from 2008 when they first started out with some 1,000.

However, after reaching its peak last year, the number of foreign teachers is expected to slide over the next three years in the province surrounding Seoul.

Cho said the cut will be made upon requests from schools, with Korean English conversation teachers replacing them.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education will also see a budget cut, though the number of teachers will increase this year.

[SMOE] also cut its budget for the recruitment of foreign teachers to 35.9 billion won from 37.4 billion won in 2010.

But the cut will not result in the fall in the number of foreign teachers, as districts in the capital will increase their share of spending.

“As a result, 37 more teachers will be added to the total count this year,” said Yoon Ho-sang, senior supervisor at the office’s English education department. “

The article twice addressed, and dismissed, the idea that these budget cuts are due to regions providing free school lunches to students. It closes by saying that, contradictory to the reporting of that and other media outlets over the past four years, a 2009 survey found done by SMOE found that 90 percent of teachers and students, and 93% of Korean teachers "were very satisfied with the foreign teachers’ qualifications and class performance."

There has been talk of cuts for about a year, with experienced teachers being the first victims because schools are unable and unwilling to pay the salaries they'd command based on their qualifications. All while local media and hate groups bemoan the lack of "qualifications" among imported foreign English teachers.