Ten Reasons Why Korean Conversation Teachers Should Not Replace NESTs

In response to the growing demand by Korean parents to improve English education in public schools to offset the high costs of private education, the Korean government has hired and placed thousands of Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) in public schools over the last three years.  The number of NESTs has increased by nearly 300% in the last three years.

The response to this bold initiative has brought mixed results.  Some provinces have recently stated that they expanded too fast and now want to reduce the number of NESTs for the 2011 school year.  This does not, however, mean less of a focus of the public school curriculum on English education.  Indeed, the number of class hours a week for fifth and sixth graders next year will increase from two to three hours a week.  And this year the number of class hours a week for third and fourth graders increased from one to two hours a week.

One alternative to hiring "expensive" native English speaking teachers is to hire Korean "conversation" or Korean "English lecturer" teachers.  These are Koreans who do not have teaching degrees, but are proficient at English and are being brought in to public elementary schools to serve as English subject teachers.  When the initiative was introduced in 2008, the plan was to have 4,000 in public primary schools by this year.  I do not know the exact number or if they reached their target, but Gyeonggi-do Province alone recently announced they are going to increase their number of Korean conversation teachers next year from 600 to 1,100.  Their numbers are growing and many provinces want them in place of, or in addition to, NESTs.

I split my week by working in two different public elementary schools and I have shared an office (not a classroom) with two different Korean conversation teachers for almost an entire year now.  I have also met and talked with several other hired Korean conversation teachers living and working in my city.  I have several observations about their position that I think should be shared.

Here are ten reasons why Korean conversation teachers cannot replace or should not replace native English speaking teachers.  This is not a countdown or ranking.

Reason One: Are They Qualified?
-- To anyone who criticizes native speakers brought here to teach English who do not have teaching degrees: neither do they.  Korean teacher unions and Korean parents have objected to bringing in non-licensed teachers to teach regular school hours in public classrooms.  If they believe that having the degree makes or breaks the teacher, then it applies to Koreans the same as native speakers without degrees.

Reason Two: Are They Overqualified?
-- Some of these Korean lecturers are fluent in English and actually have a marketable skill.  They could easily be working for more pay in business, a private academy, or another field that needs people who are bilingual.  Korean conversation teachers I have met who can speak fluent English are looking for a better job and might not be as focused as they could be on the one they currently have.  I would love to see what percentage of these conversation teachers have broken their one year contracts to find higher paying jobs.  It is much easier for them to quit their job and find a new one than it is for a NEST.

Reason Three: Who Hired Them?

-- How were these conversation teachers chosen?  I personally know and spoke with a NEST who was invited to sit in on the interview process and sample class presentations last year for all the Korean conversation applicants in my city.  She was only permitted to read a single question provided to her off of a piece of paper to the applicants and then the applicants were supposed to reply to the all-Korean interview panel.  The Korean conversation teachers never had to prove they could hold a real conversation in English with a native speaker.  Koreans love memorizing English and I was told that some of the applicants with the most well constructed lesson plans immediately broke down and became unintelligible the second they had to go off script.  How can people who are not fluent in a language determine if someone is?  Is fluency even a requirement for their job?

Reason Four: Are They A Full Package?
-- Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.  There are four essential components to learning a language: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.  Many Koreans are "booked-up" and can read and write English perfectly, but cannot understand native speakers in conversation or even form a complete sentence on the spot.  Likewise, one of the Korean conversation teachers I share an office with sometimes leaves me hand written notes about office related things.  I am often shocked by her poorly written grammar and frequent spelling mistakes.  She did live in the United States for ten years and I think her spoken English is excellent, but I am sure her written mistakes are being passed on to her students in class.  Many of these Korean conversation teachers are not complete in all four of the essential areas.

Reason Five: Does Culture Matter?
-- Can you really be fluent in a language and teach it if you have never been immersed in its culture?  Many of these Korean conversation teachers have never traveled outside of South Korea, let alone studied or worked in an English speaking country.  I am still astonished every time I meet an adult Korean who has never even visited Seoul.  There is an unmeasurable value in having NESTs present who are from a different culture and can share it with their students.  Learning about a culture while learning a language makes it real and more enjoyable.  Additionally, when Koreans who have no real world experience or understanding of English speaking culture try to teach English, it ends up looking like (this)... (or this)...

Reason Six: What Type of Learning?
-- Korean education is overwhelmingly "Teacher-Centered Learning".  The teacher stands at the front of the class and talks at (not to or with) the 30-40 students who silently listen and occasionally obey routine commands.  This style of learning has been effective for Koreans in many subjects, but it does not work for languages.  They have been trying to teach English this way for decades and it has been a failure.  "Student-Centered Learning" is necessary to learn a language and most NESTs are familiar and comfortable with it because it is what we have experienced through our own educational background.  Koreans rely too much on blind memorization and thoughtless repetition.

Reason Seven: Don't They Speak Korean?
-- Trying to teach Korean children English when the teacher cannot speak Korean is a formidable task.  But this is what Korean educational officials claim they want: "English in English".  Schools have been spending fortunes building English subject rooms and "English Only Zones".  It is challenging for the students to understand, but that is the reward for them once they do.  If a NEST has to explain a concept, a game, or an activity, it has to be done in English and the students have to listen and think about what is being said to understand.  With Korean conversation teachers, the instant their English explanation breaks down, they cheat and revert back to Korean.  Additionally, once the students figure out if they play dumb long enough, they probably will get an explanation in Korean.  They stop trying to understand the English and just wait to be fed the Korean.  They are children and learning English is difficult.  Can you blame them if they beg the Korean conversation teacher to help them in Korean?

Reason Eight: Do They Know What's Up?
-- Many of the reasons why NESTs do not succeed at there jobs in Korea is because they were placed into an environment where they were designed to fail.  The Korean government has been placing NESTs into school without giving the school or their coteachers clear expectations or guidelines of what they are supposed to do or accomplish.  There is minimal support provided and sometimes too high of expectations (such as being expected to lead a class or even teach alone right away).  Korean conversation teachers have complained to me that when they first started they themselves did not know what was going on and they did not know who to ask for help.  Some feel like nobody is responsible for them and nobody is helping them at their schools.  They receive even less guidance and support than NESTs do.

Reason Nine: Can't You Do Just A Little More?
-- Like with any job, there is a social hierarchy at work.  Public school teachers with less than eight years of experience are treated like sh** by everyone else.  They are forced to do all the miscellaneous extra work around the school that nobody else with seniority is willing to do.  Young, new teachers have very little control over their lives.  They work the most hours at schools and receive the least pay for it.  This is okay, because someday they will have seniority and they won't have to worry about it anymore.  Korean conversation teachers rank automatically at the bottom of the seniority scale at schools because they aren't real teachers (regardless of how old they are or how much experience they have).  Principals, vice-principals, and other teachers are constantly coming to them to push more work and more obligations on them (extra classes, helping with non-English related school events, sitting in on meetings).  These Korean conversation teachers are scared of saying "no" to anyone with a higher social rank than them.  They also do not want to start an argument or offend anyone, so they just do what they are asked.  This extra work distracts them from the real purpose of them being at the school in the first place.

Reason Ten: They Are Treated Like NESTs Anyways
-- NESTs and Korean conversation teachers have the same job.  NESTs are supposed to teach with someone, and conversation teachers are on their own, but they basically are filling the same position.  This has led schools to treat their NESTs and conversation teachers the same.  This includes "desk warming".  While all the homeroom teachers enjoy six weeks of winter vacation and four weeks of summer vacation at home or attending classes somewhere for personal development, NESTs and Korean conversation teachers are forced to come into a completely empty school and sit at a desk with nothing productive to do for eight hours each day.  It is insulting and it pisses NESTs off.  This pisses off Korean conversation teachers too.  I imagine it might piss them off enough so that they could lose some of their passion for the job.  This is an assumption, but adults do not like being treated like a child that has been put on a time out.

Closing Thoughts: I really like my Korean conversation teachers.  They are an infinitely better option than expecting homeroom teachers to cover teaching English anymore.  This post was not intended to belittle them.  Their numbers should be expanded so fewer homeroom teachers have to cover teaching English.  I appreciate them and all their effort to help young learners with English.  I am just sticking up for myself and making my argument that the price difference between us is not worth giving up everything that would be lost if all NESTs in Korea were to be replaced by Korean conversation teachers.