Korea Teacher’s Union Wants Native English Teachers Out of Classrooms
The KTU is trying to kick native English teachers out of Korean classrooms:
A union of liberal teachers has called on education authorities to remove all ― if not reduce the number of ― native English teachers from elementary schools in Seoul.
Korea Times
According to the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU) Wednesday, its Seoul office representatives will soon meet their counterparts from the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) to discuss the issue.
“There have been opinions that the quality of some native English teachers’ teaching skills is low, which increases Korean teachers’ workload,” a KTU official reportedly said. “They can be replaced by Korean teachers, given that what they teach is elementary level English.”
In April 2018, the SMOE announced measures to improve the quality of English education in public schools. As part of the reform, the office decided to provide native English teachers to all 557 elementary schools in the city.
You can read more at the link.
I am no fan of the KTU which was banned by the prior Park Geun-hye administration due to its anti-Park government and pro-North Korean agenda that led to teacher firings. ROK Heads may also remember that the KTU has a long history of teaching anti-Americanism in the classroom as well.
With that all said, on this issue I can understand what the KTU is trying to do. If it gets rid of the native-English teachers that opens up hundreds of jobs for Koreans. The kids English education may suffer, but from a union perspective that is probably a low priority to them.
“the quality of some native English teachers’ teaching skills is low”
As someone in the racket that is English education in Korea, I’d say the above claim is partially true: there are indeed foreigners who have no clue how to teach; they suck and ought to be removed. At the same time, the above claim is more of a whine about how certain foreigners—the ones who’ve had training, and who know what they’re doing—come in with new, modern teaching methods that don’t correspond to the antiquated, 1940s-era pedagogy of yore. The KTU may be “liberal” in some vague sense, but its approach to teaching English is old, stale, and quite conservative… if by “conservative” we mean “unwilling to evolve and become more efficient/effective.” If Korean teachers had their way, the kids would hear 99% Korean in an English-language classroom, and they’d learn almost zero actual, useful English.
After all, why is it that Korean kids who come back from living abroad have such excellent English? It’s certainly not because they’ve spent their days listening to and speaking Korean. (Although, yes, for some kids, that’s exactly what happens when they settle into a Korean neighborhood, eat nothing but Korean food, and learn nothing of the surrounding culture.)
Well said, Kevin. This resistance to any change is a symptom of many teachers’ unions. It seems many activist organizations carry methodologies stuck in the past; but it is not really about politics, per se. It’s about trying to maintain control without regard for the students. And that’s a bigger sin than praising the fat dude with a missile complex.