How much do teacher's really want an experienced native teacher?

That tells you a lot about only public school education back home giving minimal instruction during the younger years.  It was a lot like when I first came to Korea.  I met kids who only got some modest English in Elementary and I interacted with them in Middle School.  They couldn't communicate in English at all.  Unlike today's hakwon extra training kids.  So many going to after school academies and self study for adults and more exposure to foreigners too.  It boosted the Korean levels.  Canada does none of this and the second language level for the average Joe is negligible.  A few who are motivated and self learn of course are the exception.

On the other hand, it seems most Quebecers I've bumped into seem to speak very good English. But, I think that has a lot more to do with motivation than quality of education. Korea could have world renown teachers, teaching with proven modern methods, but if 90% of the student aren't motivated, your not going to get more than a few textbook sentences out of your average student here.

Thankfully, my prep is done due to past two years prep.  Only a small minority of us actually contribute and upload here it seems though.  I worked my ass off on the stuff.  But when the next set of Elementary books come out in a couple of years, you're on your own I think.  I won't be contributing as much.  But you can take my stuff here and others and modify it for reposting if you wish.

Your effort is noted and appreciated, but personally I find it easier to just do my own lesson prep rather than modify others.

If Koreans can speak English well, you can thank hagwons. Public schools in Korea accomplish nothing. If a Korean kid does well in a public school English class it's because he/she attends a hagwon. No, it's not because you're a super special amazing public school teacher with super special amazing students. I used to hear this all the time from NETs who lived in big cities where all their students obviously went to endless hagwons. Public school NETs are just zoo animals paid a handsome salary to keep quiet.

If Koreans can speak English well, you can thank hagwons. Public schools in Korea accomplish nothing. If a Korean kid does well in a public school English class it's because he/she attends a hagwon. No, it's not because you're a super special amazing public school teacher with super special amazing students. I used to hear this all the time from NETs who lived in big cities where all their students obviously went to endless hagwons. Public school NETs are just zoo animals paid a handsome salary to keep quiet.

This is somewhat overstated, but I'll just amend it from "attends a hagwon" to "spends two years in an immersion program in New Zealand or southern California".
 
Also, public school teachers are not "zoo animals", more like "zookeepers" or Steve Irwin-style showmen, and we're not "paid a handsome salary" we're paid what used to be a handsome salary eaten away by inflation--just today, my favored breakfast pastry jumped up by 200 W.  I haven't had a raise in 8 years.

And I am under no illusion that even if I were God's gift to teaching, I could transform English learning by my students.  My aim in elementary school is to have them develop a positive attitude to English and instill positive habits of language learning. 

Elements like scaffolding sentences, spelling and sentence syntax with scramble and other puzzles which challenge their natural desires (concentration aka matching. rebuses, hidden pictures, vanishing pictures, etc), fun concepts like conversation with favorite characters--anytime Pororo or Pikachu or Harry Potter comes along, there is an uptick in interest.   The fact that there are a billion bomb games here makes me think they're overused, but a bit of competition has its place, a few times a semester--but please make sure the whole class repeats the question and the answer ...

My co-teachers definitely help during appropriate activities, but actually appreciate the chance to sit at the back and mark their homework notebooks as I lead the activities.  We had 4th grade for the third time today, and they remind me of the last two sixth grades, they were sooo enthusiastic--I commented to my Co that I hoped they would still feel that way when they went on.  She was in agreement.

So, at the elementary level, I don't think it's about actual acquisition as much as it is about attitude.  And we as NETs can definitely help or even make a big difference in that regard. 

Elements like scaffolding sentences, spelling and sentence syntax with scramble and other puzzles which challenge

I'm willing to bet that the self-deprecating ESL teachers here who think we're nothing more than zoo animals are the same ones who wouldn't have the foggiest idea what scaffolding is.

If Koreans can speak English well, you can thank hagwons. Public schools in Korea accomplish nothing. If a Korean kid does well in a public school English class it's because he/she attends a hagwon.

This is oftentimes true, but it's not necessarily because the hagwon is offering a better educational experience. It's because, unlike public schools, the parents are shelling out hard-earned money to send their kids there and they make their kids all too aware of the fact. There's exponentially more extrinsic motivation for the student to get results. The "Sleep at school, study at the hagwon." practice is still very much alive, tolerated and speaks volumes about Korea's education culture.

Demartino claims Korea's English proficiency is good enough and I agree with him, not every Korean needs to be fluent or even proficient. I'm usually able to find someone with reasonable English when necessary and with my modest Korean ability, communication isn't that bad.
What I think he fails to recognise is that the basic conversational (at best) English the bank teller has came at the cost of thousands of hours of gruelling study and thousands of dollars of hagwon fees.
The cost Koreans are paying for a basic level of English is astronomical and THAT is the result of a poorly constructed education system.

This is oftentimes true, but it's not necessarily because the hagwon is offering a better educational experience. It's because, unlike public schools, the parents are shelling out hard-earned money to send their kids there and they make their kids all too aware of the fact.

This is probably true, I mean I could be wrong but I get the idea that hagwon English classes probably aren't a huge step above public school ones. Maybe at the super good ones or something, but I've read enough hagwon blacklist to know there are at least some shitty ones too. I wonder what the ratio of good/average/shitty hagwons is (cant judge personally with my sample size)

I'm guessing it falls into a pretty standard bell curve. If I had to pin numbers on it, I'd probably go with 10% being absolute trash, 40% being less than adequate, 40% being more than adequate, and 10% being stellar. All this from an educational stand-point, of course. Those numbers are probably a fair bit different when looking at it from an employee stand-point (although there's probably a good over lap between the two)!

I have friends who own a hagwon, and they've managed to turn it into something to be really proud of. I visit there occasionally and chat with the kiddos, and by the end of their first year, the improvements are pretty incredible.

The secret to their particular success is that they resisted the urge to expand. They are both the owners and the sole teachers (there's also the standard hagwon bus driver and part-time receptionist). Because they didn't expand even when their student numbers rose, they usually have a fair waiting list, which means they can screen the students who come in (and the parents of those students). They do their best to only accept kids who will fit in personality-wise. It makes a pretty huge difference. The kids all seem to be good friends with one another, and most seem genuinely happy to be there.

If Koreans can speak English well, you can thank hagwons. Public schools in Korea accomplish nothing. If a Korean kid does well in a public school English class it's because he/she attends a hagwon. No, it's not because you're a super special amazing public school teacher with super special amazing students. I used to hear this all the time from NETs who lived in big cities where all their students obviously went to endless hagwons. Public school NETs are just zoo animals paid a handsome salary to keep quiet.

Same out in the provinces are paid okay.  SOme in the cities are still paid low.  (I'm only posting this to trigger a

If Koreans can speak English well, you can thank hagwons. Public schools in Korea accomplish nothing. If a Korean kid does well in a public school English class it's because he/she attends a hagwon. No, it's not because you're a super special amazing public school teacher with super special amazing students. I used to hear this all the time from NETs who lived in big cities where all their students obviously went to endless hagwons. Public school NETs are just zoo animals paid a handsome salary to keep quiet.

If you speak basic Korean and can get the Korean teacher to drill them a bit and give the occasional word test to get them to memorize vocabulary when they are young, you may be able to boost their English in a rural area and or a poorer city neighborhood.  Especially the grade 3s and 4s and even do some light chatting with the gr 1s and 2s at lunch time.  But you have to know some Korean.  Say some expressions in English and in Korean.

What I think he fails to recognise is that the basic conversational (at best) English the bank teller has came at the cost of thousands of hours of gruelling study and thousands of dollars of hagwon fees.
The cost Koreans are paying for a basic level of English is astronomical and THAT is the result of a poorly constructed education system.

First off, in order to get good at something, you have to work at it. Is there some mystical teaching at public schools back home that is churning out fluent speakers after only a couple hundred hours of classtime? Two hours classroom time is not enough to learn a language. You need regular exposure and experience. Unless you are gifted, you have to work hard and practice to get good.

And guess what, at anything like the wage you yourself are demanding, that study time will cost...thousands of dollars. It wouldn't cost thousands of dollars if you didn't demand such a high wage. If you want public schools to dramatically boost the quality of their English teachers at every school location, that has to be paid for- in taxes. And you need that time. You simply aren't going to get it from a single public school native speaker that has a max number of classroom hours and 25+ kids per class.

Second, your assumption that this bank teller did indeed spend thousands of hours of grueling study assumes facts not in evidence. For starters, one look at my kids, through all levels, says that they're putting lots of grueling hours into Roblox, League of Legends, Instagram, and Youtube.

Sorry, I just don't see enough support for your conclusion. As long as its still within the basic framework of public education revolving around sending kids to a central location, giving them a set curriculum, and giving them a classroom experience, I just don't see any tweaks that would produce anything more than incremental improvement. Not with competing interest and budge requests from other subjects and not with a free-market solution out there. I mean, if you were going to REALLY overhaul the education system, that would require taking on the teachers unions, spending billions of dollars, and RADICALLY altering things and if you fail, the results would likely be disastrous. Not to mention all the legal issues that public schools have to deal with in terms of equal opportunity and whatnot.

First off, in order to get good at something, you have to work at it. Is there some mystical teaching at public schools back home that is churning out fluent speakers after only a couple hundred hours of classtime? Two hours classroom time is not enough to learn a language. You need regular exposure and experience. Unless you are gifted, you have to work hard and practice to get good.

And guess what, at anything like the wage you yourself are demanding, that study time will cost...thousands of dollars. It wouldn't cost thousands of dollars if you didn't demand such a high wage. If you want public schools to dramatically boost the quality of their English teachers at every school location, that has to be paid for- in taxes. And you need that time. You simply aren't going to get it from a single public school native speaker that has a max number of classroom hours and 25+ kids per class.

Second, your assumption that this bank teller did indeed spend thousands of hours of grueling study assumes facts not in evidence. For starters, one look at my kids, through all levels, says that they're putting lots of grueling hours into Roblox, League of Legends, Instagram, and Youtube.

Sorry, I just don't see enough support for your conclusion. As long as its still within the basic framework of public education revolving around sending kids to a central location, giving them a set curriculum, and giving them a classroom experience, I just don't see any tweaks that would produce anything more than incremental improvement. Not with competing interest and budge requests from other subjects and not with a free-market solution out there. I mean, if you were going to REALLY overhaul the education system, that would require taking on the teachers unions, spending billions of dollars, and RADICALLY altering things and if you fail, the results would likely be disastrous. Not to mention all the legal issues that public schools have to deal with in terms of equal opportunity and whatnot.

I know a couple of South African families who \dropped the toddlers off into Korean kindergarten and within several month were speaking fluent Korean.  No study necessary.  You'd be surprised how many fluent people actually learned the language young when they never had to memorize or study for it. 

I know a couple of South African families who \dropped the toddlers off into Korean kindergarten and within several month were speaking fluent Korean.  No study necessary.  You'd be surprised how many fluent people actually learned the language young when they never had to memorize or study for it. 

How many hours were they speaking Korean? And how many thousands of dollars did they pay?

If you drop Korean kids off in English kindergartens, in say, America, yes they'll come out speaking fluently. It's because of immersion and early-age exposure when kids are incredibly adept at learning languages. Not because of "study or no study."

If you want immersion in English in Korea, you'll have to pay for it.

First off, in order to get good at something, you have to work at it. Is there some mystical teaching at public schools back home that is churning out fluent speakers after only a couple hundred hours of classtime? Two hours classroom time is not enough to learn a language. You need regular exposure and experience. Unless you are gifted, you have to work hard and practice to get good.

I was/am shit at Afrikaans. I never spoke it at home or with my friends, my Afrikaans scores in HS were bellow average, but, I'd say my Afrikaans is on par if not better than the English level of any CT I've ever had and some of them majored in English at university. I was not an exceptional case. Go to other 3rd world countries, you'll meet adults and children with nowhere near the same level of formal Education speaking English as a foreign language who'd seriously give these CTs a run for their money.

There are NETs who've studied Korean at a fraction of the cost and time that Koreans spend on English and they've far surpassed their English level.
I don't know if you're a licensed teacher, but I'm in the final process of getting my license and you've spent a small amount of time studying classical and contemporary curriculums and approaches to teaching English (as a FAL or FL) you'd understand the shortcomings in Korea's educational policies. If you're willing to accept that Korea's approach to teaching English FL is correct then I could pull out a few dozen academic articles and journals telling you why you're very wrong.

You're telling me a well structured educational process is when, after a hundred hours of instruction (not practice), someone still hasn't learned the alphabet?
Sorry, I have no clue what you're on about.

And guess what, at anything like the wage you yourself are demanding, that study time will cost...thousands of dollars. It wouldn't cost thousands of dollars if you didn't demand such a high wage. If you want public schools to dramatically boost the quality of their English teachers at every school location, that has to be paid for- in taxes. And you need that time. You simply aren't going to get it from a single public school native speaker that has a max number of classroom hours and 25+ kids per class.

I said an overhaul in the education system. I'm not against scrapping English as a compulsory subject and only hiring qualified NETs (paid accordingly) and reserving them for schools were English is offered. There's really no reason to send a NET to work at some decrepit myeon in the middle of nowhere. You can't argue that Korea doesn't have this already, there are plenty of schools offering subjects and sports that other schools don't; the middle school I teach at offers Japanese. Other middle schools do not, I don't see anyone protesting.

I can't respond to your other paragraphs because I really don't understand what you're trying to say.
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I was/am shit at Afrikaans. I never spoke it at home or with my friends, my Afrikaans scores in HS were bellow average, but, I'd say my Afrikaans is on par if not better than the English level of any CT I've ever had and some of them majored in English at university. I was not an exceptional case.

Given that Afrikaans is a NATIVE LANGUAGE from where you hail, that's really not an appropriate comparison.

Go to other 3rd world countries, you'll meet adults and children with nowhere near the same level of formal Education speaking English as a foreign language who'd seriously give these CTs a run for their money.

Same with taxi drivers or that random guy at the mart here. It all depends on the situation. Those kids also aren't learning formal English for university and academic terminology. Also, that's confirmation bias. How many other adults and children do you meet that have ZERO level of English? Of course you as a foreigner are going to attract people in 3rd world countries who can speak good English. You think it's coincidence that you just happened to run into each other?

There are NETs who've studied Korean at a fraction of the cost and time that Koreans spend on English and they've far surpassed their English level.

It's called immersion. They are studying and practicing EVERYWHERE THEY GO.

You're telling me a well structured educational process is when, after a hundred hours of instruction (not practice), someone still hasn't learned the alphabet?

It's called the dumb kid in class. You're using that kid as an example. Why not the other 25 kids in class who do know the alphabet?

Again, this is about policy. You can have a great curriculum or idea, but if it's not logistically or economically feasible, then it doesn't count for shit. There's no program in the world that is going to churn out fluent speakers with 2 hours of classtime per week. With public education you are still going to get a bunch of kids who just don't have the aptitude or interest to do well at foreign languages.

If it really was as simple as you suggest, then NETs who can speak a 2nd language fluently would be the norm, not the exception. That clearly isn't the case. I think you are WAY overestimating the effectiveness of education back home and seriously underestimating it here. Sorry, but I don't really see that massive gap in capability and intellect that you purport.

i think its mostly about motivation. obviously the curriculum could use some modernizing (i don't think anyone would disagree). but i think we all know that no matter what is going on in the classroom, there will be some kids who, no matter what we do, have no interest in learning english (which is fine!). i do think its strange to not include english at a younger age, assuming korea is really trying to make english a whole "thing". but im not very knowledgeable about  what the literature says about that

This is oftentimes true, but it's not necessarily because the hagwon is offering a better educational experience.

Trust me, hagwons aren't doing anything special. However, it is at least 1 extra hour per day, 3 to 5 days a week of English with a NET. In public elementary school most kids get 1 hour a week of English with a NET. This extra teaching adds up.

Another thing is that hagwon classes are smaller. In my hagwon classes I had 10 kids max. When I taught public school it was 25 to 30 kids in each class.

Also from my experience, hagwon teaching books tend to be the same kind of ESL books used in the US. They're written by native English speakers and come straight from McGraw Hill or whatever. So hagwon kids are learning natural English at a higher level. Meanwhile public school books are all low-level, and are all weird unnatural English like "do you know Jeju-do" and "nice to meet you, I have diarrhea" because they're written by Koreans.

i think its mostly about motivation. obviously the curriculum could use some modernizing (i don't think anyone would disagree). but i think we all know that no matter what is going on in the classroom, there will be some kids who, no matter what we do, have no interest in learning english (which is fine!). i do think its strange to not include english at a younger age, assuming korea is really trying to make english a whole "thing". but im not very knowledgeable about  what the literature says about that

Yup. You get motivated kids, you get positive outcomes. You get unmotivated kids, doesn't matter if the material is gold and the teacher is great.

Given that Afrikaans is a NATIVE LANGUAGE from where you hail, that's really not an appropriate comparison.

Please, don't throw opinions around unless you have some kind of foundation for your argument. You've been to South Africa? I'm assuming no. Do you speak Afrikaans? No. Are you aware of the cultural, geographical and historical factors that explain why some South Africans speak Afrikaans well and some don't? No. I didn't grow up speaking Afrikaans (save some choice curse words), I wasn't raised around Afrikaans speakers and I didn't use it unless I was in Afrikaans class trying to pass off whatever BS mondeling I just thought up. Don't be so confident in your opinion about the dynamics of language learning in South Africa when it's based off 10sec of wikipedia research.

Korean kids were probably exposed to more English by watching Marvel movies than the amount of Afrikaans I was exposed to while growing up.

[quote author=Mr.DeMartino link=topic=121510.msg854016#msg854016 date=1615962828
If it really was as simple as you suggest, then NETs who can speak a 2nd language fluently would be the norm,
[/quote]

Anyone here go to private academies after school to study Spanish, French, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa or any of the other official languages from your country, yet you still can't maintain a basic conversation? Please raise your hand.

Please, don't throw opinions around unless you have some kind of foundation for your argument. You've been to South Africa? I'm assuming no. Do you speak Afrikaans? No. Are you aware of the cultural, geographical and historical factors that explain why some South Africans speak Afrikaans well and some don't? No. I didn't grow up speaking Afrikaans (save some choice curse words), I wasn't raised around Afrikaans speakers and I didn't use it unless I was in Afrikaans class trying to pass off whatever BS mondeling I just thought up. Don't be so confident in your opinion about the dynamics of language learning in South Africa when it's based off 10sec of wikipedia research.

Korean kids were probably exposed to more English by watching Marvel movies than the amount of Afrikaans I was exposed to while growing up.

Given the number of Saffers here who at least get some Afrikaans out, lets just say it's a bit more than English here.

Anyone here go to private academies after school to study Spanish, French, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa or any of the other official languages from your country, yet you still can't maintain a basic conversation? Please raise your hand.

Anyone here go to any kind of academic academy?

A lot of us have taken public school foreign languages. And lets just say NETs fluent or even conversational in a 2nd language are relatively rare. Most of us have really inept levels in that language.

And yes, some kids are going to take private lessons at something and still suck at it. That's called kids being kids.

Things are pretty fine. Plenty of English abounds and it seems to have sorted itself out in the ratios you'd expect.

Given the number of Saffers here who at least get some Afrikaans out, lets just say it's a bit more than English here.
Anyone here go to any kind of academic academy?

I'll preface by saying that I'm not South African, nor have I ever been there. However, I have a number of South African friends, can speak some Afrikaans, and know a bit more about the country than the average person who isn't  from it. (And apologies to any saffers who feel I'm out of place typing on their behalf.)

    From what I understand, the *many* languages spoken there are very region specific, and also very demographic specific. If you do not come from an area where Afrikaans is the majority language, or if you belong to the wrong racial/socio-economic group, Afrikaans definitely would be a second language, and exposure could be very minimal (for the current generation, at least. Things were different back during the Apartheid period). Unlike English in Korea, I don't think that Afrikaans has pervasively infiltrated the commercial and cultural background of the entire country.
   Point is, unless you're an Afrikaaner, or come from an area where every speaks it, then theres a fair chance you won't know a whole lot of it.
   Also, I think that the reason so many S.A.ners seem to speak it is because Afrikaaners tend to be a wealthier, more educated demographic, and would have more chances to take advantage of the opportunity to teach abroad.

A lot of us have taken public school foreign languages. And lets just say NETs fluent or even conversational in a 2nd language are relatively rare. Most of us have really inept levels in that language.

Not quite disagreeing with you here, but I think that the percentage of NETs who are conversational in a second language is going to be significantly higher than that percentage back in their home country. One of the reasons many people choose to teach in an other country is that they are interested in foreign cultures/languages etc, and have some facility therein.
 Might actually be an interesting poll question: "How many languages can you communicate in?"

I'll preface by saying that I'm not South African, nor have I ever been there. However, I have a number of South African friends, can speak some Afrikaans, and know a bit more about the country than the average person who isn't  from it. (And apologies to any saffers who feel I'm out of place typing on their behalf.)

No worries.

Afrikaans exposure is going to depend on your demographic, your culture, where you live and also your generation.

Very oversimplified, in Cape Town, it's a language of whites (not all whites share the same culture) of Afrikaaner descent and coloureds (mixed race) of the Northern suburbs and Cape flats. However, it's more a language of the older generation and not necessarily an indication of wealth. It also depends greatly on what school you went to.

I didn't grow up speaking Afrikaans because I went to what's called "former Model-C and private schools". My classmates were either rich white (of English descent), coloured, Indian or black kids. Afrikaans was never spoken unless we were swearing. I'm also a millennial and was exposed to very little Afrikaans. Go to the northern suburbs or the poorer areas and it becomes a different story.

Martin bases his opinion on the South Africans he's met here however, most South Africans in Korea are white and therefore, more likely of Afrikaaner descent. The reason most white South Africans come here is quite simple, people of means are the ones who generally have a tertiary level of education.