S. Korea to hire 23,000 more English teachers

South Korea’s incoming government will recruit 23,000 qualified English teachers by 2013 and increase the number of classes in elementary and secondary schools, the presidential transition committee said yesterday (Jan 30).

The plans, expected to cost 4 trillion won (US$4 billion), are part of President-elect Lee Myung-bak’s drive to revamp public English education and reduce spending on private learning.

The goal is for everyone to be able to speak English freely with a high-school education, Lee said.

The new government plans to spend 1.7 trillion won on hiring 23,000 teachers with TEE (Teaching English in English) certificates between 2009 and 2013. Of them, 10,000 are to be posted to elementary schools and 13,000 to middle and high schools.

Eligible TEE teachers are individuals who have completed English education programmes at home or abroad, including those with TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certificates; those with master’s degrees from English-speaking countries; those with government-issued teaching certificates; and other professionals who can conduct English classes.

Potential candidates will be given in-depth oral interviews. Successful applicants will undertake six months of training in order to obtain a teaching certificate, which must be renewed every five to 10 years. They will work on a three- to five-year contract basis.

The government expects to post 3,500 TEE teachers to elementary schools, 2,000 to middle schools and 1,000 to high schools in 2010, with an emphasis on rural areas or downscale parts of large cities.

The incoming government also plans to spend 480 billion won on providing intensive training to 3,000 current English teachers annually over five years, beginning from 2009. Half of the teachers will undergo a five-month intensive course in Korea followed by one month in an English-speaking country, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. The remaining 1,500 will be trained overseas for the entire duration, 500 of whom will undertake one-year TESOL programmes for “tailored” language training.

The incoming administration also plans to capitalise on the English skills of competent college students, homemakers, local residents and ethnic Koreans, who will play an ancillary role in after-school classes and other extracurricular language classes. They are expected to be posted to rural areas first.

Assistant teachers will be remunerated for their services and receive various incentives, including transport allowances. The new government expects to spend 340 billion won on this initiative over five years.

The incoming government will establish a comprehensive system for native English teachers supporting the English classes. The new system will encompass a wide range of programs to train and place foreign teachers in schools, and help them adapt to Korean society.

The English language curriculum will also undergo a major shift. Beginning in 2010, the time allotted for English classes conducted solely in the target language will increase to three hours per week for elementary-school students in the third to sixth grades. Currently, third- and fourth-graders take English-speaking classes for one hour per week, while fifth- and sixth-graders receive two hours a week. With this plan, the incoming government aims to see all English classes for third- to sixth-grade students conducted in the target language from 2011.

In order to focus on speaking and writing, the size of middle- and high-school classes will also be significantly scaled back, from the current 35 students per class to 23. To improve communicative skills, the incoming government’s aim is for middle schools to conduct 70 per cent of English classes exclusively in the target language by 2012, and 50 per cent for high schools by 2013.

The incoming government also plans to administer a new English proficiency test for college entrance from 2013 that will replace the English section in the state-run College Scholastic Ability Test. The new test will evaluate only two categories - listening and reading - in 2013 and 2014. From 2015, the test will be expanded to also cover speaking and writing.

Test results for the reading and listening components will be issued in grades, while results for the speaking and writing parts will be a straightforward “Pass” or “Fail”. The test is to be administered on a regular basis to ease the burden on the CSAT, which is held once a year.

By Song Sang-ho
The Korea Herald
Publication Date: 31-01-2008