Opinion - The Korea Times

Having Their Native Say (I)

By Jason Lim In magnitude and complexity, the English immersion plan put forward by President Lee Myung Bak rivals his plan for building the ``Grand Canal." In a sense, they both seek to fundamentally remake and rejuvenate the hardware and software infrastructure of Korea. But while the canal project will be a huge civil engineering undertaking, the English immersion plan represents a massive human engineering challenge since it will have to involve the cooperation and effort of the students, teachers, school administrators, curriculum designers, government officials, and private sector industries. In fact, everyone will have to be involved. Unfortunately, however, ``everyone" doesn't seem to include the native English teachers who are teaching (or have taught) in Korea. Their voices have not been sought or reflected in the public debate so far. Since they are the professionals actually on the front lines interacting with students and fellow Korean teachers everyday, failure to take their experiences and insight into account would almost guarantee the plan's failure, especi

Feb 18, 2008By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

What Do English Teachers Think?

By Jason Lim I don't know about you, but the volume of public debate on the recently announced English immersion plan by the president-elect's transition team is positively dizzying. This overwhelming reaction is not altogether surprising. After all, Korea is probably the only country in which English education has created a unique sociocultural phenomenon nicknamed ``Goose Father.'' Everybody in Korea seems to have something to do with English education. Either you are a student, teacher, parent, policymaker, bookseller, content-provider, school administrator, politician, businessperson, or someone else associated directly or indirectly with English-education. Accordingly, everyone has something to say on the proposed English immersion plan. English could possibly be the only topic in Korean society that can trump the latest juicy celebrity gossip on the ubiquitous portal sites. Countless viewpoints, ideas, complaints, and arguments are merging together in dynamics waves and striking fiercely against the shores of cyberspace. Except for the voices of the native En

Feb 4, 2008By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Saying Sorry Across Cultures

By Jason Lim A Korean friend of mine recently passed the NJ driver's license test. Like many other Koreans in the greater New York region, she had paid a Korean driving school to guide her through the process. My friend told me that the very first piece of instruction she received, even before being taught where the mirrors and signals were located, was that she should never say sorry in case of an accident. ``What does that mean?'' I asked, confused that a driving school would consider this so important. ``It means,'' she replied, ``that you should never say sorry in an accident, regardless of whose fault it is, because that would be admitting legal liability and will put you in a weak position in case it has to go to court.'' At the time, I was vexed because I couldn't really rebut her. It is true that the United States is an overly litigious society. My mechanical engineering professor at Duke told us an instructive story of a lost horse accidentally falling off a cliff and landing on top of a Ford pickup truck that was passing underneath, killing the driver.

Jan 21, 2008By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Customer Service English

By Jason Lim I have a Korean friend who just graduated from a masters program in America. Struggling with her final papers recently, she told me something that I had heard countless times before from other Korean students. She said, "When I read articles written by some famous American academics, they read so easily. It doesn't look difficult at all. I wish I could write as simply and effortlessly." Don't we all? But, unfortunately, many more academics write in a "stream of consciousness" style in which they layer subordinate clauses on top of other subordinate clauses until you lose track of who is doing what to whom. Never mind the why's and how's. Being in academia and government, I can certainly attest to coming across a lot of papers that force me to read each sentence twice or three times. Even then, I am often left with an uneasy sensation of not having grasped everything that the author was intending to say. Or worse, I dismiss the merit of whatever idea or proposal contained in the paper because my eyes would simply refuse to track the shifting pronouns hid

Jan 7, 2008By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Am I a Korean Racist?

By Jason Lim Almost 20 years ago, I watched Margaret Cho on TV perform her first standup comedy routine, the one that made her famous. She stood out so much just because she was an Asian female standup comedian. And she was funny. She was truly a pioneer who smashed the glass ceiling of standup comedy in all ways possible. I still remember the opening line. She would set it up by coming on the stage nonchalantly, so obviously Korean from her looks, and letting the audience examine her for a while. ``I'm Korean,'' she would muse, pausing. ``But I don't own a store or anything.'' This would be followed by a thunderous laughter. Of course, the laughter was based on a universal understanding that equated Koreans to small store owners, mostly vegetable and fruit stands, delis, and drycleaners. Our parents embraced this stereotype with a vengeance, often working hard for 12 hours a day to lay the financial foundation upon which their children could succeed in schools and dive headlong into successful careers in mainstream corporate America. And this we did, in dro

Dec 24, 2007By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Global Leadership

By Jason Lim As I mentioned in my previous column, the Center for Public Leadership (CPL) at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University recently released its 3rd annual report on a national study of confidence in leadership in America; the study found that 77 percent of those surveyed believe that there is a leadership crisis in America today and that 79 percent believe that America will decline as a nation unless it gets better leaders. The study's authors characterized these findings as a crisis in leadership in America. Inspired by this study, I designed a brief on-line survey that asked The Korea Times readers similar questions on Korean leadership, which I will call the Korean Leadership (KL) survey from now on for the sake of brevity. Mainly, I wanted to find out whether Koreans also felt that there is a crisis in leadership and, if so, what leadership characteristics they wanted to see from their national leaders across all fields. The response was overwhelming; within a week, hundreds of people completed the survey. Using the online Korea

Dec 10, 2007By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Korean Leadership Crisis

By Jason Lim The Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University recently released its third annual report on a national study of confidence in leadership in America. According to the results, 77 percent of those surveyed believe that there is a leadership crisis in America today. This is up from 65 percent in 2005, the first year of the study. It would be easy to assume that such high lack of confidence in leadership stems from the general dissatisfaction with the current administration, followed by the increasingly shrill rhetoric among the candidates involved in a fierce public battle to win the upcoming primaries leading up to the presidential election in a year. Interestingly enough, however, the lack of confidence in national leadership was not limited to politicians. According to the introduction of the report, ``confidence in many sectors ― from religion to business, from education to nonprofits ― remains tepid and continues to sink." In fact, the American public's confidence in the leadership of the sectors s

Nov 26, 2007By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Steve Yoo vs. Yoo Seung-joon

By Jason Lim Recently, Sung Si-kyung, the velvet-voiced crooner of K-pop ballads, made a splash when he said that the government had no business in officially barring the former K-pop dance sensation, Yoo Seung-joon, from entering the country. He went on to say that the emotional disgust that Koreans collectively feel against Yoo should be separate from any legal action that the government has taken against him. In a sense, Sung is wrong in his assessment. The Ministry of Justice, in light of Yoo's calculated duplicity, had solid legal grounds in barring Yoo's entry into Korea in 2002. The ministry based its decision on the reasoning that rewarding Yoo by allowing him back into Korea to work as a well-known and highly-paid entertainer would undermine military morale and detract from the seriousness of mandatory military service. This is all in line with Korea's laws and fully defensible. In another sense, however, Sung is absolutely accurate in suggesting that a certain irrational element has so colored Yoo's case that it bars any sensible public discussion on the to

Nov 12, 2007By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Why Not Korean Americans?

By Jason Lim It's no secret that private language schools have long been a huge industry in Korea. Larger foreign language institutes in Korea often enroll tens of thousands of students every month, mostly college students and entry-level employees of blue chip Korean companies. When you spend any time in these schools, however, you soon realize that these schools are only partially about learning English; they are mostly excuses for social gatherings for young people trying to meet new friends and lovers under the legitimate excuse of learning English. Recognizing the social nature of their business, most foreign language schools practice blatant discrimination practices when hiring native English-speaking instructors. Since most Koreans buy into the myth of native English-speakers as white and clean-cut, the schools' criteria for choosing them are insultingly simple. If you are white, female, and good-looking, then you are at a premium. Being white, male, and good looking will also get you hired pretty quickly. And so on. Of course, being an American is always a

Oct 29, 2007By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

What’s Up Illusion?

By Jason Lim In today's global business environment, executives and managers have to communicate instantly with people across different time zones to make a decision that will potentially have a huge impact on the health of their respective organizations. The common medium of this organic network of communication is English. Despite the occasional emotional rebellion against the suffocating necessity of English education, there is no escaping that English is no longer just the Lingua Franca of the 21st Century. English is also the Lingua Japan, Lingua Korean, Lingua China and even Lingua Mongolian. According to a recent NY Times article titled, ``For Mongolians, E is for English, and F is for the Future,'' the ``growing dominance of American culture and international financial realities'' are fueling an astronomical growth of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) schools in Asia. Ancient news for anyone in Korea. Before we slip off into a cliched diatribe on the state of English education in Korea, let me ask you a question first: As a Korean, why do you learn Englis

Oct 15, 2007By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Read more

Having Their Native Say (I)

What Do English Teachers Think?

Saying Sorry Across Cultures

Customer Service English

Am I a Korean Racist?

Global Leadership

Korean Leadership Crisis

Steve Yoo vs. Yoo Seung-joon

Why Not Korean Americans?

What’s Up Illusion?

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