Thoughts on Foreign English Teacher “Scandal”

I have been reading with amusement the current English teacher “scandal” in the Korean media reported here and then translated by Robert here. I say with amusement because it was all that long ago when US soldiers were looked down upon by the ex-pat English teacher crowd as giving them a bad image in Korea and aloe and be hold the tables have turned and the ex-pat English teacher crowd is giving us US soldiers a bad image. Especially with the latest “scandal” coming on the heels of last year’s Spectrum-gate “scandal”.

I can remember a few years back during my first tour in Korea a Canadian English teacher I met, yes in Itaewon, asked me why US soldiers were so misbehaved in Korea giving everyone else a bad name. I of course had to explain to this person that if you put a bunch of horny 18-21 year olds in a over sexed environment like Korea combined with unlimited amounts of alcohol, plus being away from home for the first time, what do think is going to happen? Boot camp doesn’t create asexual people who don’t want to drink.

It doesn’t matter where you are from young people are more obnoxious and get in trouble, it doesn’t matter if you are a GI, a English teacher, or a Korean for that fact. Ex-pats in a bar focus on the same obnoxious 18-21 year olds in the bars they frequent every weekend and not the majority of soldiers minding their own business in local bars or back on post calling their families in the US they haven’t seen in months and other people minding their own business in their room playing Playstation for example.

USFK currently has about 28,000 soldiers in it so of course there are going to be a few bad apples that cause problems and when problems do occur the Korean media sensationalizes it and it wasn’t to long ago that many ex-pats bought into the bad GI crap as well when in fact young GI’s were acting very similar to young ex-pats; it was just back then nobody cared about ex-pats, now people do.

I don’t know how many English teachers are in Korea but I’m sure there are thousands and of course within those thousands there are going to be a few bad apples that slip through the cracks. Should all English teachers be painted with the same brush because of the few bad apples? Of course not. Probably the best response I have read from this current “scandal” is from the Metropolitician that is a MUST READ if you are remotely interested in this topic. The Metropolitician I believe correctly believes that the real problem is with the Korean educational system that makes it easier for bad apple English teachers to enter the country, however it is easier to blame the foreigners instead of looking at the systematic problems within the country including sexual abuse of students by Korean teachers as well.

Believe it or not I actually have some English teaching experience. I taught English once every two weeks for nearly a year to elementary students near my camp. The school relied on US soldiers to teach accent and conversational skills to the students because they had no hired foreign English teachers at the school. Having US GI’s come in allowed the school to save the money of hiring a foreign English teacher and it gave us a chance to hang out with the kids and interact with the community. I really enjoyed my time helping out there, but something I found interesting was the fact that the Korean teacher in charge of the English language instruction at the school with a university degree in English could hardly speak it.

I was pretty much dependent on my KATUSA to translate what she wanted to tell me. In fact one of the 10 year old students had lived in America for a few years and spoke better English than her. She could read and write just fine, but talking and listening to English she had very minimal skills. If university educated teachers in Korea cannot speak English is it any wonder why the country is dependent on the same foreign English teachers that are now the subject of such ridiculous scorn by the Korean media?

With all the hoopla over the current English teacher “scandal” these ex-pats can at least take solace in the fact they don’t have to worry about having curfews, off limits policies, lock down on post, no drinking, and other restrictions put on them whenever an incident happens, like what USFK does. So it could be worse if that makes anyone feel better. But on the other hand USFK has proven that these restrictions work because behavior of US soldiers has improved greatly compared to as little as five years ago.

It is amazing to me that even after a year since Spectrum-gate the anti-foreigner focus is still on English teachers. I thought for sure it would shift back to US GI’s or 3D workers or some other ethnic group. Anyway in the spirit of international cooperation, I still offer my friendly advice from last year of how to blend in as a GI for any English teacher out there on the run from the English teacher Gestapo. I said last year that I thought this all would blow over and it has yet to blow over so what do I know, but it is still amusing.