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One day morning, we realized that our English teaching model might be wrong ! Becasue we had learned English for many years, but still we could not speak English well ..

So we decided to send our kids to USA, or other Englsih speaking countries together with Mom. And we again realized that it was too cost expensive, and should be seperated families (Mom and Kid are staying in other country, while Dad in Korea to make money) and the result was still not good as expected.

Early this year, the new president MB Lee and his government officials announced a plan of teaching Englsh from Elementary school. They expected to save those educating expenses and families could not be seperated anymore because of English.

Soon some schools moved fast, earlier than other schools, but other schools also hurried to catch them up. But undesirable things happened again. Parents are thinking one more layer of educating their kids, and every partents thought same thing ... So the private place to study after school, were boomed to teach English and the fire were on to all kids, pupils, and students. No way to control the flame.

Now the Korean English teachers are spending so difficult days to teach students, and some of them want to guit from their jobs. Students are asking some questions in English, and if the teacher answers, then they immediately says Teacher.. your pronounciation is wrong. It is like this.... etc etc. They learned English long time ago, from Koreans, how they can speak as Native speaker ?

Right now, the demand for NS teachers are exceeding supply. So, there are thousands of websites on Internet, Wanted Natve Speaking English teacher .. come to Korea... We will pay you salary, over time fee, airplane, lodge, one time moving fee, etc etc....

As the demand was exceeding Supply, the recruiters didn't mention on the qualifications but just saying on the certificate of College graduation, which may be strong possibilty of FAKE ONE.

Now there is an rumor that more than 10,000 young peoples staying in Korea, mostly from USA, Canada, Australia, Newzealand, South Africa or Phillipines. But still demand is exceeding supply. Some guy, actually not qualified, have no other careers but sold Hamburger in home town, came to Korea and changed to be a Teacher. Well... It may be.. if he is qualified really....

There are lots of issues on Native speaking English teachers.
I copied one article written by loveartj of Time Forum in The Koreatimes.
I agree his point.

Nowadays Koreans are addicted to speaking English like a native. Particularly Korean mothers want their children to learn to speak English even before they are able to speak Korean the right way. Korean adults go to English hakwons to learn to speak correctly with native speaking(ns) teachers and mothers look for kindergartens, hakwons or schools that hire ns teachers. The government’s plan is to have ns teachers in every elementary school by the year 2009 and in every middle and high school by the year 2010 or so. Hiring ns teachers requires a lot of time and money and so we need to consider about hiring them because it might not be the best solution. It seems to us that non native speaking(nns) teachers bring additional qualities to the classroom: they are realistic models for students in a way that native speakers are unlikely to be. For example, a Korean student can look at a Korean teacher of English and think, "I could be like that! She learned English really well, and so can I!" The same student might regard an American teacher as an unreachable model, "It's all very well and good for him, but he doesn't realize how difficult his language is to us. I'll never be able to speak English as well as he can." In this way, the nns teacher can provide a level of motivation to many students. However, a good model is not by definition a good instructor. In addition, the nns teacher who has successfully mastered the main features of English pronunciation is probably better equipped to instruct learners than the native speaker, who may be restricted to being a model for students to copy. Most Koreans think that English is best learned from native speakers because they want to speak English like a native speaker. But Kirkpatrick said there is no need for Korean learners to speak English like an Americans, British, or Australian person. Instead, educators should encourage Koreans to take pride in their status as bilinguals. “When Koreans speak English, they should want to the world to know that they’re Korean” he said. Language forms part of our identity, he explained, and in trying to sound like a native speaker from America, Koreans are identifying themselves with that country rather than their homeland. He suggested that language learners look to Europe for encouragement. He explained ‘In European countries, there is no embarrassment about the first language influencing the second language.’ English is a means for bilingual Europeans to understand another language. As long as the speaker can be understood, their aim has been achieved and there is no need for them to sound like a native speaker (Kirkpatrick, 2006). We know nnss might make errors in their own use of English. But also we should know that nss make plenty of errors too. Beside most NS teachers in Korea don’t have sufficient knowledge of English or the ability to teach English. They are hired as English teachers because they are just nss. Sometimes they just ‘ speak’ rather than ‘teach’. Therefore it is difficult to satisfy the students’ desire to learn English, which can end up in learning just narrow-minded English conversation. Teaching requires certain qualities to motivate, even inspire learners, and the ability to give clear explanations and clear instructions. As a result, to learn English more effectively, first we have to know the aim, which is to have the ability to communicate not to speak like natives. Second, nns teachers are more qualified to teach grammar and structure because they know the difference between the Korean and English language well. But of course, sometimes ns teachers are needed. Learning with ns teachers, there is a merit because it helps students have the curiosity and interest of English by experiencing conversation with ns and ns’s pronunciation, but we must avoid thinking that ns teachers are the best English teacher. The best English teacher is a bilingual teacher who is good at Korean and English. We should know that government’s task is to produce good English teachers. We have to research alternative methods of teaching English the most effective way.