Harder Than You Think
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Living in Korea
My comments about various things like the availability of other OSes in a place like Korea (i.e. the apparent lack of choice) plus the need for better communication between organisations and individuals seems to have ruffled a few feathers in various places (for example, at http://www.osnews.com/ as well as at work).
It has been said by a number of people (including my co-worker) that I must hate Korea, but this is not so; in fact, I am extremely sympathetic to the Koreans and their situation. To not be sympathetic (and ultimately friendly) towards these people, when one considers the history of this country, would be greatly unfair.
Let me say one thing at the outset: I do not hate Korea; this place and its people have been (and continue to be) very kind to me.
When you read these blogs, remember that these are a few of my private thoughts which I am sharing with you, and they are not intended to be offensive or rude, but they are intended to be honest. If my relationships with the people with whom I spend my time were really as bad as some want to suggest, I would surely have been kicked out of here ages ago, and in fact, there are plenty of foreigners whose unsettled nature has caused them to career hither and thither before the storm, until finally finding the right place to drop their anchors. This is something to bear in mind before responding to an advertisement, for example, for a job teaching here: it takes some tenacity to stay here, not to mention an awful lot of good and helpful friends, both Korean and foreign. I have known many of the locals here now for years and can (and have) counted on them often for assistance. People here are not friendly towards foreigners they consider offensive, usually.
But I hope that my regular readers will understand me when I say that I realise that my presence here is expensive, and that I genuinely want to render as much value for my time here as I possibly can. But this is definitely hard; not just for the fact that communication of important information (as mentioned previously) tends to be tardy or nonexistent, but also because I have often found myself so busy that there seems little time for learning to speak Korean between working, sleeping and eating. This was certainly the case while I was working at the hagwon, and has been true to some extent whilst beginning the new job, although I am starting to feel this easing now.
Today I want to share another little discovery which came my way recently when I finally ordered a copy of the University of Hawaii's KLEAR "Integrated Korean: Beginning 1". I realised from the outset that for people coming from a number of linguistic backgrounds, learning English can be extremely difficult simply because it is so very different from their own languages, but this point was made crystal clear by the new book's authors:
"Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean are among the most difficult languages for native English speakers to learn because of the vast differences between English and these languages in vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and writing system, as well as in the underlying tradition, culture, and society. English speakers require three times as much time to learn these "difficult" languages than to learn "easy" languages, such as French or Spanish, to attain a comparable level of proficiency. Indeed, English-speaking students who study Korean deserve praise for undertaking such a difficult but invaluable language, which has enormous cultural, academic, economic, and strategic significance." [My emphasis]
Perhaps we need to reverse the logic here slightly to arrive at some kind of perspective, not of how hard it is for foreigners to learn Korean, but of how hard it is for Koreans to learn foreign languages. Basically, the authors are suggesting that if you were learning a language like French and needed (say) some four or five years to become really proficient and fluent speaking it, then an East Asian language, or Arabic, will take you between twelve and fifteen years to achieve the same level of fluency and competence.
True though this may no doubt be, it is nevertheless hinting also at how hard it is for native speakers of those languages to become competent and fluent in English. Many foreigners stay only for one or a few years, and perhaps only learn what Korean they need to survive before departing (although many also study intensely), and probably do not see just how many years the students here are expected to study English before leaving university – and they may not stop studying the language even then.
While some students are better than others at learning the language, this means that before they leave university, their study of English alone will have continued for about fifteen years, from the official beginning in third grade through to when they finally graduate. How effective that study proves varies, but as my readers have probably guessed on the basis of what I have written previously, I do not think that all of the fault for ineffective learning lies with the students themselves. Not only are the materials of variable quality, but an unfair burden is imposed upon the Korean teachers, especially (I would suggest) at elementary level because in addition to being the homeroom teacher for most of the other subjects, they are also expected to be able to teach English according to the book provided, and often at least partially in tandem with a foreigner whom they may find very difficult to understand and keep up with; and whereas some of us would like to think that the arrival of the foreigner is something of an opportunity for the Korean teachers to put their feet up for a bit and relax, in practice it no doubt adds to their stress levels, as the point of having the foreigner there is to avoid the opportunity to use Korean and focus upon English as far as is practicable.
Actually, how far is not very far at all, and as the foreigner often has no Korean to speak of (if you'll pardon the obvious pun), it falls to the Korean teacher to interpret and explain to the children as and when necessary – which can be quite often. As the Korean teachers' own proficiency at English naturally varies between individuals as much as it does with the children, this can prove a very difficult job for them. The foreigners who come here really need to appreciate this; but when you yourself are trying to be understood by the same students and this is probably the fourth or fifth lesson of the day, you are also becoming stressed and start to jabber – instead of slowing down, you speed up through nervousness.
In conversations with a number of Koreans, I have tried to make the point that if they want people to come here with little more than a first (undergraduate) Degree and help students to learn English, then they must understand that the foreigners need as much "conditioning" as possible before they begin, and that this "conditioning" needs to involve teaching techniques, cultural awareness, classroom behaviour and – yes – being intentionally taught Korean so that both students and Korean teachers can converse with them properly, to enhance mutual understanding and avoid the frustration, anger and misunderstandings that can result from what is often a rather basic lack of communication. Many young people apply for the job before they even know where Korea is, which says a lot for their own education systems (and see my early posts for another perspective on this), so this "conditioning" is crucial.
The whole "foreigner" situation often seems very one-sided; in fact, the foreigners often talk like only their opinions matter, that only their complaints are important. The Koreans have plenty of complaints about us, and we have a duty to try our best to mitigate these in our behaviour and our work; we voluntarily enter into a situation in which we are part of a relationship which can be tense and fragile. The fact that we are foreigners in a foreign land, and thus often feel tense and fragile ourselves, is perhaps something that our co-workers also need to understand.
I would add one other thing to this: folks, let's get away from the situation in which foreigners arrive here on one-year contracts, many of which are never renewed. If Koreans are going to waste their hard-earned money bringing expensive foreigners here for any extended period, especially in a time of economic difficulty, they should rearrange things so that people are encouraged to stay rather than leave (because of associated travel, arrival and leaving costs), help them become comfortable (including teaching them Korean to an acceptably competent level) and generally take fair advantage of peoples' willingness to stay in terms of having a group of Korea-based non-natives who are adapted and experienced and have a more even emotional environment as a result of having become better aligned with both the society in which they are living and their knowledge and understanding of what that society requires of them; simply bringing them into the country and throwing them into a classroom, expecting them to know everything that is required of them because you have given them the title "teacher", is just no help to anyone.
In short, there is no sense in the Korean education system committing itself to foreigners if the foreigners' only commitment is to be there for a year before hopping off to another country. The simple fact that the foreigners are known to find learning Korean difficult and very time consuming tells us that only committed people who stay here for a long time – and yes, who also have allotted time to study – will give the country as a whole the return on its money that it requires. Everything else is mere frippery, and a waste of money.
I would finish by recalling a young American lady who gave a lecture at a recent Kyoungnam Education Board In-Service Training session in Changwon. One thing she mentioned was the fact – confirmed many times by my own experience – that far from being a parasite upon the education system in financial terms, committed foreign English teachers often spend large amounts of their own time and earnings ensuring that their materials and presentation are as good as they can possibly be. I myself have been spending a small fortune this summer buying books and materials intended just for the summer school, and which may not even be used, at least this year. But they are all part of the foreign teacher's "armoury", tools of the trade waiting like some forgotten chisel to sculpt some future work of art.
I measure my own commitment by the amount of myself that I put into all tasks, not just teaching; and I might not be the best in the world at this job, but that commitment has kept me here now for over six years.
I'd just like to feel that it's appreciated . . . that's all.
Andrew.
Tags: elementary, hagwon, Korea, Miryang, school, South Korea, teaching
