By Edward Philpott
There was an article in the Chuseok edition (Sept. 23-26) of the Korea Times reporting that the City Of Busan is questioning the efficiency of native English teachers in their classrooms.
The Busan administrators who have voiced this view should be careful that they do not ``put the cart before the horse" and change their policy without clear and informed opinion on all aspects of foreign language teaching.
For many years now there has been an underlying belief in Asia that pupils learn English better if they are encouraged not to use their native tongue in the classroom.
So Chinese schools would say ``no Chinese" and similarly Korean schools would say ``no Korean." From the outset, this is a damaging premise.
How would you feel if you wanted to try out a local sports club and they said ``no T-shirts or shorts allowed." You would be justified in feeling that you cannot play sports properly without the correct attire.
Likewise in the language classroom, how can we expect young children to start producing new language if their normal form of communication is effectively banned?
The result of this for many young learners is that a sense of fear will take over from a sense of wanting to learn, even though they may disguise this with fake smiles and gestures of effort.
The important concept here is that second language acquisition thrives only if the first language is allowed to act as a facilitator and a kind of safety net for the pupils.
This is especially important if the pupils are finding it culturally difficult to make the transition from their mother tongue to a new language.
English language teachers use many methods to convey understanding of new material. This will usually be visual in some way, either through pictures, gestures or miming.
This is often enough for pupils to grasp the meaning, but if there is a block in understanding, how does the teacher solve the problem of understanding? _ The meaning has to be conveyed in the mother tongue to facilitate comprehension.
In other words, the Korean language needs to be used with young learners of English.
As students become more comfortable and familiar with English, the need to use their first language as a safety net becomes less and less, but even then, to ban the use of Korean in English classes is usually highly counterproductive.
Translating between two languages is a highly refined skill and the more practice students have in bouncing from one language to another, the more they will enhance their fluency.
So by respecting both the mother tongue and the target language we produce a win-win situation in the classroom. For learning in Korea, by holding onto Korean as the safety net language, we can start to discover English in a safe and comfortable environment. Ultimately it becomes about language generally and communication generally.
So how can these concepts be transformed into concrete teaching methods in Korea? How can Offices of Education find the most efficient ways of language instruction?
Like most things in life, this is about balance. Native English speakers are essential to give pupils clear pronunciation and a language model with 100 percent authenticity.
For all their efforts, Korean teachers will make unguarded and repeated mistakes which can only be rectified by the native English speaker.
But at the same time, the Korean teacher has a crucial role to play to maintain the level of comprehension in the classroom. They provide the safety net and back-up necessary for the young learners.
The scenario is very similar to that of head coach and assistant coach in soccer.
Gus Hiddink could only be successful in Korea because he had assistants who provided the necessary back-up training to make sure that they could maximize the time to train the whole team and make them into a formidable force in the 2002 World Cup.
So ultimately it comes to teamwork _ and a high level of flexibility and common understanding between the trainers and teachers.
It is also essential that Korea's methods of English teaching do not lurch back and forth according to the latest whims or teaching fashions.
Continuation in teaching methods will help pupils become settled with a framework of teaching and will help to increase confidence and, therefore, language learning.
In conclusion, therefore, to create efficiency in language learning we need to respect both the first language and second language and equally respect both the native English teacher and the Korean teacher.
Busan may be questioning the efficiency of their native English teachers, but I would advise caution in starting a blame game.
Native English teachers in Busan are part of Korea's investment in a prosperous international future and they should be given the appropriate warmth and respect fitting international workers who have traveled thousands of kilometers to work in Korea.
In short, the fault lies in the methodology, not in the teachers themselves.
Edward Philpott studied linguistics at University College London and gave an ELT seminar with Cambridge University Press in Beijing in 2004. He currently teaches English at elementary and middle schools in Muju, North Jeolla Province.