The ministry of Education has admitted, according to an article on June 15th in the Korea Times, the Lee Myung-bak administration’s “Practical English Lecturers” project has failed to meet applicant targets in nine regional education offices due to a lack of the program’s promotion.

The new program, an election promise kept in an otherwise unpopular presidency, is designed to improve the practical English skills of prospective Korean teachers, but it’s chief aim is to further reduce the burdening cost of private English language education and in time replace foreign teachers altogether. The administration of the late president Roh, Lee’s predecessor, took the first step in the slow process of reducing the country’s dependence on foreign teachers when in 2006 he introduced an extra hour of English language classes at the end of the regular school day in an effort to reduce private education tuition increases, driving many smaller companies out of business.


The Lee government is hoping to attract 10,000 special lecturers in the next two years to the program. Of the 4,228 available jobs for 2009, 4,543 applied. Which sounds good until you look at the rural school boards, for example North Gyeongbuk province, which received only 204 applicants for its 274 posts. Eight other regional education offices also fell short of their targets.

Aside from the program’s lack of marketing and promotion, “Practical English Lecturers” are at a disadvantage in several respects from their “regular” teacher colleagues. First, instructors under the program receive only 26 million won annually, generally lower than English teachers at cram schools or private academies. Second, Practical English Lecturers can only renew their contracts up to a maximum of four years at one school, unlike regular, career teachers at public schools and universities who can negotiate much longer contracts.
 

The idea of immersion is not new to Korean English language classrooms, but the policy is rarely enforced in either private language academies or at public institutions and as such is limited in its success. The instructors under this program will be trained to conduct classes in English immersion. But this “new” immersion policy of the Lee government begs the question: will the policy be strictly enforced this time, under this program? And who is responsible if the students fail to meet expectations? If Korean students are generally incapable of improving their English conversational skills with the immersion already offered by native-English speaking foreign teachers, how will this program change the outcome of a student’s ability to become fluent in English? The program may have more hidden flaws then the Ministry of Education is willing to admit. Or perhaps changing the country’s English language industry over to ethnic Koreans is a suitable compensation.

Spencer McCall