Statement of TEA-KOR (Teachers of English abroad in Korea)
January 31, 2008
President-elect Lee Myung Bak has announced his party's intentions to overhaul English language education in South Korea. He cites the issue of oral competency. Students graduate with relatively low level competency in oral English. The incoming government wishes to improve the oral competency of graduates. It also desires to improve the oral competency of teachers.
The President-elect's off-the-cuff declaration of this intended policy has been panned by many individuals involved in the field of English language education. For one thing, this policy statement is one in a windfall of drastic changes hitting the country outside a democratic process. The new President has not even been inaugurated and it will be some time before the new assembly will be decided.
Among the policy announcements is the intention to step up privatization. TEA-KOR has concerns about this free trade agenda in view of the punishment that public education and other services have suffered where free trade and privatization have been encouraged and expanded.
At the same time, the President-elect wishes to make relations with the US Whitehouse tighter. TEA-KOR cannot help but be aware that English education is being implemented so as to expand and deepen the US' grip on Korea's affairs and enslave it further as a neo-colonial state.
Lee Myung Bak specifically targets Korean teachers of English in his announcement. He states that the Korean language should be banned from the classroom. He states that Korean teachers do not speak well enough to do their job adequately. This attitude threatens the job security of many teachers in Korea.
TEA-KOR defends the rights of all teachers. The obvious remedy would be a greater investment in public education so that the training of teachers can be improved.
For example, the government should provide grants to teachers so that they can periodically receive English language immersion more readily and without placing a greater burden on individuals and their families. Furthermore, the government should be funding and supplying more and better verbal language programs and technologies such as computer hardware and software and language labs. Teaching materials should be reassessed and better ones ordered. Of course, TEA-KOR stands by the role of the temporary foreign teacher in assisting with the development of English language competency as one facet of a pedagogical strategy for English language education.
Families are making greater and greater sacrifices to come up with the fees required by private academies. The new President-elect correctly stated that there is an over-reliance on the private sector to provide English language instruction. Then why is he touting privatization so much?
Private academies (hagwons) should be subjected to monitoring and improved standards. They often disregard the quality of education and use third-rate materials. Some do not have verbal language practice and supports such as software, CDs and labs. The biggest issue for TEA-KOR is their handling of staff. The better teachers are treated, the better teachers will teach. And companies have a responsibility to screen teachers better when they recruit them and provide decent training and working conditions. They are on the whole too careless and offer bad contracts.
tea_kor@yahoo.com