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.
10 comments:
Glad to see you posting again Brian!
Unqualified: how I hate that word. It's tossed around too much and without real meat to it. I have no hesitation in saying there are Korean teachers here who are totally unqualified to teach. They might have the credentials, might have jumped through all the hoops, and might have passed an exam that focuses on memory retention instead of other more valuable skills, but they are an utter failure in terms of teaching English and I'm getting tired of hearing unqualified spit at the foreign teachers here.
Do not mistake me: while I know first hand that there are foreign teachers who should not be here, there is something I wanted to add from personal experience. Again, what about the hiring process? If we get through that, then by all means, we must surely be qualified right?
There is a story I want to relate: I had the pleasure of attending an open class with one of these online teachers doing their thing. He was doing a lesson on play, go, and do. Much to my surprise when he was giving some examples he said, "play taekwondo". As it is a martial art, you can only do it. I am not sure if the teacher had a long day, was not sure about what exactly taekwondo was (which seriously would have been a major major ignorant screw-up), or just didn't know the rules for between play, go, and do, but it took all I had in me not to stand up and berate/correct him in front of their open-class demonstration.
Unqualified? Right...
Anyhow, I am glad a program like this does exist though because for those folks who are rural schools, they'll never get to have a native-English speaking teacher otherwise. Even if budgets were going up, instead of down, it's just unfeasible.
End rant.
Did you see that teacher stand up and shake or give a close-up shot of her boobs(approx. 1.35 sec.)? She did it in response to the Korean teacher/students saying "Please show us." I didn't catch what exactly she was suppose to "show." I'd bet it would be more difficult acting as a clown via teleconference. On location clowns will always be better than otherwise.
That actually looks like it would be kind of fun. In this situation the Korean teacher actually has to do some work, and not just go to the back of the room and fall asleep. (This particular Korean teacher seemed pretty competent.) I have a web cam, I wonder if I could do something like that. (It'd be pretty baddass actually, just go into my living room with a cup of joe and and some questions.)
Thanks Mark. Posts are few and far between because (a) there's not much interesting news coming out of Jeollanam-do, and (b) not much else Korea-related enticing me to put on my blogging hat.
3gyupsal, there's a thing on the Elutian website for applicants. I'd consider doing it if I had state certification, but the hours with the time zone difference would be tough.
http://www.eleutian.com/qualify/registers/welcome
I recall reading---too tired to dig up the link---that these teachers were paid considerably less than a NSET in Korea would get per hour (I want to say 15,000 won per hour, but don't quote me.) Decent enough for a part-time, work-from-home gig, I guess.
I don't have any kind of state certification either, but I bet there are ways around that.
My pleasure Brian. Just glad to read anything you post.
Yes, speaking with confidence I can say that all the teachers who are in this program are supposed to be state-certified: no exceptions. However, that's not really saying much if you ask me though because as long as you are certified in any state, it's acceptable. The standards between states vary...widely in my opinion. Regardless, these teachers were/are at one point certified. As you might guess, a large number come from one certain state. I recently read that, because of budget cuts, that state is making high school classes of approximately 60 students each. There's a fail if I ever saw one...
I would certainly hope they are paid less. They have their families, friends, food, culture, language, etc...back home and are teaching behind the safety of a computer/TV screen. Nothing quite like teaching 40 HS students who don't want to do anything in person. I suppose in time, this program can only expand though because if their is one universal rule anywhere it's that it always comes down to the money in the end.
Hi Brian, I just let my korean wife to call the Education office in Jeollanam-do for this posted job but unfortunately, the person in charge, Nam Guen Yang, said they already hired all 40 online teachers... too bad.
Man, Mr. Nam Guen Yang from Jeollanam-do Board of Education is a butt wad. I tried to get some info. from him and he bit my head off. Started bragging about living in Pittsburgh blah blah and doesn't trust anyone blah blah
Another prime example of a 29 yr. old Korean kid with some/little power. Nothing but a power trip... Worked with a guy like that at a national university several yr.s ago in Daejeon. Always strutting and flexing his "power".
Anyway, does anyone know the Canadian recruiter he uses?...state secret in his eyes. I would be interested in applying anyway. While I finish up my TESL coures back home in Canada.
Mark, my point about them getting paid less is that this could be yet another cost-cutting alternative for areas looking to get rid of expensive "unqualified" foreign English teachers, especially since there hasn't been a real way to use or evaluate NSETs.
stinkyonion, you might check back with Nam to get involved with the online program for next semester (the one from within Korea, not the one via this Wyoming company). When I was teaching in a Jeollanam-do elementary school we got emails from the head whitey wrangler asking for people to teach these afterschool online programs.
Strange to hear, Ian, about your experience with him over the phone. I had no idea he lived in Pittsburgh . . . another strange intersection between Pittsburgh and Korea I've noticed. I only met him once, with nothing really to write home about.
I hear you. I wonder how far they'll go with it? With the economy being what it is, they could save bundle and they'd have plenty of teachers to choose from.
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