Just what makes a teacher `qualified`?

As a native speaker English teacher in Korea, I spend a lot of time thinking about my role in the classroom. I feel insulted when I hear politicians and government officials referring to us as "unqualified," because there has yet been no clear examination of what makes a teacher qualified to teach English in Korea. Dissecting this misnomer - a holdover from not-too-long ago when schools would hire English teachers literally off the street - is a healthy exercise in understanding where native speakers fit in Korea`s English culture.

"Unqualified" is a slippery word that can fit any insult the speaker would like to use. It can refer to teachers who do not have a diploma, or to people teaching without the proper visa. It can mean teachers who do not have education degrees, or who are not certified in their home countries.



When Seoul councilman Nam Jae-gyeong of the GNP announced last year that half the foreign teachers in Seoul are unqualified, he was referring to teachers without TESOL certificates. "Unqualified" can also be conflated with other nasty stereotypes to mean teachers who drink too much, who date Korean women, or who are unpopular in the office. It is a versatile insult because there is no consensus on what these qualifications actually are, and it`s one-sided in that it doesn`t hold accountable the schools who hire undocumented teachers or the businessmen who do not screen applicants.

It is confusing to hear politicians and government officials talking about "unqualified teachers." After all, the government itself decided that nothing more than a passport from one of seven English-speaking countries and a bachelor`s degree is necessary to teach English conversation on an E-2 visa. Schools, presumably, would like teachers with impressive resumes, so what is stopping the government from raising the standards? What`s stopping schools from hiring better teachers?

Supply and demand is one reason. With English hagwon all over the place, and with more and more public schools after native speakers - or at least the funding that accompanies them - it is impossible to fill all these positions with experienced and trained teachers from native-English-speaking countries.

The language barrier is another, as most schools lack the English ability or the know-how to make reference checks or evaluate resumes. Furthermore, schools and school districts aren`t willing to pay for quality, with public schools only offering an extra 200,000 won ($155) per month for teachers with a master`s degree. Of course, teachers don`t enter the profession to get rich, but since Korean teachers are among the highest-paid in the OECD, experienced and trained native speaker English teachers should be rewarded for teaching such a high-priority subject.

There are a couple of other points that undermine the overuse of "unqualified." Even today there are schools in Korea that refuse to hire blacks, Asians or overweight teachers, demonstrating how important the appearance of a native speaker still is. Each year we read about non-native speakers busted for teaching English illegally, which tells us that either the school couldn`t detect a non-native accent, or that it was so eager to hire a foreign face that it didn`t matter whether their English was any good.

However, a big reason Korea hasn`t hired more "qualified" teachers is that it hasn`t decided what a qualified English teacher really is, and thus doesn`t know what to look for. The ambiguity of the word "unqualified" is in part a product of the ambiguous role native speakers play in the classroom.

There is currently no plan in place for effectively using native speakers in school, no curriculum to follow and no objectives for them to meet. In spite of lip service paid in the national curriculum to developing "communicative competence," the purpose of English education in secondary schools is to complete standardized exams. A native speaker English teacher needs time to grow into the new role of "native speaker" as the schools see it, because English classes often don`t play to his strengths as a native speaker.

Native speakers, often with no teaching experience, are contractually paired with Korean English teachers in the classroom, but truth be told there are those who choose not to participate or attend. Moreover, it is hard to judge the performance of a native speaker because their classes are often vastly different than a traditional Korean English classroom. Most English classes run by a native speaker are conducted entirely in English, and often have activities that require the students to move around and talk to each other.

"Unqualified" really doesn`t fit because native speaker English teachers do, in fact, meet the qualifications laid out by the government. There has yet been an effort to make proper use of native speakers in the classroom.

But the sentiment isn`t groundless, and when people criticize "unqualified" teachers they`re really talking about bad ones, an equally vague category of people who don`t belong in the classroom, whose behavior is unbecoming of a teacher, and whose attitude toward Korea is unbefitting someone living overseas. Sometimes it`s an issue of character, but more often than not it`s an issue of training and preparation, of schools not really wanting a native speaker or not knowing what to do once they`ve got one. There are a couple ways to reduce the number of "bad" teachers, both domestic and foreign, that are beyond the scope of this column. But we might take inspiration from a bit of recent news.

The government has been recruiting thousands of Korean English "lecturers" to teach practical English, a change that will coincide with the introduction of a home-grown English assessment exam that will domestically replace the TOEFL in a few years. These lecturers have a better chance of success not because they are Korean, but rather because the system is not setting them up to fail.

If only the same amount of planning and foresight accompanied the use of native English speakers in the classroom.





To read more of Brian`s writings, go to http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent those of The Korea Herald. - Ed.



By Brian Deutsch