Anti-Education and My 50% Success Rate at Answering Korean English Exam Questions

So, I am an Englishman flown in to South Korea to help educate their young in English.  In my school my level of English is obviously unmatched (I am English after-all) so why is it I am so bad at answering English exam questions in Korea?

Perhaps I only ever get asked about the tricky questions, or maybe I am just a dumbass, but it turns out that I am right about 50% of the time in my estimation.  In many ways it is embarrassing, why can't a reasonably well educated native English speaker, from England, who has spoken, read, listened and wrote in English all his life, answer questions correctly in a country where the overall level of English is poor (this is not a criticism, just simply that English is not their first language)?

You can get an idea of the type of questions that come-up in the college entrance exam (the big one) here at Ask a Korean.  They are not easy.

Personally, I was intrigued by a couple of things recently.  I have just finished correcting about 40 essays for our innugral and now annual school English newspaper.  The vast majority of them are sound efforts indeed - much better than I could do in Korean - however, they are riddled with mistakes as you might expect.  Sometimes it becomes very frustrating to check because the meaning is so difficult to grasp without actually going through the essay with the student who wrote it.

One of the few teachers in my school I have the ability to be honest and candid with, asked me to check one such essay the other week.  After a while of struggling through it, she asked me what I thought; I said it was fairly similar to all the others I had checked.  In reply, she said that the original piece was by a student at our school, but which had almost totally been re-written by her brother, who has just finished high school.  I replied that it was still difficult to understand and she remarked that her brother just received a perfect score in his English college entrance exam.  Shocked, I asked her honestly how this was possible and her reply was that the exam is all about reading and listening and not speaking and writing.  I guess we all knew this, but it really did bring home just how messed-up the system of learning English in Korea really is.  The kid got a perfect score in the biggest exam in the country at English, yet his essay was all over the place and was not what you'd expect from someone who just aced a very difficult English exam.

One of my perennial gripes with education in all countries is teaching to the test and in Korea they have perhaps hit the pinnacle of "excellence" in this regard.  Tests are not completely useless and I suspect in subjects like mathematics and mainly theoretical subjects, they are valuable as tools, not only for assessment, but for motivation a well.  In regard to English, though, I can't imagine a worse thing to be doing.

My colleague's brother had been taught for years and years and spent countless hours studying to pass a Korean English test and not to how to use and communicate in that language.  The tests and the education system that surround them are to get into universities, period, they serve no other purpose.  In terms of communication, every student in Korea would be better off spending 3-6 months in an English speaking country learning English, rather than 14 years in a Korean classroom.  I really do believe this, I'm not over-stating things, and I can't help but think that this waste of time is almost immoral.

I will give an example of a question passed to me the other day by another English teacher at my school.  Answer the following question by giving the correct response:

A: Can you tell me why you were so upset?
B: ___________________________________________________

1. I got some money for good grades.
2. I got the book I wanted for my birthday.
3. I'm angry because my brother broke my MP3 player.
4. I feel happy because I won first prize in the contest.
5. I couldn't sleep enough because I had to prepare for an exam.

Got it?

Actually, this is an example of quite an easy question; it can only really be two answers 3 or 5 and 3 is in the wrong tense, so it must be 5.  On first attempt, however, I slipped-up here.  Again, maybe I was just being a dumbass, but I think it part of the reason is because of a profound difference in the way Koreans see the English language and how English speakers see the language.  English speakers are communicating in English and therefore I think the relation between upset and angry is far stronger than upset and tired.  Everyday English conversation teachers all over Korea receive responses from students to verbal questions like this; i.e. that are perfectly understandable but have errors of grammar, like answer 3, and I personally grasp what Koreans are trying to say to me, even though they make simple tense errors like this.  My wife's English was not perfect in the same sense when I first met her and for quite a while after, but she was an excellent communicator and easy to understand.

The amazing thing is that probably 95% of my high school students would not be able to even give the incorrect response that's understandable, let alone give a spoken response with perfect grammar.  Only about 5% can achieve a speaking or writing ability good enough to get their thoughts across in any meaningful way, but I bet the majority of students answered the above question correctly. 

I have the sneaking suspicion that if I took the college entrance exam, I would not get a perfect score and probably would not even be in the top 10% of students.  I would love to see an experiment done on foreign teachers in Korea to this effect, I think it could be very revealing.

The ignoring of the spoken and written aspects of the English language in Korean exams is a telling one because it is speaking and writing that are the creative and interactive elements.  I think that creativity and interaction are things that Korean culture as a whole are exquisitely uncomfortable with, especially in a classroom situation.  Creativity involves individuality and interaction may involve disagreement and possible embarrassment, especially when another language is being used.  Korean culture has always appeared to me somewhat ill at ease with the concepts of individuality, disagreement, and embarrassment and many Koreans strain to avoid all three over and above what obviously occurs in Western culture also, but in smaller doses (mainly in disagreement and embarrassment).  Korean students are comfortable sitting quietly and passively in class with their heads in their books and listening to their elders/teachers bark instructions and information at them.  Korean teachers and parents are also very cozy and content with this situation.

The fact that the Korean education system doesn't confront the clear issues in its culture and education of the young regarding these factors is a local symptom of what education has become world-wide.  What is driving it are the ideas of conformity, tolerance, the fear of failure, meeting targets, societal values, and saving face.  I would argue this is not education but anti-education.  If you only ever do things that are inside your comfort zone, how can you ever truly grow?  It's like going to the gym and never increasing the weights you lift, the reps you do or the time and resistance on the bike, rowing or running machine.

What I see all over the world is the teaching of youngsters to conform to other's wishes and views (not necessarily always bad), to be concerned about the idea of free expression in favour of tolerance and to have a fear of failure that is reinforced by never taking students out of their comfort zones and by continuous testing.

What is knowledge of a language good for if it is not to communicate with it?  Korean education is so caught-up in understanding all the little nuances and academia with it as well as saving face by not speaking it, it ignores the whole purpose.  I see the same thing in science education, which I trained in as a teacher, in England; everyone was so caught-up in teaching the facts and doing experiments with Bunsen burners that everyone ignored the whole point of science, to ask questions and to be in wonder and awe of the world around us.  I can't remember any wonder or awe from my school science classes when I was younger and there was no wonder, creativity or questions raised in my science classes when I taught either.  All that was required of me was to whizz through all the facts and the silly practical skills in the syllabus as quickly as I could to fit them into the school year and to make sure they missed nothing for their exams.  If I digressed to explore something in greater depths or answered questions that went off at interesting tangents from the class topic, I was chastised for it by the teachers that were "training me" to be a better teacher. 

This is anti-education, but it is what passes as education and it really elevates my blood pressure.

Apparently, Korea sits at number 2 behind Finland in countries with the best education systems.  I think really this is nonsense, the wording needs changing; Korea actually is number 2 in schooling, not education because if there was ever a land that matched the following quote from Mark Twain more closely, I haven't heard of it:

"Don't let your schooling interfere with your education" - Mark Twain

Sound advice, which people in all countries should take note of, especially Koreans.


Note: I think this post goes quite nicely with a great piece written by "the Boss" over at wangjangnim.com http://wangjangnim.com/what-it-is-all-about

Troubles with the Co-Teacher

First a bit of background into teaching in Korea for those of you that haven't taught English here.  It is a part of education policy* for the school to have a co-teacher 'helping' or 'team-teaching' with the native English teacher in public school classes.  On first arriving in Korea, most public school teachers will have an orientation and perhaps some further instruction on how to work best with their co-teachers in order to deliver effective lessons.  There are different methods for doing this, but generally, the native teacher and Korean co-teacher should work together in planning and delivering the lessons, with interaction between the two in class.

Usually, there is one native English teacher per school and assigned to them is almost always one Korean co-teacher, who should be an English teacher (a bit of a no-brainer, one would think).  The relationship between the two is often a bit of an issue for foreign teachers working in Korea as it can be a recipe for disaster.  Generally speaking, it seems like the younger the Korean co-teacher the better as they are less likely to get in the way of the Native teacher's classes and maybe even genuinely work together.

At orientation and in online training, quite a pleasant, pretty picture will be painted of this working relationship; you plan together, you discuss problems together, you teach the lessons together, and your co-teacher may even sort out some things outside of the school for you.  The reality of the situation, however, is frequently very different.

First, from my own experience and what I can gather from others, you will be fairly lucky if your Korean co-teacher can speak English to anywhere near a respectable level.  Then you will very fortunate to have a co-teacher that has any time that can be spared for you to discuss classes, students, problems, plan, etc.  And finally, you will be exceptionally lucky if they actually help you at all in class.

Perhaps I am being a little bitter about this situation because my school is so astronomically terrible in this department.  I have worked at a High school in Jeollanamdo now for about 2 years.  In all that time, I have had 8 different co-teachers; only one was an English teacher and she was only in half of my classes for half a term/semester (she was actually extremely helpful as well).  I had one other teacher who could speak English, who was actually a music teacher.  The other six included; a maths teacher, two Japanese teachers, an old Korean teacher who was dying of cancer and so was put into my class (I can only imagine the reason was to let him sleep, because that is all he did), a geography teacher, and most recently the school nurse.  All of these teachers could not speak a word of English, indeed my meagre knowledge of Korean was far superior to their English, which was non-existent.

Actually, I didn't mind any of this.  I planned my own lessons and completely controlled all of my classes.  The co-teachers would turn up sometimes and at other times not show, but if they did show they would simply read a book or get some marking done at the back of the classroom.  Only with my most recent of co-teachers have I had problems, the school nurse.

This woman is about 3 feet tall and pretty weak in the discipline department - no surprise really as she is not even a teacher.  However, this did not stop her from trying to discipline students in my classes, often when they were doing exactly what I wanted them to do, i.e. be enthusiastic about the class and speak English.  She began telling them to be quiet more and more.

In a boys high school in Korea, the biggest challenge - that I dare say almost every foreign teacher in this kind of school will have - is the problem of student motivation and enthusiasm.  Objective number one in planning and delivering every single one of my classes is to try to encourage them to be interested in my lesson.  I want them in an attentive and sometimes even excitable state, indeed excitable is when they often just blurt out English loudly without even thinking about it.  This, however, can sometimes be noisy but it is the perfect state for my class.  My school nurse co-teacher was starting to make sure that this didn't happen; to her noise was bad, talking was misbehaving, she even started to send students out of the class.  I tried explaining that this was what I wanted because my class is after all a speaking class, but she either did not understand or did not think my reasons were justified.

Rarely do I trouble my school about anything, I sort out all problems myself, both in and out of the classroom.  Sometimes, however, I need a document from the school, to know my vacation dates, or scheduling information.  Whenever I need this kind of thing, I usually have to ask them 5 or 6 times or they are unbelievably slow in getting things done.  Even extremely simple matters that would take as little as a couple of minutes to sort out, often take weeks.  It can frustrate the hell out of me.  On the subject of my co-teacher, though, I was pretty keen on sorting things out fast, as she was ruining my lessons.

I complained, and when I got the usual nonsense and delaying tactics, I said I would write something down and ask my wife to translate.  I said it was my own fault that I hadn't let her know what I expected of her from class number one.  In a bit of a panic, the head of the English department (who sits next to me) pleaded with me not to and phoned another English teacher to try and rectify things (who works in the floor above me).  He then called back and told the head of English to tell me to wait until next week.  I simply said, "there is no time like the present, why not now?  If you don't sort it, I will."  I didn't want another ruined lesson and the impression to the students that I wasn't in charge, I was losing their respect with every class this was continuing in.

Panicked again, she called back to the man on the floor above, who then called to the vice-principal (who sits about 4 metres away from me and the head of English), who then called the principal (sits in the next room) and they eventually had a word with the school nurse about the issue.

To my school's credit, although I feel they don't place too much importance on my classes, I do think they trust my judgement and my teaching ability.  Despite all the bureaucracy - and the fact that they gave me a school nurse as a co-teacher in the first place - they fully supported me and agreed that I should take full control of the class and that my co-teacher should not interfere.

This is just my story about troubles with co-teachers, but I have heard countless more.  From my experience with the one co-teacher that could speak English and how we worked together effectively, it is clear to me that when there is a good working relationship between the the Native and Korean English teachers it is of great benefit to the students.  I found that a good Korean co-teacher can especially help the low-level students, which are often the hardest to motivate because of their difficulty in accessing the lesson when it is solely done in English by the native teacher.

It does make me wonder about the whole NET set-up in Korea sometimes and their bizarre system for educating students in English.  There is just no seriousness, responsibility, or care taken with NET's.  You'd think that because the government spend so much money on us, they would make sure of our efficacy and put a little responsibility on us to get results.  Instead they allocate most of us one lesson a week with 30+ students, no assessment for students taking our classes, and it seems little regard for making sure we all get adequate assistance from co-teachers in our schools.

Actually, I personally don't mind at all, except feeling a little sorry for those low-level students I find it hard to get through to.  I have zero responsibility, zero pressure, and absolute freedom to teach what I want and how I want.  It all probably makes for a breath of fresh air for many of the students in my school and a break from their usual monotonous routine, and the intellectual freedom it allows me is quite fulfilling.  I do, however regularly get the feeling I am teaching the kids about Western culture and life rather than improving their English.  While this might actually be valuable, I am fairly sure it is not what the Korean government intended when they embarked on hiring NETs from Native English speaking countries.

The policy regarding NETs the way it is, I really don't blame my school - and others like it - in how they deal with my classes and their lack of care when it comes to providing quality co-teachers.  Good Korean English teachers with a high enough level of English to be useful in class with the NET are in short supply and I can imagine they are needed for their own lessons.  Priority number one for schools is to help students pass their final exam at high school with flying colours, so they can make it to a reputable university.  Despite some research showing that NETs can improve English ability in high level students, their efficacy the way things are is negligible and this is not surprising for the reasons I have already mentioned and the fact that exams are not really geared to speaking and genuine communication.  If I was a principal in a school in Korea, I wouldn't put much of my time into the foreign teacher either.

I truly believe in the idea of importing foreign teachers to teach students about language and culture, this is genuine education, especially if it is done well.  It is not learning culture or language from a book it is experiencing it, interacting with it, and understanding it first-hand.  But the fact is that when it comes to getting students into a good university, the foreign teacher and true education is surplus to requirements.

Sources:

http://everydaykorea.com/2013/06/government-study-in-favor-of-native-english-teachers/

* Originally "legal requirement", my mistake, sorry.

English Speaking Competitions: All Status and No Substance (and Certainly No Learning)

So what is getting my goat in Korea at the moment?  English speaking competitions.  These little contests seem to be cropping-up in many schools this month in my area, perhaps June is 'English Month'.

Now, I can only comment on the English speaking contests I have had the experience of knowing about, many are run in a different format and especially those run by foreign institutions and for those at high levels, but every one I know of in public schools in Korea is really not about speaking at all.  More specifically they are about writing essays in English, which the students then speak out loud to a set of judges.

Perhaps I am being pedantic, you think, it is still speaking and after-all it is their own work, right?  Well, very often, no it isn't their own work.  Let's start with the students in my own school and their "speaking" contest.

At the time of writing this, my school held this competition yesterday, and the process leading up to this left me with a number of curiousities into the purpose and the effectiveness of the whole project.  If you were going to set up a system of learning in a school that might actually garner negative results in student education and is totally illogical, you might want to copy the way many Korean schools are handling these events.  Here is my little list of the problems I see:

1. They hold an English speaking contest, but the best person in the school to judge the contest is not utilised to judge it, i.e., the foreign teacher.  I was, of course, quite happy not to be asked at it was out of my contract hours, but if there is one job a foreign teacher could do really well in Korea, it is judging students speaking levels.  Not even thinking about using them for this purpose is just plain weird.

2. It is labelled a speaking contest, but essentially it is a writing and reading contest.  Again, why not utilise the foreign teacher and have dialogues between students and the teacher?  I have never seen or heard of this in my province in Jeollanamdo, maybe this does happen elsewhere, anyone care to comment?

3. The written essays are checked by teachers.  In a classroom situation this would be fair enough and also after the contest, as students require feedback to improve, but how can you judge a student's English ability when all they have written has been corrected by an English teacher before the contest?  Surely, then you are just judging the merits of the essay itself, so why not just have it written in Korean?

4. The written essays are sometimes completely altered by teachers.  One student came to me this week and asked for me to check his work, which I did.  A day later he came back and asked me to check again because his Korean English teacher (this teacher is one of those that can't really speak the language at all well) had noticed some mistakes.  Actually, what he highlighted were not mistakes, just perhaps a few awkward sentences that I did not try and completely alter.  There were other parts where he suggested completely different sentences to be written (which were also grammatically incorrect).  I had only corrected grammatical errors and spelling, the Korean teacher was suggesting whole changes to the material to make it read better.  What is the point of this?  Whose work does it become?  I then had a slight argument with the student who didn't believe me when I said that his sentence was perfectly OK and he didn't need to change it.  He then asked another Korean English teacher for his opinion, still not trusting me.  I thought then and there that this would be the last time I corrected any student's work for a speaking contest; he was wasting my time, his time, and insulting my intelligence in the process.  Who would you trust to correct your English?  An Englishman or a Korean English teacher that can't speak English?  Apparently, a non-English speaking Korean is a better option.

In short, it is pretty obvious that I am hinting that speaking competitions (at least the ones I have been privy to) are a complete waste of time.  There are more issues, however, that go even deeper (and more annoying) that actually make some of these contests drive a kind of anti-education.  What I mean is that what teachers and parents are encouraging is not only a waste of time, it is teaching young people all the wrong things.

Checking students from your own school is bad enough, but when you get requests to correct work from people you barely know, or even don't know, my knickers really do get in a twist.  This tends to happen to me quite a lot.

My wife is a hagwon teacher at the moment, but even when she was a nurse - because of the fact people knew she was married to an Englishman - she would receive requests to check English essays and tests (or have me check them).  This month, not only has she been given lots of 'speaking' contest essays to check (and I have to help with them) from her hagwon student's parents, but she even had a woman that has seen her in the gym ask her to meet her for 30 minutes on a Saturday to translate her daughter's work.  This woman had never met my wife, just asked for her number from another member of the gym she goes to.  She even had the audacity to ask if she wouldn't talk to anyone about helping her and to keep it secret.  Needless to say, my wife did not meet her, but she e-mailed my wife her daughter's essay nonetheless, which was entirely in Korean, her daughter did not even attempt to write in English.

I know what you will all say, we should tell them where to go or just not reply, but those that aren't linked into Korean culture or aren't Korean cannot possibly know how damaging doing this can be.  If my wife refused to help a student at her hagwon she would risk losing her job as parents are quite happy to fiercely complain about almost anything to hagwon bosses, after-all there are plenty of other hagwons that can take their place.  Even the woman in the gym can make my wife's life difficult and word gets around in a small city fast about disrespectful, selfish, young women, don't you know.  I can refuse to help, I am a foreigner, it doesn't matter if they think I am acting selfishly, my wife on the other hand is Korean and Korean society can make life hell for those that don't do their duty for others, especially when they are the younger person.  Korea really is a gifts and favours culture; people are not afraid to ask for them and they are not afraid to abuse you to other people if you don't give them.

So, using the example of this rather cheeky woman who didn't know my wife but thought it appropriate to ask her to write an essay in English for her daughter anyway, what is the motivation and the effect of behaviour like this?  Here are some thoughts that immediately came to mind:

1. The girl was an Elementary school student, surely the teachers at her school would know that this was not her work.

2. The teachers at the school must be aware of this particular student's English work and level in class, so surely they must be able to figure out that this cannot be her work.

3. The purpose of an English contest must be to motivate students or assess the best students, neither is being done if people are seeking outside help and at worse not even bothering to try to write English themselves.

4. The mother is teaching her child to cheat, plain and simple.  Don't even try, just get someone to do your work for you and pass it off as your own.

5. Given that there are obviously a number of people entering Englsih contests from schools with perfectly composed English essays, does this mean that they all seek outside help?  Because, if they don't, their essays will look really dumb compared to the rest. 

6. Are the prize winners really just a product of wealthy parents who can pay for private tutors to help their children, audacious parents that don't mind asking strangers for favours, and/or lucky parents who know a native English speaker or a proficient Korean?

7. What are parents getting out of such endeavours?  My suspicion is the ability to proudly boast that their child won an English speaking contest.  In other words, parents put to the back of their minds whether their child is actually learning English as long as it appears that they are.  It serves as a bit of a status symbol for them and is a lesson for us all in the power of wishful thinking, delusion, deception, and denial.

8. What are the children getting out of such endeavours?  This is perhaps the most troubling aspect, all I can see is that this is:

a) A waste of time
b) A lesson that cheaters prosper
c) Deluding a child into thinking their ability is higher than it actually is
d) Teaching a child that cutting corners gains results
e) Teaching a child that winning is everything, no matter how you achieve it
f) It may even breed a strange arrogance in them

Are their any benefits at all?  There are not many, but I can invisage perhaps one and that is encouraging them to stand-up and read English out loud to people and the handling pressure that comes with it.  It could be that Korean children have enough pressure to deal with in their education already, however.

What Should be Done Instead

Firstly, if you are going hold a competition that is billed as an "English Speaking Contest" make it a speaking contest, not a reading and writing contest.  Schools can use their foreign teacher and/or a high level and confident Korean English teacher to have interactive dialogues with the students.  This would certainly sort out those with true English ability and "pretenders" need not apply.  It would be nearly impossible to blag and cheat your way through a situation like this.

I am fairly convinced that education worldwide is pretty poor at the moment, but the problems in Korea are more obvious than most and especially with regard to English education.  These contests show this clearly.  What could be more obvious than having proper speaking contests, like I mentioned?  Why is this not being done?  The answer is that Korean people have created a culture of their own around learning English.  English is learnt like history, as an almost endless stream of events to memorize, but in English's case, words and grammar.  It is not learnt to communicate, if a student wants that, then they have to sort that out for themselves because their school is not in the business of teaching English for this reason.  People fear to speak it and they fear embarrassment, it is just not a comfortable thing to do.  What is comfortable and safe is sitting at a desk and passively learning grammar rules and endless vocabulary.  One should also be worried about the culture of cheating and corruption that is occurring in this part of the world relating to education.  As grades become more and more important, so true learning becomes less and less meaningful.  The score is all that matters and cheating is one way to achieve it.

For Koreans to genuinely improve their English - indeed for anyone to improve at almost anything - they need to step out of their comfort zone.  For me personally, coming to Korea has been one of the greatest learning experiences of my life precisely because I am regularly taken outside my comfort zone, and this is especially true with regard to my wife's family.  All those awkward moments, the moral outrages that come with clashes of culture, and the frustrations add up to greater knowledge, understanding and wisdom in the end.  This is what education and learning should be all about, not memorising, cheating, show-boating, and denial in order to remain comfortable or to be respected.

Note: Maybe we should not stop students cheating in competitions and tests, we might have riots on the streets and in the schools!

The Shabby Treatment of Native English Teachers Living in South Korea

A few months ago a friend of mine asked my advice about working in South Korea.  He said he had read some horror stories and general stories of discontent on the internet and was worried about coming.  At the time I reassured him that all was not that bad, and very often it is not, but the Korean government's plan for native teachers and the attitude within individual schools is at present poor to say the least.

Following on from my last post where I complained generally about the problem of not understanding people from other countries in Korean culture, this post is going to examine the issue related to the job the vast majority of Westerners find themselves in when they come to Korea.  I think every foreign teacher living in Korea knows about the drawbacks of the system the country puts in place for teaching English to its young people and its limitations regarding it use of native teachers, but here I will focus mainly on the problems of inflexibility and understanding.

I think most native teachers brush-off the problems they have with their schools as cultural misunderstandings, however annoying they might be, and that it is all part of the 'backwards land' experience.  Some, of course, are genuine misunderstandings and communication problems that can't be helped but a great many issues go much deeper than this.

I have written before that the treatment of all workers within Korea is poor.  It is especially bad for Koreans themselves and I have focused on this aspect rather than native English teachers and other foreign workers.  Even though I accept that foreign teachers probably have things a lot easier than their Korean and particularly South East Asian counterparts, things are still unacceptable.  This also affects the reputation of Korea itself as it causes a fair amount of bitterness in people who have visited Korea for work.  Word has got around and the amount of negativity from former workers in South Korea can be felt in discussion forums and general comments on the internet and in everyday chinwags with friends back in their own countries.  This message is this; Korea is a backwards, rude, uncaring, and in many cases morally bankrupt, but if you are lucky you might just make a wad of cash there.

The people who do say this kind of thing are the out and out doomsayers, the people who can say nothing good.  There are some great things about living in Korea and many fantastic aspects of the people and culture, as I have mentioned before.  When it comes down to relations with work colleagues and employers, however, I can't help but think that there is a great deal of truth to what the negative-nellies are saying.

I have lived in Korea for over 3 years now - on and off - and I have a had a great deal of experience within my schools and heard of friend's experiences within theirs.  I can tell you that the horror stories are true, as I have known people personally who have had them and nearly went through one myself, where the fact that I had a Korean family probably saved me from losing an awful lot of money, but didn't prevent me from having a truly awful 9 months in a job.  The general aches and pains are also true, I experience them often even in my current job, which I quite like.  What really annoys me is that in most of the annoying situations, cultural difference is simply not an excuse worth entertaining.  It is a cop-out, a reason to treat you badly, a reason to treat all employees badly, or a reason to remain ignorant and should not be accepted.

A classic story comes up time and time again from teachers all over the peninsula and this is the school changing their minds about vacation dates, even after they have confirmed things with you and your flights are all booked up.  Koreans are culturally famous for being rather last minute kind of animals, in schools they pull last minute classes and other duties on teachers all the time, but behaviour of this kind is simply tantamount to the abuse of an individual's rights.  No understanding at all is given to the native teacher's life.  I rarely hear of refunds being given to teachers for flights, hotels or other bookings, not to mention the mental stress and strife of it all. 

In my own personal experience my school regularly comments on what a wonderful teacher I am, how 'diligent' I am (they love that word), and sometimes even how much they 'love' me.  However, when it comes down to helping me out, or even just performing their duties as written in my contract, I am given the cold shoulder and I have to fight tooth and nail to make them do anything for me.  Simply asking for a pay slip (stub), organising dates for holiday, or even have them sign a piece of paperwork feels like I have asked them to donate one of their kidneys to me.  I am incredibly independent in my job and I have a Korean family, so there aren't too many things I bother them for but when I do I am made to feel like a self-centred ass. 

If actions really do speak louder than words my school, as much as they talk a good game about me, the evidence seems to show that they have very little regard for me whatsoever.  I have to make my own meaning in my job and my students are the best.  Ironically, (from a Korean viewpoint at least) I have far greater respect for my students than I do for the vast majority of my co-workers because their actions do convey value in me as a teacher and as a person, something the so-called 'adults' at my school don't tend to achieve.  I genuinely respect my students, I just pretend to respect most of my co-workers.

I become more embittered by my school's lack of regard for my welfare when I think about how things would be if the situation were reversed and I was a Korean who was teaching Korean in England (not that this would actually happen, but join me in a thought experiment).  I am convinced that workers at schools in England would bend over backwards to make sure that their overseas teacher was well-informed, well-looked after, and was valued.  The higher amount of planning and organisation generally would also help. 

The difference is pure effort and a willingness to think about and try to understand another individual's feelings.  The 'Golden Rule' comes to mind here, 'do as you would be done by' or 'how would you feel in the same situation'.  This way of thinking seems remarkably absent in many Korean people, but not some much in young people who in my experience have a much more natural urge to value things like fairness and are less obsessed with dutes, status and petty jealousies (emphasis on 'less' especially with status and jealousy).

The problem is foreign teachers in Korea are individuals, they are different and many Korean people make this very clear to us all everyday.  They then turn around a minute or two later and treat us as part of the group because it is convenient to them.  This is an extreme double standard and is a great reason why a culture that values the group over the individual has some issues with regard to morals.  In my experience most Koreans do this 'picking and choosing'.  They single out foreigners as different when it suits them whilst at the same time demanding that we behave as part of their group and the way a Korean would behave.

Of course, it is not only a non-Korean that meets the criteria of an 'outsider'.  This can be met by other Koreans who act differently or are even new to a job.  The whole attitude in the workplace is detrimental to the rights of individuals and always only works in favour of the old and powerful.  This must change; the average Korean workplace is immoral, unfair, and a very real dictatorship.  There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, and co-workers who will buck this trend and care for others well, but the situation in workplaces is generally unacceptable for all in a developed country and let's not kid ourselves that this is all about cultural difference and brush it under the carpet.  Yes, it is a cultural difference but it is a divisive one.  When you fail to recognise, understand, and care about individuals, those in power are favoured and those under them suffer every time.  In this respect the native English teacher is very much in the same boat as the majority of Koreans, except we perhaps have a harder time accepting it.

The Joys of Living in Korea

Out of a very British sense of fairness perhaps, I am feeling a little uncomfortable with the amount of bad news or negative stories I have been writing about Korea recently on this blog and the general malaise about North Korea as well.  Believe me when I say that things aren't all bad, indeed they are very often good and better than back home in England in many regards.  This goes without saying really when you think about it, because if everything is bad then why the hell have I stayed here for so long?

So here is a list of reasons why I think Korea is actually a pretty decent place to live most of the time. 

Life is simplified (for a foreigner or native English teacher)

It really is stupidly easy to live here, even if you cannot speak the language.  When you arrive everything is usually sorted out for you; you have an apartment without looking for one, furniture without shopping, and are set up with a bank account. 

Life generally is made exceptionally easy with great delivery services, you don't have to search around for the best energy providers, public transport is efficient and cheap, and if you live in even a small city or town a convenience store, supermarket, gym, department store, doctors, dentists, pharmacy, a variety of restaurants, and all the services you can possibly need are all just around the corner.

Korean Food

As a man who is from a country well known for terrible food (for good reason), I can tell you that I really love the food here, and enjoy being introduced to such a wide variety of different Korean foods.  Korean people take great pride in their food, and for this reason I am never short of generous souls to take me out for lunch or dinner to a different restaurant so they can watch me gleefully gorge myself on another new Korean dish.  I have met some foreigners who say there is little variety and that it is all the same spicy taste, but I think they have simply not gone out there and experimented or tried enough different Korean foods.  There is great variety here, and most of it is extremely healthy, yet another tick in the box for Korean cuisine.  You can even travel to experience specialty food, something that I seem to be doing more often.  Korea has a rich culinary tradition and certain foods are considered especially delicious in different parts of the country where they specialise in them and this is well worth exploring.

Finding Work and the Work Itself

As a native English speaker, finding work in Korea is easy and for me as a man who is married to a Korean it becomes exceptionally easy.  As long as you give your work as a teacher here its own meaning and try to excel at your job, you will be appreciated and at the same time as finding work as an English teacher quite undemanding, you will be challenged enough to make things interesting.  This challenge is greater when you have to plan all your lessons without the aid of textbooks or any syllabus, like I have to.  This takes extra time and effort but is rewarding as it gives me an intellectual freedom in my job that I really enjoy.  Even for teachers without this amount of freedom, relishing the challenge of teaching and motivating students whose language it not your own is the key to enjoying the native English teacher experience.

The Lack of Petty Crime

There will always be stories that can be shared that are exceptions to this rule, but it is nice to be able to walk around with at least some level of faith that nothing will be stolen or if you lose something it might get returned to you.  As I have mentioned before on this blog, some shop owners just store their stock outside on the street under some shelter from the rain and no one steals anything.  I could not imagine this happening in Britain.  Also, if you lose your wallet you do have a great chance of getting it back with everything still inside.  Reckless vandalism also appears to be almost non-existent.  Perhaps much of this is because of a Confucian based culture's greater respect for authority, an aspect of their culture to which I have pointed out a fair amount of downsides to, but this happens to be a happy result of it.

The Lack of Politically Correct Nonsense


Sometimes in my British world of forcing school kids to wear goggles for a game of conkers, law suits for tripping on cracks in the street, failure to criticise anyone within a group of people for fear of giving offence, and everyone wins sports for the young, I yearn for some spade calling bluntness and this is what you can get in Korea.  Kids are wondering around at night buying street-food without fear of abduction or anyone reporting their parents to social services, obese people are called lazy people who need to exercise more and this is widely accepted, my high schoolers are given the responsibility for cleaning their classrooms and changing light bulbs without the fear of them having an asthma attack from dust or killing themselves with electric shocks (no one has died yet), and people trip up and make a mistake by not looking where they are going and slink off in an embarrassed manner without looking for the nearest person to claim money off of.  There are many more examples I could go through.  Sometimes they are too harsh, too blunt, and don't consider individuals very much or empathise with them but mostly I do appreciate their clarity and no-nonsense approach.

Random Acts of Kindness

I sometimes experience a level of sweetness in Korea that I rarely experience back home.  This can be in the form of offering food, surrendering an umbrella or lending one when it is raining, the offering of lifts in a car when I have looked lost and other kind gestures.  Whether these acts occur out of a sense of duty or not they can be very heart-warming.  One of the situations where I often find kind acts being done to me is while hiking, where offers of food, drink or assistance seem to be particularly common.

Exploring the Country

With a little bit of knowledge of Korean it is possible to explore the whole country just by taking public transport - which ties in with what I said about the ease of living.  With mountains, beaches, gorges, forests, islands, different foods, temples and historical landmarks, Korea is a great place to travel around with the added bonus - especially for a skin-flint like me - of not breaking the bank either.  It is a great country to explore and one that is still relatively free of tourists, so a genuine feel of the culture can be experienced.

Young People

I am very fond of young people in Korea, especially between the ages of about 11-20.  Really young kids just annoy me, period, regardless of their nationality, but that is just my personality.  Young people in Korea, in my opinion are especially kind, fun, friendly, open-minded, and polite.  Contrary to what some believe, I find them generally highly respectful of foreign teachers - something I explained in a previous post, here.  Reverse the situation and have Koreans teaching in English schools and I doubt whether student behaviour would be so kindly.  The reason for their affability might be because of their respect culture and the fact they are slightly oppressed by it, both in their dealings everyday with elders and their monumental amounts of study.  Respect culture is something I profoundly dislike but I must admit it does seem to create nice kids, perhaps exactly because they are slightly down-trodden by it.

There is Always Plenty of Controversy and Conflict

Some might think that this is a bad thing, but if you can embrace the difference in the culture here, you will never be short of a talking point over dinner.  Some people think embracing a culture means accepting it, I disagree.  Arguing against things you believe are wrong is important regardless of culture.  I have conflicts with Korean culture all the time but I don't necessarily accept their point of view as equally valid, I enjoy the battle against it, even if many of these battles have to be fought in my head or keyboard in hand on my blog.  If you want a debate, to write, or to be intellectually stimulated, there can be few better places to be in the world than in Korea with so much up for discussion.  This more than makes up for the stresses of clashing with the culture sometimes.  If you want a stress-free life that doesn't challenge your principles, go home or stay away.  If you want a bit of spice and interest and have your worldviews challenged, come to Korea and enjoy the ride.

People are Genuinely Interested in you

A year or so ago I took a trip to Indonesia and I was constantly disappointed by how many times someone would start a friendly conversation with me that always, in the end, turned out to be an emotional blackmailing tactic for me to buy something off of them.  You just never experience this in Korea, people are genuinely interested in you and where you come from or they want to practice their English with you.  It leads to many unexpected and pleasant conversations that can put a little smile on your face.  I have always felt a touch of innocence in many of the people in Korea in this regard and it is a very charming trait about them.

These are my own personal joys about living in Korea.  If any of my readers would like to add to this, by commenting below, I would be really interested to know if I have left anything out.

A Response to Wangjangnim's Rebuttal on Hagwons in Korea

The debate I am currently having with a hagwon (private academy) owner at wangjangnim.com is proving more topical than I realised because of the reaction to some adverts aimed at students in Korea involving getting down to study in Korea.  Have a look at this post from Koreabang.

Last week I posted about an ethical dilemma posed by being a hagwon boss in Korea.  I highlighted a couple of articles I read from a website called wangjangnim.com.  The writer of these posts was a hagwon owner himself and I thought he posed some interesting issues on a very thoughtful blog.

He posted a rebuttal to my article which can be viewed here.  I actually think on reading this last post that we agree far more than maybe we both realised to begin with, but we still do have some differences.  What is interesting is that we do come at the problem from two different perspectives, me as a teacher and someone who has close connections with Koreans through my wife's family, and he as an actual owner of a hagwon.  Here is my response to his points.

Point 1 - Excess Study

I entirely agree with everything he wrote on this point, and yes it is easy to condemn, but I do not think that it is therefore wrong to condemn excess study.  I was trying to be objective.  Without voicing disapproval of such things, nothing changes.

Point 2 - Feeling Sorry and Western Arrogance

I do feel sorry for the kids, I can't help it.  I think they are being let down by the Korean mindset with regard to progressing in life.  If this is arrogant to say, then I admit to being an arrogant Westerner.  My wife is a hagwon teacher too and she feels desperately sorry for not just hagwon students but most students in Korea, she lived through it and rebelled against it in her youth and I think it is fair to say she hates the system far more than me.  She learned far more English when she left full-time education and persued an interest in it by travelling to other countries.  She was motivated and this is the key.  Is she arrogant as well for having the same opinion as me?

Point 3 - Ignorance of Hagwon Regulations

I will freely admit that this was a little bit of a woolly assertion on my part as I don't know about regulations.  Wangjangnim is in a better position to know about it than me, but I do know of Koreans who have started study rooms (a bit like small Hagwons) that are not subject to any regulations if they don't have a foreign teacher.  My other question that I raised on the asiapundits website still stands and this is about the regulations regarding Korean owners of Hagwons - not foreigners like wangjangnim - and are there any regulations regarding the quality of the books and materials they use to teach and assessments of the quality of the teaching?

Point 4 - Value over Content?

Not 100% clear on this point but my point of view is that parents are making sacrifices in an ever increasing arms race to better equip their children.  Whether they need to make such sacrifices is debatable, but even if they did have to, I think the system is broken and it shouldn't have to be that way.  I accept that with the way the system currently operates, it is difficult as a parent to break free of this way of educating children.  I also acknowledge that many parents work and that hagwons are serving as a babysitter for them.

Point 5 - I Don't Hear you Complaining About Fast Food Businesses

This is because I am writing a blog about South Korea and issues that effect Korean students.  If I was writing about an obesity problem I might well have a problem with fast food restaurants but even then the comparison is not entirely fair.  I would hope that most people know the ramifications of eating too much fast food and know that it is unhealthy.  They are therefore making and informed free choice to be unhealthy when they go, fair enough.  The lack of understanding of English in Korea makes knowledge of progress rather unclear I think, both for the student (because they maybe too young to understand) and the parent (who often has no knowledge of English).  The industry is also almost solely focused on giving a service to children and it is their time and effort they are taking.  Parents are responsible for what children eat to a large extent and their money buys fast food.  They know it is unhealthy yet they still buy it or give them the money for it, therefore I believe the moral responsibility lies more towards them than the business.  I am only saying there is a more equal balance in the case of hagwons.  I do think fast-food restaurants have moral responsibility for the effects of their food when they market so heavily to young people, though.

Point 6 - Teachers are not the Miracle Solution

I fully concede your point.  The wider point I was making, however, is that the strategies many hagwons use for their foreign teachers are poorly thought out and in many cases counter-productive and the teacher would be better off doing their own thing.  I never meant to imply they were a solution to anything.

Point 7 and 8 - A Dog Calling a Cat Stupid

There is of course no abuse in teaching children when they want to learn or even when they don't but it is in their best interests.  My worry, however, was that there are too many students being taught when they don't want to learn and it is not in their best interests or they are too exhausted to learn, having studied excessively already.  I actually didn't use the term abuse, but I do think it is wrong to inflict forced study on students to the excesses I mentioned in my article.  Students studying all day until 11pm and having homework, come on, these kids do not want to learn, they have had quite enough and it is not in their best interests to study anymore.  Maybe not all students have had enough by the evening but my long experience in Korea, and the testimony of many a Korean, says that most of them want to have a rest and have some fun.  I am not basing this on my own experiences of childhood but on Koreans themselves.

Point 9 - Western Education Better?

I never claimed the above point.  I actually think that a combination of both cultures attitudes to education would do the world of good on both sides.  There are things I like about Korean education and things I dislike, just the same as my views on Western (or should I say British education).  I taught in England too and had many a grumble about the way we do things as well, like the way we wrap students in cotton wool and give way to their every need for an easy life.  Korean education goes in the other direction.  In the East, the child is seen as strong, flexible, and adaptable, they can take a lot of hardship.  In the West, we see children from the opposite point of view; children are weak, vulnerable and need to be protected at all costs.  I believe there is some room for a good deal of middle-ground between the two ways of viewing children.

Point 10 - Understanding Koreans

I think I understand why Koreans do as they do, but that really was not the point of my original article, which was aimed at showing the point of view of a student.  I did, however, through in the odd claim which you quite rightly corrected or at least pointed out needed greater explanation.  I know Koreans have a deep love for their children (I don't think this is greater than in the West, just equally great).  They want what is best for them, of course, and they feel guilt and pressure from society to make them successful.  They are also more reliant on their children when they are older, this is obvious as a group culture will rely on a family group more than an individualistic culture.  I do think this is a factor in wanting to make their children successful and they do - not so gently - push their children into professions they might not otherwise want to do.

I believe the well-being of students in Korea is pretty low and I think there is a better way forward, so therefore I think the current way is wrong.  I was not saying that the current way in the West was right.  The Western education system does not adequately prepare students for life and is increasingly not delving into subjects with enough detail and pandering to students too much, lowering standards (this is a very brief summary of what is wrong) I think this is wrong too.  Our expectations of students is simply lower in the West and this is why test scores are lower, we need to expect more from our students.  Also, is life and education really all about passing tests?


Regarding Criticism of Last Weeks Post

I have no idea of the situation and the student you describe so I can't really comment on you specifically, but again my wider point is that I suspect anyone with any work experience in a hagwon will know of the quiet, tired students who never speak and never improve and who have stayed at the hagwon, wasting their evenings for years.  That was the moral dilemma I was talking of; should hagwon owners keep taking their parents' money and wasting the children's time?  Even the best of intentioned hagwon owners do, I believe, or their businesses would fail, and I don't really blame them as the students they refuse would surely end up in another hagwon anyway.  That is why it is a dilemma and the system needs sorting out.  I never meant to tar all hagwon owners with the same brush of being bad people, I know they are not.

I simply don't believe that parental love is greater or more committed than in the West, it is surely the same.  It is just that love is shown in different ways.  Too much love can also be a bad thing and parents do need to step back and give their children breathing space sometimes.  They can't teach their children everything and realising this is a big step in helping them lead happy, successful, and fulfilling lives.  I worry that the culture as a whole is not getting to grips with this fact at the moment and that many young people in Korea are suffering because of it.


Confronting Criticisms I Hear a lot

I get slightly tired of defending myself against three points you raised here; arrogance, looking at things with Western blinkers on, and comparing Korean culture with my own. 

Regardless of where I am from, I think there is an objective position between other cultures where truth and the best way forward lie.  Sometimes, however, it just maybe that an aspect of one culture is right and the other culture is just wrong.  I am guarded against being too Western in my opinions and my wife usually helps me gauge when I have stepped over the line and entered into a Western-centric argument.  As a Korean, if she supports a Western aspect of culture over her own, does that mean she is only seeing things from a Western point of view?  I don't think so.  The fact is she and I weigh both sides and form an opinion.  Forming an opinion in disagreement with others is what many people do and calling it arrogant is a bizarre argument and in danger of being emotive rather than a logical.  I am being called arrogant for having an opinion, nothing more.  My opinion should be shot down with a logical argument nothing more, and the colour of my skin or where I was born should be irrelevant.

Finally, when it comes to the last point, I am damned if I do and damned if I don't.  I get heavily criticised for posts when I compare aspects of my own and Korean culture.  When I do it in favour of Korean culture I hear nothing, but when I do it in favour of my own I have calls of arrogance, ignorance, and even sometimes racism and only from Westerners.  I think this because of a kind of liberal-minded taboo that has been created in Western culture and a feeling that we should shut up and be sorry for our past prejudices and crimes.  When I don't compare mine and Korean culture (in my origin post on asiapundits and last week on this blog I did not do this other than the example of my summer holidays) I am assumed to be trumping my own cultures whole way of doing things, I can't win.  This is why I am seriously thinking of publishing another blog about the UK.  Writing a criticism on this blog of Korean culture and having to explain everything about my own in relation to it in one post is almost impossible.  I find it highly frustrating to have to defend myself against things I did not write, but are assumed of me, because I did not include it in an already long blog post.

Anyway, this one is becoming overly long so I'll wrap it up.  Many thanks to wangjangnim.com for replying so thoughtfully and I hope this post has cleared up my position.  I really don't think we disagree too much and I am sure we both have Korean student's happiness, futures, and well-being very much in mind, because if there is one thing I (and I suspect wangjangnim too) really love about Korea it is the young people and this is the sole reason I am so concerned about this subject.

An Ethical Dilemma for Hagwon Owners

The thought for this post came to me while reading a criticism of an article I wrote for asiapundits.com this week on the misery of hagwons (privately owned after-school academies) for many Korean students, which can be seen here.  On the comment section another blogger, wangjangnim.com, commented that I had no idea what I was talking about but did not elaborate and merely posted a link to an article on his website.  So I looked but was still not entirely sure what his point was after reading it.  I replied anyway with what I thought he meant and asking him to explain further.

Now, I can understand why he/she (will proceed with 'he' for simplicity) might be a tad upset.  From what I can gather he is a foreigner who owns a hagwon in Korea and my article was pretty scathing on hagwons generally.  The strange thing is, however, is when I looked at some of his previous posts, they all seemed to confirm exactly what I said in the article.  He actually has a very good site, worth reading, especially if you want to know more about Korean hagwons.  I will highlight just a few articles:

http://wangjangnim.com/fearguilt
http://wangjangnim.com/save-the-children
http://wangjangnim.com/disappointment1

I could link more as they are very interesting.  In each he muses about many of the concerns I raised in the article I wrote, but as I don't expect everyone reading this to take the time of reading 4 pieces of writing I will start getting to the point.

In the second post, he goes into a little detail of the ethos of his school, which seems a noble philosophy that I applaud him for, but it is the first post on fear and guilt that pricked my interest.  In this post he talks of a mother of one of his students who came in complaining about the lack of progress of her son for the last two years.  She apparently had him tested at another hagwon (a competitor) and they said he wasn't able to put a sentence together.  The writer then goes on to say that this particular student wasn't too bright and was introverted, shy, and buckled under pressure, so it was no surprise he did badly when under the spotlight.

This got me thinking, because my first job in Korea was at a really great little hagwon where the owners were well organised and tried hard to do the best for their students, much like this chap seems to be doing.  But, as nice as they were, there were many students in that hagwon that were going nowhere with their English and the owners knew it.  Of course, to stay in business in a highly competitive industry they have to continue to accept money from these children's parents and keep the students attending every day (these were often the most miserable students too) and this is where the ethical dilemma comes in.

Teachers and hagwon owners must know what students are not making even the least bit progress, as hagwons are not generally big enough to lose kids in the system, indeed small class sizes is one of the reasons they are considered important for learning English.  Despite this, they take the money and I think more importantly the poor student's time and enthusiasm for learning.  In wangjangnim's own post he taught a student for 2 years and he couldn't make a sentence in English, under pressure or not that is troubling.  How many hours of his short life did he spend there after school?  Did he enjoy his time there?  Maybe he did, but it is surely the case that many students in a similar position don't, this being another factor that may lead to student depression and even suicide in extreme cases.

I am in no way am attacking this hagwon owner by saying he is not teaching well, sometimes you can be the best teacher in the world and working at a school with the best strategies, but some kids just will not want to or be able to learn, especially when they are saturated with education like they are in Korea.  This is a problem however, because I think it is unethical to keep on taking the money for teaching this student and taking up their precious time.

The dilemma is though, can you really be honest and do the right thing?  If you are honest and do the right thing, surely your business will fail, while at the same time significantly improve the chances of the dishonest one's succeeding.  This maybe shows a small example of the wider issue of global business generally, that the muck tends to rise to the top.

Curiously, as well as the good hagwon I worked at (mentioned earlier) I also worked at a bit of a nightmare hagwon as well.  The boss had a reputation for firing teachers on the 11th month of their contract - thereby avoiding paying the bonus for completion of the contract - and I thought his strategies for teaching English were poor and he was willfully deceiving the parents of the children and the children themselves.  He was a pretty ruthless, cut-throat businessman and he had a long history of being a hagwon owner and was also successful in running a string of successful hagwons in Seoul, the most highly competitive of all places in Korea.  He knew how to survive and make a profit in the business when others were falling around him and this worried me a lot considering his lack of care for the students, dishonesty, and his general nastiness (his English was also appalling, especially as he wrote a book about how best to teach it).

Not all owners are like this guy obviously, but it was the fact that he had survived for so long that troubled me, he was a success story in the industry having been in it such a long time, he also had a maths academy in the same city.

Much of the business world revolves around dishonesty, unfortunately, that appears to be a reality of life but it seems to me that hagwon owners do have a little extra responsibility on their shoulders when dealing with young people who can't tell whether their time is being spent well and their parents money is being spent wisely.  Parents can't also judge very well how effective the hagwon is at teaching its children because the majority have almost no knowledge of English themselves.  This is a problem of conscience and makes the right way forward extremely unclear.  As wangjangnim says in his post on fear and guilt, a key factor of what drives the industry is deeply immoral, making parents feel the need to put their kids in private schools for fear of their children being disadvantaged.  I mostly overlooked this aspect in my post at asiapundits as I focused on private academies more from the students' perspective, but his article certainly confirms my fears for students and what they are really getting from these schools and the motivation for parents to send them there in the first place.

I urge readers of this post to have a look at wangjangnim.com.  I have read 4 or 5 posts now and it is an interesting perspective of the Korean hagwon industry from a man who owns one himself.  His posts are sensible, knowledgeable, and sincere.  He obviously cares about giving his students the best tuition possible.  This post and my asiapundits article was in no way a direct attack on his business.  I simply have grave concerns about the industry as a whole and I genuinely worry about the well-being of young people in Korea and private schools are a large part of that problem.

Are Korean Students Respectful To Their Foreign Teachers?

I have often been surprised by the amount of reports I hear from fellow English teachers who think that Korean students are disrespectful, difficult to teach, and are generally not very nice.  I say surprised because this is not the experience I have had with Korean students at all, but maybe my perspective and expectations of Koreans students is a little different.

Before I left for Korea, I had the impression that some of my friends thought that I was doing a really noble thing teaching English in South Korea, it was almost like I was doing Koreans a favour just by going there to work.  Nothing could really be further from the truth; I didn't have many job prospects in England and although the adventure of a new culture excited me, the major motivation was the money.

Some other friends assumed teaching in Asia generally must be an easy job, with their respect culture and hard-work attitude.  They thought all I needed to do was speak and they would listen.  Combine this with  TV programs showing volunteers teaching in countries like Thailand, Cambodia, and India and word of mouth experiences from such endeavours, where students are attentive, smiley  respectful, and sweet and one can get the impression that this teaching malarkey in Asia is easy and rewarding. Perhaps this is what many assume when they first come to Korea.

I came from a slightly different direction, however.  I had taught science in England as a trainee teacher for one year.  I hated it, and although the students were a challenge, it was not for this reason; the job took up my whole life, mostly with bureaucratic nonsense but also I never agreed with how my country went about teaching young people, however this is another story.

I also had quite a lot of experience working in a school environment as a learning assistant and science technician.  I had first hand experience about just how tricky young people in school can be.  I was already well practiced in handling disrespectful, noisy, and naughty young kids.  English students gave me plenty of  chances to refine my skills in dealing with them.

I came to Korea with an open mind, I had no real idea what to expect but I did have some expectations that Korean students would be better behaved.  After about three years teaching in Korea, I still think they are better behaved, more respectful, and generally much more friendly and pleasant to teach than students back home.

However, it has not slipped by me that many people who comment on the behaviour of Korean students are themselves also teachers back home in their own countries.  I am pretty sure that when they say their students back home are more respectful they are not lying, so what is going on?  Is it only English students who are difficult?

Perhaps the problem is that they are not comparing like with like.  There really is no comparison with our positions as teachers in Korea and teaching back home in our respective countries.  Native teachers in Korea can be placed in an awkward and difficult position to gain respect from their students.  Even young students aren't stupid, most of them know the following:

- The NET cannot usually speak Korean
- There is no importance (test wise) on the NET's class
- The NET may well not be a qualified teacher
- The NET may not have the full support of their school, i.e. many schools in Korea have far greater trust in their pupils than the foreign teacher (and it shows sometimes).
- The NET is regularly confused with what is happening within the school
- The NET may be gone in a year
- The NET has a helper, or maybe even a boss, in class (i.e. their co-teacher)

These are all factors that are not comparable to back home; we speak the same language, our classes have importance, we are qualified, we have the support of the school, we usually know what is happening on a day to day basis, most teachers stay in their jobs for longer periods of time, and we are in control of our classes (the students answer to us).

If we turned the situation on its head and had Korean teachers in Western schools, speaking little or no English and stumbling around in many situations without the full support of the school, it would be carnage for them, at least from my perspective as a teacher in England.

The fact is that this will never happen, and if there were Korean native teachers in our schools they would receive a hell of a lot more support and assistance than we do.  Much of the respect issues many of us have are more to do with the school's attitude to foreign teachers than the actual student's attitudes, which in my mind are pretty darn good considering the circumstances.

Further evidence of this, for me personally, came from my first two jobs in Korea, both Hagwon (private school) jobs.  The first was great, a well organised school who put trust and responsibility on their foreign teacher and who also had a sensible and well thought out behaviour management strategy.  As a result of this the students were a pleasure to teach and I rarely had cause to discipline them.

My second job, however, was a completely different story; a poorly run Hagwon with a horror boss who was overly obsessed with his own importance and power and who went through Korean and foreign teachers alike, like the daily pots of Ramen he slurped noisily away at everyday.  The students knew the boss had no respect for his employees and there was no strategy for coping with unruly children.  My classes, because of this, were a complete nightmare.  My students oozed contempt for me out of every orifice and I had to work extremely hard to make my classes tolerable while receiving absolutely no assistance whatsoever from my boss.  My experiences with these Hagwons very much confirm what I suspect, that it is the system and the schools that are the problem, not the students, they can be won round eventually, however bad the school might be.

There is another factor and that is the everyday life of a student in Korea.  Koreans students are saturated with education, pressure from parents, and exams.  Many of my high school students are at school for 14 hours a day and, unbelievably, some even have to go to a Hagwon (private school) after this as well.  Middle school and Elementary students have less time at school but, again, many go to Hagwons after school.  When it comes to our classes, is it any wonder they see it as an opportunity to have a little sleep or a break from the monotony of their other lessons and mess around and have fun in them.  I have a great deal of sympathy with them as I am pretty sure that, back when I was a kid, I would have taken exactly the same chance for a rest.

The combination of student hardship and the lack of regard the schools (and the education system as a whole) have for NETs makes it completely understandable why some find their students are not giving them the expected level of respect.  All the actions of the schools and the Korean education system is saying NET's classes are not that important and the over-worked students read this message loud and clear.  We earn our monthly wage by overcoming this attitude and earning their respect.

Fortunately, we are interesting, especially compared to most of their Korean teachers.  We are interesting by nature because we are different and many of us work quite hard to make our lessons interesting as well.  Add a consistent behaviour management strategy, some patience, and understanding and we can win them round.  Like most young people everywhere, get beneath the exterior of posturing, bravado, and showing-off to friends and you have great youngsters in Korea, who are naturally compliant and respectful and one of my great highlights of living in Korea.



Native English Teachers in South Korea (part 2)

In my last post, I identified the reasons why Native English teachers essentially do not help in achieving higher test results for Korean students, but are valuable in other senses.  When I first saw the figures from Seoul, for the lack of improvement in English since the introduction of the Native teacher programme, I thought deeply about the usefulness of my own position in my school.  I think despite the fact that English teachers get paid well here in Korea, the schools themselves can make the foreign teacher feel fairly surplus to requirements sometimes.  The figures from Seoul and this fact made me question the meaning of my existence in my position at the school.  I could give many examples of the lack of importance I feel sometimes, but I shall just give one particularly irksome example from last year;

As I mentioned before there is no marking or test taking for any of the native teacher's lessons, and this can make for a fairly demotivated bunch of students, especially in an all boys high school.  To place at least some competition and significance to my lesson, I dangled a bit of a carrot of cold hard cash (gift certificates as good as money here in Korea called 'happy money').  I have 17 different classes, so I obviously can't give money to every class, so I divided each class into 9 teams and the best in each class were entered into a raffle at the end of the term, with 5 prizes, 3 of them money based.  The total prize fund is 175 000 won.  This costs me, therefore, 350 000 won a year (about £180 or $350).  But I think it's a small price to pay for a much less mind-blowing experience of teaching them.  It makes for a competitive, interesting lesson that is not only fun for the students, but more importantly, fun for me.  Anyway, the end of term came and it was nearing the time for the prize draw, but how to do it?  I wanted all the students to know about it happening, and to be able to come and see it if they wished.  I had a series of ideas of how to do this, over about a two week period, here are some of the conversations I had with my Head of English at my school;

Me: Is there a presentation ceremony at the end of term?
HoE (Head of English):  Yes.
Me: Can I have some time to present awards for my classes?
HoE:  No, that is not possible.
Me:  Can I organise my own presentation ceremony?
HoE:  Sorry, the students are too busy.
Me:  Can I use a room for a presentation at lunchtime?
HoE:  We have no spare rooms, sorry?

Me:  Can I do the draw live over the speaker system?
HoE:  No, sorry, the headmaster would not approve.
Me:  Can I just announce the results over the speaker system?
HoE:  No, I am sorry.
Me:  Can another teacher or yourself announce the results for me?
HoE:  The students are not often in their rooms during breaks between lessons.
Me:  What about at the start of a lesson?
HoE:  That would disturb other classes.
Me:  But, it would only take 2 minutes!
HoE:  Other teachers would not be happy.

Me:  Can I video a draw being taken and play it in each of my classes?
HoE:  Yes.
Me:  Can the headteacher draw 1st prize?
HoE:  No, he would hate that.
Me:  Oh, well maybe the deputy head.  What day do I finish classes this term so I can plan when to play the video in each class?
HoE:  We don't know, maybe you will teach next week, maybe you won't, and in some classes the computers will be disconnected.

Me:  Arrggghhhh!!!!!

It was like I was fighting a losing battle.  I was trying to add meaning to my lessons and be the best teacher I could be for the school, and I was even giving up my own money!  Still, my school were being about as flexible as my legs feel when sitting on the floor at a Korean restaurant, they would not budge.  The strange thing is that I do get the feeling that the school likes me and thinks that I teach well, they mention frequently that I have a great reputation with students and teachers at the school.  So why do they behave like this?  Even with my now extensive experience with Korean culture I am still a little dumbfounded.

I was now really thinking, 'is there any value to me being here?'.  I had to really think, because I was just a little bit dejected and annoyed, but I have found many reasons to feel that my position here in Korea is valuable, and even essential.  It is a pity, however, that many others do not see it, Koreans and foreigners alike.

For me, the purpose of my job is more of a cross-culture teacher and student position, rather than teaching English.  With any luck, a bit of English does stick with the students now and then, but if I can achieve something to surprise them, entertain them, or just give them something completely different from what they have seen before from their other teachers, I think I am doing a good job.  My lessons are always my own, I never copy lessons.  They have my personality stamped all over them.  My likes, dislikes, pet peeves, what I find interesting, what I find abhorrent, and my passions.  I am not saying that this makes me a better teacher, or that people can't teach effectively in other ways, but it does maximise my ability to be interesting and engaging.  The famous saying when writing is, 'write about what you know', and when we as teachers plan lessons, we are writing something.  It's not a book, it's not a play, or a piece of music, but a lesson, and I think the same principle applies.  Interesting and engaging is the key here, in an atmosphere of tiredness, poor motivation, and frustration over the difficulty of the subject.  My goal is this; not to improve their English this minute, or even this year, but maybe to give them confidence in speaking to a foreigner, inspire them to be interested in my culture, to have an open mind to explore my culture, and that it could have interesting things to say to them that might well enrich their lives.  If I can achieve these high goals, maybe they might just be interested in learning the language too, a higher form of motivation than just learning English to get a better job in the future by way of achieving good exam results.  Essential in this process is the ability of myself to learn from them too.  Young people are a wonderful thing that many adults can learn from (a fact/system that I don't see operating in the status and respect culture in Korea).  Young people are open-minded, adventurous, and less stuck in their ways (as adults can be sometimes), that can be the great joy of working with them.  It can keep you fresh, open to new ideas and ways of thinking, and able to see things from new perspectives.  But adults must be willing to learn from them, and (especially in Korea) this does not often happen.  It is regularly just one way traffic.  I recently returned from Indonesia, and on my way back from the airport in Seoul, I took the train.  On the train there was a teenager being lectured to by an older person (presumably his father).  He was just staring into space and nodding, looking thoroughly disinterested.  Was he being rude?  Maybe he was sick of taking advice from older people?  Maybe the old man really had important stuff to say?  The fact is though, if someone is just telling you what you should do, what you should learn, and how you should feel, it's pretty easy to get despondent after a while and just switch off. That was what the boy on the train was doing.  His father (probably) could have been telling him the most important piece of information in the world, but his mind was closed, it was all one way traffic.

The same thing occurs in learning from other people's cultures.  If it's all one way traffic, the other side just does not listen.  Not only does the road block come up from the other side, but nothing can go the other way either.  Important positives are missed, and learning from both sides cannot happen.  There are examples where it is not possible to follow this, however.  An example would be a discussion with a member of the Taliban about women's rights, of which I think I can be sure that there would not be much I could learn from such a discussion.  Some cultures are wrong about some things, period.  I am not a cultural relativist.  Now that I have cleared my throat about that, I can give an example of something that occurs quite frequently in Korea, and that is the arrogance that many western visitors carry with them on their trip over.

Korea and the Far-East, in general, is about as different a culture as there is possible to find in the civilised world.  The most fundamental of these differences lies in the fact that, in the Far-East, their culture is based around groups and hierarchy with social stability, and ours is based around individuality and freedom.  There are many reasons for this that I won't go into here, but it makes a huge difference to the perception of morals and values in each respective culture.  Now I am going to go out on a limb here, and say that with respect to morals, western culture has a greater depth of thought, precisely because of a greater emphasis on the individual.  Fairness and human rights are understandably a western invented concept, because when group cohesion is most important, then it's alright to mistreat a few for the benefit of the whole group (hence a greater sympathy for Communism in the East in general).  However, the depth of thought that the west has now gotten into has spread to laws, and bureaucracy to the point of insanity, producing a wrapped in cotton wool effect and legal action recognisably irritating to most people.  So we can still learn some good things about morality, and building a better society to live in, from those in the Far-East.  I think that people in the western world have an attitude that says, 'we have been developed and richer for longer, and have thought about morals more deeply, therefore we in the west have nothing to learn from recently developed and developing nations'.  They simply think that most nations, Korea and China included, have only just caught up and are waiting to be enlightened like us, but that sometimes we can't push morality on them and that it will happen naturally, eventually.  There is some truth to this, but in reality it goes much deeper into history and culture than this, but this attitude is rife among Native English teachers to Korea.  It's an arrogance that leaves them completely closed to understanding Korean culture and maybe assimilating some of their better practices for themselves.  Again I am going to use a school situation to describe an issue that we have long thrown into the immoral dump of history in the west, never to be returned, and one for which I am sure I will receive few supporters for my views, particularly in more liberal friends of mine.  This subject is corporal punishment.

In Western society there is no corporal punishment in schools, no hitting of students and no physical exercises as punishments, e.g. stress positions.  There are exceptions, such as in the deep south of the US, where they still use the paddle.  These exceptions are generally seen as crazy or religious inspired backward thinking islands in an otherwise wiser ocean of greater enlightenment.  In respect to the deep south I agree, I don't think we should be using the paddle in our classrooms, don't worry.  But clearly there is a problem with discipline in our schools.  I can only speak for schools in the UK, where I have worked as a teacher myself and been a member of the support staff in various schools.  The lack of respect for teachers is shocking, and the constant calls of, 'I am going to sue you, sir!' ring out regularly when a teacher lays even his or her little finger on a student.  The students have the power, they know their rights and their rights outnumber those of the teacher.  This is the greatest obstruction to learning there is in schools, teachers have to spend time in class and outside of class managing bad behaviour and planning and delivering effective lessons is getting harder and harder.  Even school trips are becoming a thing of the past as teachers and schools are worried about accidents, knowing that however thoroughly they plan, or ask for consent slips from parents, they may be found liable.  The atmosphere of fear in schools in palpable, and the students can smell it all over their teachers and, as young people often do, take full advantage of it.

The situation in Korea is very different, because of the cultural history of Confucianism there is a greater natural respect for teachers (students will bow to their teachers when they see they in the hallway, for example, even me).  But also teachers are given a great leeway into how they discipline their students.  Some examples I have seen are; the slap of a ruler across the hand, the hit of a stick to the hip, and a little slap or punch to the top of the head.  Also numerous stress positions and exercises, such as, kneeling on the ground with hands in air, press ups, squats, wall sits, etc.  Now I have heard of teachers going too far in Korea, and hitting too hard or being overly aggressive, but as far as I can tell this is very rare.  I hate to say this, but the examples of corporal punishment I have seen at my schools, just simply work.  They stop bad behaviour almost immediately.  In all the cases I have seen it used, it is a quick sharp pain, the students are upset for about 5 seconds, their friends laugh, they get on with their work and it's all forgotten.  Contrary to western thinking that it damages a students' mental health beyond repair for the rest of their days, the students don't seem in the least bit bothered by it.  Obviously, I work in a boys high school, and maybe this strategy is not applicable to younger students or female students.  However, every single student I have asked (when I was a Hagwon teacher) had said they don't like it, yes (who would), but I cannot detect even a grain of fear or insecurity about it.  They are usually smiling when they say this and often have a sense of amusement about it all.  My wife also confirms that when it happened to her at school, it was no big deal, and it may even have the effect of bringing students closer together.

Let me make this clear, I am not a supporter of using violence against students in class rooms.  I think, actually, that hitting students is not ideal and most of all not necessary if you are a good teacher.  Maybe there is a place on the continuum of East and West for corporal punishment, though.  My proposal would be this; hitting should not be generally practiced or especially approved of in UK (and others in the western world) schools but, just so the students know that threatening teachers with intimidation or legal action isn't going to happen, it is not strictly off-limits either, and certainly not against the law.  I am sure with even a modicum of common sense, that situations or teachers that get out of hand are dealt with and still severely punished.  I would also recommend that stress positions or physical exercises are fair game.  I really do not see how this can do any permanent damage to children, but I can hear the voices of objection already, 'What about the boy with asthma?  What about the obese child?  Won't other children laugh at them?  Won't it affect their mental health?  What about the boy with dyspraxia who can't move properly?'.  In this case, my advice would be tough luck.  If students are going to misbehave, these are the consequences.  If they have a problem that could make other children laugh at them, they shouldn't have misbehaved in the first place.  Let's get the idea of responsibility back into the classroom.  In quite obvious cases, such as those in schools that are severely disabled, wheelchair bound, or have some other severe condition, I am sure other solutions could be found.  But I have the sense that the students in this bracket are not usually the trouble makers in class.

For everyone to learn effectively in schools, teachers need to be respected, even the bad ones.  An effective school is like a good army unit.  How well would the British Armed Services operate if all of the low ranking officers constantly questioned and threatened their superiors, and didn't follow orders?  I suggest that this army would be an embarrassment and a mess as a fighting force.  A respect for authority is key in the army and in the school.  We recognise this in the army, and the government in the UK even understand that this could be helpful in school too, with the introduction of army officers as teachers in some problem schools.  Why oh why can they not see that bringing in army officers will make little difference if they do not have the capacity or the tools to discipline students.  It's time teachers in my own country had a few more weapons at their disposal (not literally, of course!).

It might sound like that I am a man in favour of obeying authority, but I am most definitely not.  Indeed I think it is very important to disrespect authority, if it deserves to be disrespected and to constantly question and doubt it (something that is rarely done in Korea).  But a disrespect for authority cannot be tolerated in a school as much as it cannot be tolerated in the army.  When students leave the school premises they are at their liberty to dish the dirt on their teachers to friends, to call them names, I would even understand their right to show disrespect to me on the street, if they so wanted, but in the classroom they will show respect to their teachers for their own education and that of everyone else in their school.

I have discovered that I have much to say on the subject of the Native teacher role in Korean schools, and have expanded on the necessity for teachers to be students of culture, as much if not more so than the actual students themselves are learning about English and the culture of the Native teacher.  I will continue my analysis of this in my next blog.  The Native Far-East teacher in England concept is on the back-burner for now.