Introduction

It seems that ‘foreign English teachers’ play fundamental roles in South Korea as a result of the increased need for Korean children and adults alike to learn the new Global Lingua Franca. Nonetheless, some of the difficulties associated with this recently emerged trend do not go completely unnoticed. While on the one hand Koreans are readily inviting English teachers form countries where English is the first official language, on the other hand they are openly resenting these same teachers for encroaching on their homeland and its longstanding social and family values.

Whilst Koreans desire high quality teachers, claiming that the teachers who come to Korea are paid and treated well, they are nonetheless rather reluctant to pay them wages that a qualified ‘western’ teacher would earn in his/her homeland. Moreover, instead of blaming Korea Immigration Services for granting work visas to non-qualified individuals and faulting Korean institutions for hiring substandard teachers who have minimal qualifications, Koreans are quick to hold responsible the ‘foreign English teacher’ for any shortcomings that tend to occur as a direct result of his/her inexperience.

Koreans must start to see that at least part of the blame should be placed on themselves as they are the ones encouragingly inviting the unqualified foreign teacher. That is to say, it is unfair to hire a non-qualified teacher and expect him/her to perform and act professionally especially if both the school and government have opted to stipulate that little professional training and background is needed to become an English teacher in Korea. Aside from a university degree, only a TESOL/TEFL Certification is needed. Often times, Korean schools hire so called teachers with a wide range of majors, many of which are unrelated to education, straight out of university. Therefore, if the teacher is found to be substandard, they turn around and blame the foreign teacher instead of taking the blame for not choosing a more suitable candidate in the first place. It is this kind of irony that sometimes qualifies as being grossly preposterous.

What is more, perhaps it is possible to invite only qualified teachers from abroad and still manage to pay them the wages ‘foreign teachers’ in Korea are regularly being paid these days, however, public schools, private institutions as well as Korean citizens themselves should learn to accept the idea that qualified teachers should not only come from countries where English is the first official language, but also start hiring from countries where English is at least one of the official languages, like India and the Philippines for instance. After all, there are plenty of amply qualified teachers there who are more than willing to work for the pay readily on offer. Perhaps, Koreans first need to get rid of their biases toward ‘non-white’ teachers before such a simple solution could be effectively implemented.

The Entry Requirements for Foreign Teachers

For the most part, the majority of ‘foreign English teachers’ in Korea are permitted to enter the country and attain work on E-2 work Visas; 19,375 of which were issued in 2008 (Table 1) . This visa type is the most common for English teachers and it only takes a Bachelors degree in any given field, and in some cases a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) or a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certification, each of which can be attained in a matter of a week if needs be.

Table 1: The Number of E-2 Visa Holders by Nationality in South Korea from 2005~2008

-Korea Immigration Services- (Wagner, 2009)

There is a quote in an article entitled ‘ SOUTH KOREA: Migrant Workers' Rights Clouded by Race, Class’ (by Alex Jong Lee), that reads; “ According to a 2007 Canadian government study, S. Korea spends more per capita on English language education than any other nation. Currently, it spends 4.6 billion US dollars on language education abroad and between 2-4 billion dollars domestically” (Lee, 2007). Given these figures, it is evident that there is a great demand in Korea for English teachers, however, the reluctance of the Korean government, public schools and private institutions alike to invite and hire amply-qualified teachers has a multitude of reasons. One of which, as already mentioned, is that the Korea Immigration Services actually grants unqualified teachers E-2 work Visas, not to mention the low hiring standards schools and institutes set for themselves when hiring new teachers. The other main reason is the fact that foreign teacher salaries are low in South Korea when compared to national averages in the ‘English speaking countries’, Korean schools and institutions usually hire from. Namely, the USA, Canada, The U.K., South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland and a limited number of other countries. On the whole, teacher salaries in these countries are relatively high when compared to the pay qualified teachers can expect to receive in South Korea. Take the following figure depicting the average salary scale in the USA as an example:

According to the current exchange rate (June 22, 2009 ) at 1 USD = 1,272.01 KRW (XE.com, 2009), the salary of an average American teacher with less than 1 year experience is 34,227 USD = 43,537,175.93 KRW (Figure 1). Conversely the average beginner salary at Korean schools and institutions ranges in the area of 2,100,000~2,800,000 won/month or 25,200,000~33,600,000 (Dave’s, 2009). It should also be stated that the higher figures are only given to teachers with prior experience and sufficient educational backgrounds. Consequently, at least for the average American teacher, it would be $8,000 US less in terms of pay in a best case scenario if s/he were to move to South Korea to teach, but of course there is little guarantee for this scenario to actually take effect. To all intents and purposes, a qualified entry level teacher can expect $14,000 US less in way of salary in South Korea. A seasoned veteran with 20 years of teaching experience, who would get an average pay of $56,244 US or 71,685,043 KRW teaching in the US, would in fact only be getting an estimated maximum of a 33,600,000 KRW annual salary, therefore, resulting in a 38,085,043 KRW or $ 29,882.393 US expected reduction in salary. That translates to a 53% anticipated yearly pay cut. What seasoned veteran would want to move to the Republic of Korea to take up a teaching position with that kind of pay? So then why are Koreans still so flabbergasted by the lack of qualifications that the ‘foreign teachers’, they are able to invite to Korea, actually do have.

What is more, considering that the number of granted E-2 Visas alone totalled 19,375 in 2008 (Wagner, 2009), it would be even more impossible to fill that quota with qualified teachers, even if we were to include England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa into the equation. After all, teachers in these countries are also paid much better than what a ‘foreign teacher’ can expect to be paid in South Korea. In the UK for instance the average salary for teachers was £39,393 or 82,563,121.34 KRW (My Salary, 2008). That’s a 48,963,121 KRW, that is, a 60% anticipated salary cut for the average Brit teacher. In Canada the average teacher’s salary for a qualified teacher with 8 years of experience is $65,678 CA or 73,081,116 KRW (NL, 2009) (See Table 2). Consequently, a qualified Canadian teacher with relevant experience would have to settle for 54% less if s/he chose South Korea as a place of employment. Note! All conversions were done according to the June 22, 2009 exchange rate (XE, 2009).

Table 2: 2007~2008 Teacher Pay Scale Across Canada (in Canadian Dollars)

(NL, 2009)

Taken as a whole, the salaries given to the average ‘foreign English teacher’ in South Korea is insufficient if the aim is to acquire qualified teachers, thus Koreans should not be surprised, let alone, revolted by substandard teachers being widespread in Korean public schools and private English Institutions. Essentially, it is up to Korea Immigration Services to improve standards for granting Visas and it is up to schools and institutions to hire more qualified teachers. However, one might expect that it would undoubtedly be a challenge to fill the necessary positions to teach the English hungry Korean society, after all , Koo Young-sun of the Incheon Education Office does admit that there is a “problem in securing foreign teachers” (in Kang, 2009). Perhaps if Korean schools were to offer more money to teachers it may be a possibility, but with schools in Japan and now Middle Eastern counties like The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia paying increasingly higher wages for qualified teachers, it is becoming more and more unfeasible for Korean schools and private institutions to fill all available positions with amply qualified teachers. For that reason, Koreans will simply have to accept the high number of substandard foreign teachers in their homeland. Otherwise, they need to hire qualified teachers from South/South-East Asian countries like India and the Philippines where English is one of the official languages. Surely, teachers from these countries would be happy to work for the pay Korean educational institutions are ready to offer. All in all, a restructuring is needed in the ideologies that shape the Korean English language industry. That is to say, Koreans must either accept the prevalence of substandard ‘white teachers’ or get used to the idea of being taught by qualified teachers from South/South-East Asia . I must concede however, that Korea University (KU) is a groundbreaker in this respect by hiring an English instructor originally from the Philippines and making her the coordinator of all the ‘foreign English teachers’ at the Institute of Foreign Language Studies (IFLS) at KU. On the whole, it would be advisable for more schools and institutions to follow suit.

Nonetheless, one of my ex-colleagues, at a Korean university I worked for, on an Exchange Professor Program from the University of Manila constantly complained to me about the disrespect his Korean students exhibited toward him. As a matter of fact, a week before his return from his summer break visit to the Philippines, he suffered a stroke. He was later heard saying that his stroke was likely due to his stress of facing another semester at the university in Korea. I ended up having to cover one of his writing classes because no instructor could be found in time to replace him.

“ Bonojit Hussain, a member of the Progressive Students’ Union in India” (Lee, 2007) is paraphrased as saying that: historical factors, such as colonialism, knowledge production, and hegemony have allowed white foreigners to avoid the "migrant worker" label (in Lee, 2007). For that reason, ‘white foreign teachers’ are considered to be more highly respected than the ‘non-white foreign workers’ thus quite conceivably leading to the general Korean view that ‘non-whites’ are likely to make substandard English teachers. Nur Knolis, a commissioner for the Indonesian national commission on human rights, concurs by saying that:

"Koreans look at even me as a migrant worker. … The current situation is because the Korean economy is high now - who make them like this? United States. … It is not fair. Korean people will try to learn from the white but if who come from the poor country, they say: ‘You cannot teach us anything.’"

(Kholis in Lee, 2007)

Hussein further states that “if you add the dynamics of class, then I think we should qualify …[migrant workers] this way: ‘working class migrant’ and ‘elite migrant’. … ’There is a distinction -all white migrants are elite" (Hussein in Lee, 2007).

What is more, my Indian national colleagues at one of the past post secondary institutions I worked at got paid considerably less than the ‘white’ English teachers who in turn got paid approximately half that of the Koreans. The hierarchy seems to be based on not only race but also nationality considering that another one of our Indian-Canadian colleagues at the same institution was paid the same as the ‘white’ teachers, which was still less than what the Koreans received but at least not as low as what the Indian nationals were receiving. Overall, the choice for Koreans is simple: learn to accept substandard ‘white/western’ teachers or to recognize the value of being taught by ‘qualified teachers’ of other races from various Asian countries since they are more than willing to work for the pay currently on offer.

Another option would be to hire mainly Korean teachers to teach English, however, as Oh Seok-hwan, an official of the Education Ministry put it, “We need more foreign teachers in this transition period. But on a longer-term perspective, Korean teachers will replace them in the end'' (In Kang, 2009). In other words, until the so called ‘transition period’ is over, foreign teachers are still in high demand.

Biases Toward the ‘Foreign English Teachers’ in South Korea

It must be said, that even though Korean biased attitudes toward South/South-East Asians is more prevalent than it is toward ‘white English teachers’, the bias toward all ‘foreign English teachers’ still exists, thus, further contributing to the problem of Korean schools and institutions not being able to fill the available positions with amply qualified teachers.

While Korean Immigration has made efforts to put more background, drug and health checks into practice to try and weed out what certain Korean officials would likely call the ‘dangerous white’ teachers, there is still insufficient improvement in terms of requiring more qualifications for the granting of work visas in order to alleviate the actual problem of not having enough qualified teachers in South Korea. That is, while even public figures advocate that the problem with ‘foreign teachers’ is the dangerous levels of drug use and crime associated with them, it is actually the lack of qualifications that is the real issue at hand and, for that, only the government is to blame as it could regulate who comes in, based on one’s qualifications.

A South Korean Ministry of Justice official was quoted as saying that "drug use and other criminal activities carried out by foreign English teachers have been a social issue for some time, and have built up to dangerous levels in recent years” (Kerry, 2007) & (Wagner and Koehler, 2009). Yet, the Korean Institute of Criminology stated that “crime rate among foreigners [in 2007] was 1.4% compared with the 3.5% rate among Korean citizens” (Wagner & Koehler, 2009). Moreover, upon examining the chart (Table 3) provided to the Association for Teachers of English in Korea (ATEK) by Benjamin Wagner, Associate Professor of the Law School at Kyunghee University in Suwon, South Korea, it becomes even more evident that the drug use by foreign English Teachers is not in fact at dangerous levels. In essence, as Professor Wagner points out, “only .013% of foreign English teachers were arrested with drugs in Korea” (Wagner & Koehler, 2009). That hardly constitutes for drug use at the dangerous levels claimed by the Ministry of Justice official in 2007. Moreover, since (according to the above figures) Korean citizens are actually 2.5 times more likely to commit crimes than foreign nationals, it would essentially make the Ministry official’s statement even more groundless.

Table 3:

Statistics for 2005 through November 2008 (Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, Narcotics Division); Statistics for E-2 Visa Holders from 2005 through September 2008, (Korea Immigration Service)

(Wagner & Koehler, 2009)

Regardless of these facts, the same Ministry of Justice official said that the supposed dangerous levels of the foreign English teachers’ use of drugs and their indulgence in criminal activities “is why we are implementing changes [in the granting of E-2 Visa] now, [in 2007]” (Kerry, 2007). The changes in effect constitute the implementation of drug tests, HIV tests and criminal background checks for all E-2 VISA holders (Table 4). Although All E-2 VISA holders have to take these tests to gain employment in Korea, teachers who are Korean citizens are exempt from HIV and drug testing at all schools and private institutions. Only public schools require Korean citizens to offer criminal background checks. While I am not against any of the tests and background checks, the Korean government needs to implement these procedures equally across the board for all nationals and Visa types if they are to avoid alienating any foreign English teacher who is amply qualified. After all, those of us who are from the western countries, Korean schools and private Institutions normally hire English teachers from, anticipate equal treatment for all races and nationalities as that has generally become the expected standard back in our home countries.

Table 4: Chart from ATEK - The Various Tests and Checks for Foreign Visa Holders Compared to Korean Citizens:

Mandated by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology for all teachers

(Note! Hagwons are private owned educational institutes)

(ROK Drop, 2009)

Foreign English Teachers are Seen to be Unqualified in Korea

By and large, in recent years, Koreans have developed the general view that the average ‘foreign English teacher’ is unqualified. In fact, Koo Young-sun, supervisor of The Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education (Incheon, the 3^rd largest city in Korea) made the following remark of ‘foreign English teachers’: “ Speaking English fluently doesn't necessarily mean they can teach English well. Many foreign teachers lack teaching methodology and some of them are not ethically qualified to treat children” (in Kang, 2009).

Overall, what Koreans must recognize is that this kind of alienation is in fact the very thing that would persuade the average qualified foreign teacher to seek employment in another country. Therefore, if Koreans are to have any likely hope in filling the available teaching positions with amply qualified teachers, they must alleviate all biased treatment of ‘foreigners’ whether it be the implementation of unfair E-2 Visa regulations or the demoralizing perception that South/South-East Asian teachers “cannot teach us [Koreans] anything” (Kholis in Lee, 2007). Taken as a whole, there is no more room for bias in South Korea if the aim is to fill the quotas with qualified teachers from abroad.

Conclusion

The Korean appetite for English is unmistakeable considering the tremendous amounts of money they spend to educate their children in English both domestically and abroad. Therefore, it is without a doubt that ‘foreign English teachers’ in Korea are in serious demand. However, the need for qualified teachers is at an all-time high, therefore, Koreans are hereby advised to rethink their approach with regard to their attitudes and treatment of all ‘foreigners’ in order to entice the qualified teacher, no matter what racial background or nationality, to choose Korea as his/her destination for teaching English.

All things considered, Korean Immigration needs to re-evaluate its approach with regard to the E-2 visa regulations imposed on ‘foreign English teachers’. That is, instead of enforcing stricter regulations based on criminal background checks and drug/HIV tests, it should raise the standards of hiring, strictly based on the levels of qualifications. Moreover, it should grant English teaching visas to qualified teachers from not only countries where English is the first official language but also from other Asian countries where English is one of the main official languages. However, for this change in Visa policy to truly allow for a positive change, Koreans themselves must do away with their biased attitudes toward ‘non-white’ English teachers from South/South-East Asian countries.

In the event that Koreans are unwilling to accept unqualified ‘white’ as well as qualified ‘non-white’ English teachers as legitimate teachers, then they must pay more for the services of the average qualified ‘white’ teacher coming from a country where qualified teachers are paid much higher wages than what Korean schools and private institutions are currently offering. Otherwise, they can simply start hiring more Koran teachers, however, this strategy is currently unfeasible as the education system is still in its transition period, according to an Education Ministry official. Lastly, the final option is for Koreans to keep on sending their children to be educated in countries where English is the first official language. This however, would prove to be even more expensive for both individuals and the country as a whole in the long run.

More importantly, instead of always placing the blame on ‘foreign English teachers’, Koreans should learn to accept at least part of the blame since it is they themselves, the schools and institutions as well as Korea Immigration Services, who are responsible for screening people based a wide range of criteria that includes the levels of education teacher candidates have attained.

All in all, changes in visa regulations should not be made based on unsubstantiated claims, but rather they should be made while considering the real issue that not enough qualified teachers are available for Korean children to learn from. Therefore it is up to Korea Immigration Services, the Korean public and private educational institutions to raise the bar with regard to hiring better qualified ‘foreign teachers’ to teach the newest generations of Koreans.

References

Dave’s (2009) ‘Korea Job Board’, Dave’s ESL Café [Online] Available at: http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/korea (Accessed regularly)

Kang, S. W. (2009) ‘Korean Teachers Substituting for Native Speakers in Incheon’, Korea Times; Nation, March 13, 2009 [Online] Available at: http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/03/117_41268.html (Accessed on June 23, 2009)

Kerry, P. (2007) ‘E-2s to need medical, criminal checks’, Expat Living, The Korea Herald, The Nation’s No. 1 English Newspaper, November 7, 2007 [Online] Available at: http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2007/11/07/200711070060.asp (Accessed in December, 2008)

Lee, A. J. (2007) ‘ SOUTH KOREA : Migrant Workers' Rights Clouded by Race, Class’, (END/2007) IPS NEWS, The Story Unearthed [Online[ Available at: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40526 (Accessed on June 22, 2009)

My Salary (2008) ‘Teacher Salary 2008’ [Online] Available at: http://www.mysalary.co.uk/average-salary/Teacher_3025 (Accessed on June 22, 2009)

NL (2009) ‘Teacher Pay Scale Across Canada’, Nucleus Learning [Online] Available at: http://www.nucleuslearning.com/node/2591 (Accessed on June 22, 2009)

PayScale (2009) ‘ Salary Survey Report for All K-12 Teachers’, PayScale, Career Research Center [Online] Available at: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/Salary (Accessed on June 22, 2009)

ROK Drop (2009) ‘ ATEK Lobbies for Equal Hiring Standards for English Teachers ’, Korea from North to South, Ex-pat Files, February 8, 2009 [Online] Available at: http://rokdrop.com/2009/02/08/atek-lobbies-for-equal-hiring-standards-for-english-teachers/ (Accessed in February, 2009)

Wagner, B. (2009) ‘Discrimination Against Non-Citizens in The Republic of Korea in the Context of the E-2 Foreign Language Teaching Visa’, Working Paper, Kyung Hee University School of Law [Online] Available at: http://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2009/05/wagner-report.html (Accessed on June 23, 2009)

Wagner, B. & Koehler, R. (2009) ’ATEK Interview with Prof. Benjamin Wagner’, The Marmot’s Hole, February 4, 2009 [Online] Available at: http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/02/04/atek-interview-with-prof-benjamin-wagner (Accessed in February, 2009)

XE.com (2009) [Online] Available at: http://www.xe.com (Accessed daily)