Skilled Foreign Teachers Needed for Korean Schools

By Stephen Roy

I read with interest Kang Shin-who's article (`Half of Native English Instructors Quit After a Year' reported on 2007. 12 31) containing the comments of several Korean educational officials. I must say that I was shocked by several officials' ignorance and denial. Particularly surprising was Lee Young-chan's remark that native teachers' experience ``doesn't matter much.''

I wonder just how low Mr Lee wishes to set the standard for English education in Korea. Does he really see foreigners who have no idea how to conduct an EFL lesson teamed up with Korean teachers, the vast majority of whom simply cannot teach using English as the sole language of instruction, as the ideal situation for improvement?

Mr Lee also demonstrates his ignorance by his failure to differentiate between various levels of students in Korea. The ways in which a foreign teacher can be helpful to elementary students are very different from how one can be helpful to academic high school students, the latter of whom are in dire need of more communicate skills but often taught entirely by grammar-translation method when Korean teachers are instructing them.

As someone who struggles on a daily basis to try to help my overworked and overwhelmed high school students achieve better academic success as well as practical English skills, I must say that I find Mr Lee's attitude highly irresponsible. In addition to regular classroom teaching, which I can in fact conduct independently, I also find myself doing such things as helping Korean teachers edit and explain lesson and assessment material, helping to organize school events, teaching specialized classes, and preparing students for university interviews.

These are all things that require me to draw upon my teaching experience and professional development, and which I would not be able to do competently without such experience. Would Mr Lee prefer to have rookie foreign ``assistants'' who have no idea about how the Korean educational system works or the basic principals of TEFL doing jobs like mine? I'm quite sure my school and coworkers do not.

What I see underlying Mr Lee's remarks is a denial of the seriousness of Korean organizations like SMOE failing to attract and retain foreign professionals in the public school system. Indeed, the parents he is employed to serve should be asking why such an official wishes not to provide adequate incentives to attract foreign teachers who have experience effecting improvement in students within Korea's unique educational culture. I suspect it comes down to administrative failures, an unwillingness to allow skilled foreigners to take on roles that current Korean teachers cannot do, a denial of curricula failures that SMOE is unwilling to deal with, or some combination thereof. Unfortunately the victims of such thinking, as usual, are the Korean students who are left not only with inadequate preparation for university entrance examinations, but also the practical English skills necessary for communicating in a global environment.

Stephen Roy is an English teacher at a high school in South Gyeongsang Province. She can be reached at steph_roy_2@yahoo.ca