Korea expels English teachers

Steve K   Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:07 pm GMT
I just read in the paper that Korean authorities are rounding up English teachers in private schools who do not have legitimate teaching credentials. I do not know what other misdemeanours these teachers are guilty of, but in my experience having a language teaching certificate is usually irrelevant to most language teaching situations. Of far more importance is being a native speaker, being literate in your language, having interesting things to say and being enthusiastic and positive with the students.
Oh   Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:08 pm GMT
Really...
Guest   Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:42 pm GMT
"...having a language teaching certificate is usually irrelevant to most language teaching situations. Of far more importance is being a native speaker, being literate in your language, having interesting things to say and being enthusiastic and positive with the students."

Perhaps the round-up has less to do with language teaching skills than it does with such tiresome and petty matters as immigration, labour and residency laws.
Really   Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:55 pm GMT
Oh...
Guest   Tue Oct 11, 2005 1:00 am GMT
>>I just read in the paper that Korean authorities are rounding up English teachers in private schools who do not have legitimate teaching credentials.<<

That sounds plausible, but it's just a streamlining, isn't it? Anybody is welcome only when understaffed.
hmmm   Tue Oct 11, 2005 1:52 am GMT
North or south Korea?
Canadian teachers caught   Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:03 am GMT
Guest   Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:07 am GMT
Given that Korean authorities are believed to have an inch-thick dossier on illegal English teachers, he urged his compatriots to go a different route. "If you turn yourself in, immigration tends to take a more lenient thinking."

Like many Canadians interviewed, he said that Koreans have an innate xenophobia that has hardened of late. "There has been a definite change in the way we're being perceived in the last nine or 10 months," he said. "Before, it was, 'Please speak me English.' Now, it's 'Get out of my country, white devils.' "