By Brian Deutsch
In response to Kang Eun-hee's article ``Korean English Teachers" published in The Korea Times on Nov. 23, I should say first that she introduces a few important concepts.
However, I feel that her argument has several troubling weaknesses, and the real story is not the cultural gaps between native speakers of English and Korean students, but rather between foreign teachers and their Korean counterparts.
Ms. Kang brings up, for example, the issue of money, and hints that native speakers are paid 45 million won per annum. I am not sure where she got this figure, but I do know that Koreans do tend to exaggerate our income, and that her number is roughly twice what a rookie public school teacher can expect to make.
Even if we do include the housing offered in so many contracts, the calculations still work out to much more than a veteran public school teacher can expect to earn.
Moreover, foreign teachers aren't privy to the same holiday and performance bonuses, and under-the-table cash advances, that frequently pad the purses of Korean teachers, so an objective comparison is difficult.
She also relates a story of an embarrassed student during a Halloween lesson. Many foreign teachers, myself included, know the pain of trying to urge a student to participate only to later find out that he or she has a learning disability.
I will suggest, however, that the cultural gap between foreign teachers and their students is perhaps not so different than the generation gap between Korean teachers and theirs.
I will also suggest that the authority given to Korean teachers (but withheld from foreigners) often instills fear and prompts far more tears than a Halloween lesson ever can.
You won't read many stories about foreigners attacking students with swords, as happened recently in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, nor will you see native speakers slapping, punching, or head-butting their students in the hallways, things I witness between Korean teachers and their students on a regular basis.
Ms. Kang suggests that one cause for the cultural disconnect is that foreign teachers are burdened with a large number of students whom they see infrequently. In my case I have nearly 50 different classes and 1,600 students, whom I see once or twice a month.
Compare that to the tri-weekly meetings between Korean English teachers and their students, and it's easy to see why native speakers are perhaps not as effective as intended. Moreover, when we consider that foreign teachers are, contractually, assistant teachers and are often used as such, the amount of meaningful interaction is even less.
It's also very important to remember that there is no curriculum in place for foreign teachers in public middle and high schools, and little thought is given to how we run our bi-monthly classes.
Our co-teachers are frequently absent from the classroom, are rarely involved in lesson planning, and often say nothing more than ``do whatever you want.''
Were teachers, administrators, and government officials really worried about results or money, they would spend more of both in designing an effective way to integrate foreigners into the classroom.
As it stands now, the foreigner's classroom is a novelty, a gimmick, for as Ms. Kang says, students have had so little time to talk to foreigners.
Finally, Ms. Kang echoes a complaint used far too much, that foreign teachers are a transient population and thus not an effective long-term solution.
Let's please not forget the obstacles in place that prevent long-term employment and which push more and more foreigners out the door. There are ceilings on our salaries and meager financial and professional incentive for post-graduate degrees.
There is no curriculum in the schools and no viable long-term plan for native speakers. And, most recent and most troubling, there is legislation in place that not only increases paperwork and makes it more difficult to work in Korea, but which, quite frankly, insults the foreign community by implicitly degrading us and explicitly calling us unqualified, drug-using pedophiles who are a nuisance to Korean society, as per a recent immigration press release.
It's unwise and unhealthy to always point the finger at the foreign population, especially with such an unintentionally humorous e-mail address.
Foreign teachers were imported, after all, to rectify the glaring deficiencies of Korean English teachers, and even after a decade of exposure, there is much work to be done. For all Ms. Kang's talk about culture, there is a startling dearth of knowledge about the culture of the countries from whence these foreign teachers come.
And, there is a disappointing inability for many Korean English teachers to effectively do their jobs. Considering that Korean teachers lead the majority of English classes in public and private schools, given Korea's low standardized test scores and the general lack of English competence, mightn't we also question the effectiveness of using so many domestic teachers?
There are a bevy of solutions to the problems highlighted both here and in Ms. Kang's piece. I wonder, though, if anyone cares. More conversations on English education take place in this paper than in the schools between colleagues, where they belong.
And lately I have the impression that Korean officials are actually trying to repel all its teachers, and when I read pieces like Ms. Kang's or Mr. Jason Lim's, I wonder if anybody really wants to teach or learn English at all.
Brian Deutsch is an English teacher in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province. He can be reached at deutsch.brian@gmail.com.