Know Your Rights
Date: 12 March 2011
I think everyone should be pretty happy with this article, which has the good sense to mention me and my wonderful commenters. However, if you compare some of the quotes to my original post, not all of them match up.
“Unfit, Foulmouthed, Drunken English Teachers Running Rampant (욕쟁이·술주정뱅이… 무자격 영어교사 급증).” On June 11th at 2 pm an English article with that title was posted at Korea Beat (koreabeat.com). Korea Beat is a website that translates Korean news articles into English and introduces them to foreigners in Korea who are unable to read Korean-language news.
The post was an English version of an article titled “자질 시비 원어민교사 판친다” which had gone out on a news service that morning. The article introduced the stories of a UK-born middle school native English teacher in Suwon who came to school drunken and “taught a pop song lesson by singing the same song 20 times in a row” and a native English teacher at a high school in Jeollanam-do who “engendered suspicions over his qualifications by constantly evading questions about his undergraduate major” and called for authorities to make reforms to the system.
By August 13th the article had attracted 98 comments. Most were written immediately after the article was published. In reaction to the quote from a Korean teacher who said, “there are a lot of native English teachers who quit halfway through, saying they are sick or tired,” commenter Eddie P wrote, “last year there were over 5,000 native English teachers and just 160 were fired for reasons of inability to fit in, work, or illness, so how is that a serious level?” and Mike Yates wrote, “a 3.2% quit rate is an excellent number. Try comparing that to other jobs in Korea.”
Others left a range of reactions including anger. “We have to come into school and work even when none of the Korean teachers are there.” “Native English teachers can make two to three times what Korea offers if they go to Hong Kong or the UAE.” “I read this article this afternoon and I’ve been so angry all day I can’t do anything.” One foreign netizen left a message saying this. “What the hell. Any Korean who reads this will think 100% of native English teachers are like that. They’ll think we are no different from the native English teachers in the article. That’s the worst thing about this.”
As the importance of English education grows and the idea that English must be learned from native speakers becomes standard, the number of native speaker teachers resident in this country increases every year. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (출입국관리통계연보), in 2000 some 6,414 foreigners were issued E-2 visas for teaching foreign languages, which increased to 10,864 in 2002, 12,001 in 2005, and 14,438 in 2006. In December of 2007 there were 12,273 foreigners working on E-2 visas. The market for native speaker teachers had nearly tripled in just seven years.
The government has no shortage of policies regarding the increasing number of native speaker teachers. In June of 2005 the Ministry of Education (교육인적자원부) published a study titled 영어교육 활성화 5개년 종합계획. It called for a native English teacher to be placed in every middle school nationwide and for the focus of English education to shift from reading and writing to speaking and listening.
City and provincial offices of education nationwide quickly stepped up. In September of that year the Seoul Office of Education hired 100 native English teachers at elementary, middle, and high schools in the city and has expanded that year every year since. The Gyeonggi-do Office of Education set up the GEPIK program to recruit native English teachers and operates it by itself. The National Institute for International Education (국립국제교육원) runs the largely independent EPIK program to recruit native English teachers. As of this March 3,377 native English teachers had entered the country through EPIK, received training and were teaching.
The rapid increase of native speaker teachers in a brief time period has continually brought unintended effects. Mostly that means instructors who lack qualifications and either break the law or dodge it. In 2007 there was shock that a sex offender wanted worldwide by Interpol had worked for four years in this country as a native speaker teacher. In 2008 an illegally resident American who had worked as a native speaker teacher in a famous hagwon with forged academic credentials was arrested, causing a large scandal.
Just recently, in early July, 13 native speaker teachers working at kindergartens and elementary schools Seoul and Gyeonggi-do formed an illegal gambling ring and were arrested for frequently gambling together and using drugs. On August 6th 41 unqualified native speaker teachers were caught at the Daegu English Village after teaching English lessons for one year and ten months on student visas.
The problem is that most media reports focus only on “trouble-causing native speaker teachers”, portraying all teachers as being like those in the articles. Every time major news media raise doubts about native speaker teachers they rest on the same assertions from investigators and other Koreans. The consumption of news made that way produces Koreans with a pre-conceived opinion of most native speaker teachers. Because native speaker teachers are not capable in Korean they cannot easily get in touch with the creators of such news, which portrays them as enemies of the public. Their criticisms go unheard by the authorities, and the cycle repeats. It is a real vicious circle.
“I have been teaching English in Korea since 2003. Since the process of obtaining a visa has gotten more difficult and my salary has gone up only a little, and the number of untrustworthy hagwon owners has grown… One hagwon in Pohang is withholding my salary, and in the first I started working at a hagwon in Apgujeong I was asked to sign a new contract with a lower salary. The hagwon owner knew about it. I don’t expect them to be punished.”
That was written by native speaker teacher Nick Mastretta wrote that on a website. The post circulated widely among native speaker teachers and listed a number of problems suffered by native speaker teachers in Korea. “Native speaker teachers are like slaves. My visa is owned by the hagwon. No matter how terrible your boss is you cannot leave. If you want to leave you have to buy a plane ticket and go to your home country, and wait several weeks for new papers. Even if you do, you lose your job and your friends and have to leave the country. If you want to go back you have to go through the long visa process. And all that time the hagwon just hires another teacher to abuse….”
One native speaker teacher who read the post said, “those things often to people who work at small and large hagwons. The most common case is violations of the contract. They don’t pay the salary specified in the contract, or try to avoid letting you take your vacation time. There are many hagwons which don’t want to pay your salary and use all kinds of obstructions. Among native speaker teachers it is known that you cannot trust a contract written in hangul.”
There is no end of criticism of the visa process. Since December of 2007 Immigration has had regulations according to which foreigners who wish to receive an E-2 visa must produce a criminal background check from their home countries, with no exceptions. Furthermore they must undergo a health check which includes drug and HIV (the virus that cuases AIDS) tests. The rules specify that the health check must be performed in Korea, which is not their native country.
Some problems begin with the AIDS test included in the health check. The reason for objection to tests for the presence of HIV, which leads to AIDS, is that it constitutes discrimination. This February a native speaker teacher living in this country and Benjamin Wagner, professor of law at Kyunghee University, filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission (국가인권위원회) saying, “the requirement of drug and AIDS testing to receive an E-2 visa is discrimination on the basis of nationality.” In March the native speaker teachers’ group Association for Teachers of English in Korea was formed with the slogan “Equal Checks for All”.
While researching this article we were able to hear a great many stories. One hagwon owner placed a teacher in his Korean fiance’s home, threatened that “if you use your vacation I will fire you” and then fired the teacher in the 11th month of the contract (native speaker teachers normally sign one-year contracts entitling them to severance pay after 1 year). Another hagwon told us that it hired people who do not have non-E-2 visas, saying, “most of the native speaker teachers in our hagwon got their visas illegally.” Other times a hagwon approaches teachers with expired visas and offers them promises of work, but then delays the necessary paperwork and when discovered to be employing teachers illegally the hagwon employs trickery to restore its image. We learned of other cases at a famous hagwon where teachers were fired, told that “no extra teachers are needed right now”, despite having gone through orientation after signing an employment contract.
Cyber native speaker teachers whose qualifications cannot be verified, dishonest hagwons that get defenseless teachers into legal trouble, media that excite the horror and distrust of parents and students who exaggerate problems from some native speaker teachers, people how like or dislike native speaker teachers based on little information… the Republic of Korea of 2009, battling native speaker teachers, is becoming seriously twisted up. What should be done about this omnipresent problem?
UK journalist Tim Alper, a former native speaker teacher at a large language hagwon and now a producer with TBS `e`-`FM, emphasized finding a solution with a meticulous inspection system. “The current English education system in Korea can be easily abused by thoughtless hagwons and teachers. Current regulation of illegal hagwon businesses by police and educational authorities is too lax. Money made by teachers with illegal visas is sent abroad without paying any taxes. I don’t understand how this can be allowed so openly.”
He said, “Korea should study the example of the British Council, which offers accreditation only in accordance with expected growth after two years.” His point is that an educational institute approved by a national body can be used and trusted by all parents and students.
“Don’t just make one new commission. Give the power to civic organizations too. If you don’t ensure the ability to manage and regulate them before are more, the future will continue to be one where news about drunken and misbehaving English teachers leads to foreigners writing on the internet that they hate Korea.”
