Foreign English teachers: 네 or 아니요?

There's been some talk recently about Korea reducing the numbers of foreign teachers in their public school system, and questions arising about the actual effectiveness of the English teaching policy here. With more and more teachers brought in to fill vacancies in rural schools, the hiring criteria for Native English Teachers is certainly less stringent than in Europe, South America, or even other Asian countries like Japan and Vietnam, where relevant experience and further teaching certifications are required. People get accepted without any experience - a degree in any discipline being the minimum requirement. Some teachers in the TALK programme, for example, are hired as part of 'work experience' for mid-college gap years.

Thus, the job attracts all sorts. Most teachers are able to get a handle on their duties, and on basic Korean language and cultural idiosyncrasies, and they adapt accordingly. Some turn into 'Super-Waegooks' - they learn the language near-fluently, completely immerse, find a Korean significant other, and stay in Korea for years and years. Some people decide after a few weeks that teaching in Korea is not for them, and just go through the motions and bitch about the place until it's time to go home. Then there's a melange of personalities in between. Like in any large community, you get the minorities of piss-heads, spoiled brats, recluses, religious nuts, party animals, manic depressives, moaners, sociopaths, and sometimes a combination of all the above - even if the vast majority of NETs are just normal people trying to make an honest living, while having a new and interesting experience.

There's a similar mix in terms of teaching ability; some won't be cut out for it. Some will be amazingly gifted, passionate teachers, and in a position to really make a difference to their students. Some people land in jobs with limited responsibility, where they're never given a chance to develop any teaching skills, and are working as glorified babysitters or tape-recorders. And some are simply terrible, and only here because they're doing nothing else.

In retrospect, I was pretty awful starting out (as I was in my early Spain days), but I'd like to think I've improved and got to grips with things. I'm outgoing in class, I explain things simply, I speak slowly and try to make things as clear as possible, while giving students every chance to speak and practice for themselves. I try to interact with the kids outside of class, and the kids tend to enjoy my activities. I do tend to over-use PowerPoint games, but with an average of 28-30 kids in each class, with very little space to move tables, my options are limited. Even dice and flashcard games tend to end in chaos, while print-out or project-based activities are simply impractical, given that I generally teach 120-150 different kids in any given day. So I have to work and make the best of my situation, like most teachers here. You try to make a difference in what little way you can, and hope that some of the proverbial shit will stick to the wall.

Given these difficulties, are Native English Teachers really worth the investment to the Korean public education system? Given the vast numbers involved, it may appear to be a slightly dysfunctional policy. I've met people here that I wouldn't trust to boil an egg without burning their apartment down, let alone be an English educator, but they are in the vast minority. Most of the people I've met, particularly from the EPIK programme, are genuinely decent, well-behaved, intelligent and well-travelled folk, and it's a pleasure to meet such people. I don't see how exposing Korean children to educated English-speakers could be anything but beneficial.

However, for all our 'cultural ambassadorship', are we actually making a difference to the general proficiency of English in Korea, for our 18,000 euros a year? Could our job be done just as effectively by Korean teachers? That's the big question in Korea at the moment, and there are valid arguments on both sides. The best case scenario for Korea is a higher level of fluency among Korean teachers, but at the moment, that's something of a pipe-dream, as many designated KETs lack basic pronunciation and syntax skills, having limited experience of interacting with Native English speakers at home or abroad. If they're passing Konglish habits (change-ee, nice-uh, page-ee, hwighting) to kids, it simply becomes a self-perpetuating linguistic basket-case. Without NETs, kids aren't going to learn a lot of basic pronunciation or sentence structure, let alone the more advanced subtleties within the English language.

It's a fair point that, given the difficulty of translating between Korean and English, most kids will grow up without any real handle on English. Most kids lose interest over time, as the curriculum gets more complex. Most kids simply don't have the kind of linguistic intelligence to deal with it - similar to how I could never saw or chisel in a straight line in secondary school Woodwork class, no matter how I tried. Some kids have a certain kind of intelligence, some don't. That's life. I would see our most valuable assets in terms of enabling the gifted kids to polish their raw ability and reach their potential, while making sure that, at least, the average kid learns some basic vocabulary and useful expressions. It's not much, but there are plenty of people out there who get paid fortunes for far less, and for far less ethical practices.

Some of the criticism of NETs is based on xenophobia, and an inherent fear of diluting Korea's preciously homogeneous society with Western arrogance, excess and perversions. However, despite our sporadic propensity for letting loose and making retards of ourselves in the odd Korean bar, it's not like we - as a tiny ethnic group within Korean society - are causing the kind of socio-economic issues that immigration has caused in other developed societies. The 'foreigners don't respect Korean society or culture' argument from Korean nationalist types is a well-worn, emotive, over-generalized, over-simplified and, let's face it, pretty moronic and borderline racist line of argument.

Of course, there could be a more rigorous screening process, with a higher standard of qualifications required - but let's face it, a fully qualified teacher in Ireland, with a H.Dip and experience of teaching in Ireland, isn't going to take a salary cut of 20,000 euros a year to travel 6,000 miles from home and teach in a rural town. Even a Native English teacher with some experience, and a TEFL/CELTA course, has the option of teaching in Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, China, the Middle East, South America, or even Continental Europe, if they dig deep enough. Even from a jingoistic Korean point of view, it would make no sense for Korea to throw out their Native English Teachers, just to provide a 'brain drain' for direct economic rivals.

Having English teachers who can't communicate with the students in their first language, or put things in context in that language, is undoubtedly not the most efficient way of engendering widespread fluency in a second language. However, it's preferable to the alternative, of possibly cultivating a bastardized, indecipherable mutation of English, or breeding a generation of students who lack the confidence to speak to foreigners. It's not a perfect system, but in the short-to-medium term, it'll have to do - at least until Korea can meet the difficult task of appointing fluent Korean-English teachers to every school in the country.