Things are changing for the better.  I’m sure of it.  There are better curriculums, better trained and vetted teachers.  Better managed schools.  Savvier parents, with the power of word-of-mouth and internet boards, are gravitating towards schools that possess an education philosophy and offer real results from actual teaching.

Right now, however, English teachers, depending on who you talk to, are either mildly respected or loathed.  Fanned by the flames of a sophomoric media that loves to hype the ill-begotten crimes of foreigners, the meme of the “naughty native teacher” has gained traction in both parts by an appetite for scandalous news and by the actual depravity of a minority of foreigners-be they teachers or not.

This, according to The Metropolitician, has resulted in a re-ordering of foreigners on the social totem pole.  Contempt for English teachers is so high that they now rank below GIs! Two other Korea bloggers, the Korea Beat and The Marmot’s Hole, have become a veritable catalogue of “stupid foreigner tricks,” which resemble a police blotter after some large North American university weekend.

It is as though the negatives of the industry’s main players (teachers, hagwon owners, recruiters, and government) swirl in a “perfect storm,” a capital hungry language education market that spends more time in turmoil and does not reflect, debate, or plan together.  Instead, it consumes trillions of won annually, by some accounts as much as 3.0-million won per Korean household.  It wastes considerable human resources in the hiring and firing of teachers.  It provides dubious results in terms of language acquisition beyond test scores.

“If anyone were to audit the private education system today,” a longtime veteran English teacher said, “I think they would say, ‘Here is a truly Wild West education system.’ By that I mean, a totally free market, under-regulated, with curriculum made up of mystic promises and self-made acquisition theories, fly-by-night recruitment standards, and only a small minority of heretics who actually show up to work as a professional.” 

From civic groups to entrenched industry owners, the media, budding teachers’ associations, and right down to the Blue House, everyone is asking the same question, “Why can’t we have good quality teachers?” Luckily, were it not for the U.S. beef controversy, Teachergate would definitely have evoked candlelit marches.  Can you see the headlines?  “Hagwons Demand No Importation of Mad Teachers.”

Quite predictably, the center of discussion has fallen squarely on the outsiders: the English teachers in Korea.   A diverse group 30,000 strong, they are now a hot political button often pressed by the very industry that fosters them.   Good teachers mostly, but they are altogether lumped into an unfair light by mischaracterization, grossly politicized and generalized.  The consequence of this industry and media backbiting is that the job becomes less and less desirable to future qualified candidates, thereby defining English teachers further down. 

It was not always this way.  There were quieter times.  Teaching English in Korea had a noble if not staid beginning in 1883, according to a multi-article series written by Professor Kim Eun-Gyong, associate dean at Information and Communication University in Daejeon.  English language education had been the realm of interpreters who did so well they eventually gained prominence in high places in King Kojong’s court and other government ministries. 

English education was also advanced through missionary work, such as those initiated by Mary Scranton of Ewha Womans University and the Underwood family of Yonsei University.  By their acts of setting up colleges on the foundations of occidental education, English rose onward above all others as the language of the educated class (I was one day surprised my mom spoke a little German, which she said at the time was a close second in popularity at Ewha.)

What has happened since?  To demarcate for discussion, the conclusion of the 1988 Olympics started an arms race for English.  The internet and globalization in the late 90s and the 2002 World Cup transformed the urgency from march to flat out run.   Consider that the Republic transitioned to a complete democracy only in 1998 with Kim Dae Jung’s presidency.  Throughout the ensuing years, there has always been a shortage of policy and a shortage of will due to the backlog of social democratic reforms waiting to be enacted.  Private education got lost in the fray behind watershed progress on issues like corruption reform, the Sunshine Policy with North Korea, national infrastructure, and global trade. 

The effects of the government’s absence in regulating the private English market, specifically in setting effective policy and adequate teacher guidelines, can still be felt today. 

With lax standards, hagwons formed like kudzu all over Seoul and the countryside.  Some schools focused on cramming, others on academic English, others a combination of religion and language, and still others leaned towards pure edu-tainment. 

This education market was an entrepreneur’s game, and it was marked by profit-seeking from fad methodology, false advertising all around, and obscene turnover of teachers. 

The hagwons demanded virtually anyone with Caucasian skin and who hailed from the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and elsewhere-regardless of degree or qualifications.  The teachers were given ‘teaching’ opportunities that essentially set them up for failure.

The demand for foreign teachers grew large enough that the industry not only opened up opportunities to other English speaking nations, but also more consequently, it spawned the much maligned recruitment industry. 

Who were these recruiters?  Largely they were former teachers-the first postwar generation of men who traveled Asia.  They had arrived in the earlier part of the developing 1980s through the 90s.  The Old School recruiter was as unsophisticated as our uncle who still wears polyester suits with shark fins.  They were mostly men who read James Clavell and fell in love with an ‘exotic Asia’ in stark contrast to the 21^st Century ‘rising Asia’ most of us know. 

Seeing wealth in recruiting, they and many Korean nationals dove into the void without any credentials in human resource management or experience in background verification.  They largely supplied anyone who wanted to come to Korea.  It was a golden age, and cash flowed readily.  The government had no policy to oversee them, and contract disputes between teachers and hagwons resulted in dead ends.

The legacy of the old recruitment system is still predominant today in second generation ‘organized’ recruitment agencies who now leverage cheesy websites to expound their predecessors’ hackneyed selling points.  Chief among them is the concept of the Backpacker’s Journey Through Teaching.  A large segment of teachers, according to critics, are really motivated tourists using education as a springboard to vacation in Thailand. While there is nothing wrong with that, it is clear to everyone that selling a vacation and education job in one package are two competing if not conflicting interests.

In addition to backpackers, the recruiting framework attracted what one controversial Korean site labels “runaways” or even people running from the law.  This term has for the most part been hurled as an insult but there is some grain of anecdotal and literary truth to this group.  Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim recounts the journey of a man running away from a dishonorable act on the high seas.  The protagonist settles among Asian people and redeems himself when he confronts several challenges to him and his sponsors.  He saves the Asians with his newfound courage, gets the girl, and is crowned a hero in death. 

Call them Lord Kims in Korea and you can readily identify the socially awkward misfits who sustain the ageless myth of the travelling tramp.  Easily recruited by shady recruiters looking the other way, these characters have become the unresolved bogeymen of the hagwon industry.

In spite of this awkward rise to the present situation, there is a new reality that is rapidly forming as a replacement.  The IPOs of several successful language academies shows that there is real money to be made from actual teaching, and the new LMB administration is testing new policies that will bring public schools back into the competition.  Dubious schools, if nothing else, are on their way out of the market.

There are also global events that are changing the paradigm. 

For one thing, Korea has entered the mainstream in the American and global consciousness.  These days Korean products like Samsung and other notable achievements in the arts, sports, and business have brought fresh attention to the nation, its people, and culture. 

The conclusion of the Beijing Olympics has attracted more and more attention to China, but in a coattail effect brought more interest in Seoul as a potential employer for English teachers.  Seoul hagwons pay far better.

Many western college graduates are seeking international experience, not to wander the seas and travel the islands, but rather, as a unique addition to their graduate school biographies and resumes.  This group of teachers is improved by their motivation to serve others and to teach as a form of leadership.  A case study can be made by looking at the vast successes of Teach for America, and you can identify similar traits in new candidates now. 

At Incheon International Airport, there have been a steadily increasing inflow of degree holders from English speaking countries, with the majority coming from the U.S.  Some say that due to worsening conditions on the economic home front we can expect more.

Over the next five years, the industry can succeed if only by hiring more and more academically successful and bright 4-year and masters degree holders (in direct contrast to weakening standards now)–people with bigger plans going for them immediately after teaching– and with the rising sophistication of social networking on the web, teacher candidates will no longer need to deal with recruiting agents to sell them travel packages that are anchored with shady employment.

The quality of education is also rising in complexity naturally, as more and more knowledge is accumulated and correctly applied.  It is left to be known what the media will do when they suddenly realize there is nary a scandal in sight.

-Alex K., a former teacher, is a graduate student earning his masters degree in economics

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