It was 2006 and the Korean media was running a spate of anti-foreign English teacher shows. The Anti-English Spectrum people were starting their lynch mob, errr group, to get all those dirty foreigners dating Korean women, errr I mean committing acts of evil arrested and/or deported. Someone on Dave's ESL made a post about a racist school in Seoul. CYJ English Academy.
It turns out that this Academy started an advertisement campaign aimed at taking advantage of the BS the media was spouting about foreign teachers. The one that came to our attention was their ad on the CYJ website.
I had it translated by my gym buddy and another co-worker. Mainly I wanted to make sure that the translation I read years ago was right, and my memory was good. They are pretty much the same and it doesn't paint a pretty picture. Here it is.
We Don't Hire Native Speakers. (Only Koreans.)
1) Most foreigners are just in Korea for a year and are irresponsible. They don't care about the students.
2) Foreign teachers are not qualified and don't care if their students learn or not.
3) They didn't major in Education.
4) Most do not have a high quality education, they have 2 year certificates and not 3-4 year diplomas.
5) We have no way to check on their character. Many foreigners do drugs, are gay, are criminals, have aids, and have been convicted of sexual violence.
6) They don't prepare for class or counsel parents.
7) They have no passion for teaching and don't care about their students.
8) They don't care about properly developing their student’s English skills.
9) Many are not really Native Speakers. They are immigrants or the children of immigrants and therefore not fluent as fluent in English as a true Native Speaker.
10) It is impossible for parents to talk to them about their child’s progress because they can't speak Korean.
This caused a small shitstorm amongst the expat community. I remember reading one Dave's poster talking about contacting the Korean Human Rights Commission about this and being told that while it is discriminatory it isn't discriminatory enough to take any action.
A while later the same list appeared on the site with a disclaimer added. It basically said * Not all Native Speakers are like this.
Wow, gee thanks for the vote of confidence you racist bastards.
So, after having this translated and talking about it with my co-workers I asked one of them to see if it was still on the CYJ website. He was a bit harried, we were busy, and said he couldn't find it. I thought that was great they removed. Nice to see.
Then I remembered the type of fucktards I was talking about and decided to check myself. I found out that the list IS still there, in the last form I mentioned, in about 2 minutes.
Go to www.cyjenglish.com (Oh it is one of these moronic sites that only seems to be IE friendly.)
There is a long white bar with some links in the middle. The left most is 헉 원 소 거. Click on that.
On the left you will then see 5 links you can go to in orange. Click on FACULTY. (It is there in English and Korean.) You will then be given 4 links to go to. Click on the second one.
Voila. There is the old list pared down to 9 with the same disclaimer. At least the assholes are consistent. (And these assholes are still jumping on any bandwagon they can to drum up business. One of their popups declares they are an influenza free zone.)
The list exploited the fears the media was starting to build up in Korea then and continues to do so today. They were meant to scare parents off of Native Speakers and paint us as a bunch of diseased, drug using, perverts.
Nice to be made to feel so welcome isn’t it?
Lots of these facts about native english teachers listed in their ad are often true, though. A good 50% of the E2’s are just college kids here to refund their loans, and they can't even iron their own shirts or clean their own bathrooms, and they return to momma after a year. Tons of these college kids do pot, a few are gay.
ReplyDeleteA good 70% of the english native teachers aren't qualified for an education job and didn't major in education. A huge lot of them only have a 2 years degrees. Their qualification comes from the actual experience of teaching after a year or so.
Not a whole lot of the English native speakers take their jobs seriously and/or with passion. The point is to make money, let’s not lie. Now, a few don’t prepare classes in advance, and it’s true that the language barrier doesn’t help the foreign teachers to counsel the parents.
Honestly, who cares if the kid learns well? If the kid is just completely hermetic to English and doesn’t like it, you won’t be able to interest him anyway. I mean, I hated mathematics, biology and physics/chemistry at school. I had great teachers, but I just didn’t give a fuck about those subjects. I got thousands of punishments, writing 1000 times “I’ll study well”, etc… No matter how hard they tried, I just refused to study those unuseful stuffs. I didn’t give a fuck.
Sure a huge lot of ESL teachers are from foreign roots. This is called globalization. But my aunt is from Spain, and she speaks my native language better than I do. The US, Australia, New Zealand, all are founded on immigration.
Well, except AIDS shits, all the points are more or less true, but I don’t understand why they use it to justify the fact they don’t have enough money to hire ESL teachers. I mean, it just shows how close minded these mother-fuckers are.
Grow up, Korea, open to the world. Please.
What I found REALLY funny was the poll I did among my Korean co-workers after reading this list.
ReplyDeleteWe have 8 Korean teachers and 1 Korean-Canadian teacher, plus 3 of the dreaded foreigners. (The Korean-Canadian isn't REALLY a native speaker. She spent 10 years there from age 18 on.)
Only ONE of those teachers has an Education degree. Only ONE other has an English degree. So going by the same standards ONLY 1 of them is qualified to teach.
None of them had a Criminal Background check, HIV/STD tests, drug tests. So there is no way to know what their background is.
Then there is the sleazebag owner. He has no Education degree. He is a "businessman". Money is his bottom line not Education.
To paraphrase what someone said on An Idiot's Tale, you can take a broad brush and paint all Koreans working, travelling, or studying abroad as bad. Just like the Koreans are doing to us.
OH, I forgot to mention, under the Immigration laws you CAN'T legally teach in Korea with a 2 year certificate. You have to have a 3-4 year degree.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit ... the ones here with the frat boy mentality do drive me crazy at times.
ReplyDeleteHilarious: CYJ opened an academy called CYJ jr. for children age 6-12 in 2009. They hired two foreigners, me and another girl from the states, to develop the curriculum and teach. Since I left there they have hired foreigners from all around the world- BUT, only in CYJ jr.
ReplyDeleteThe post against foreigners is crazy. Everyone knows money is more important than childcare in Korea. Also, most foreigners love drugs more than Koreans --- yeah, so a few Koreans come to the states and smoke herb, who cares.....pot is not a drug.
# 5 made me laugh..... as in lmao.
#7 is sad.
most of these are true....
Koreans are allowed to be racist. Don't try to argue this. The country has a major social lag. Let them be racist. It is exciting and cute.
I'm so happy I read this..... gave me a good laugh on a freezing cold day.
Glad to be of some entertainment value. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know about CYJ Jr. :)
wow, i am just seeing this now -- i just left CYJ jr. mokdong branch. (two branches now!) there are currently 5 native teachers, 10 korean teachers, and a REQUIREMENT for being a korean teacher at CYJ jr. is that you have to have lived abroad in an english speaking country for a minimum of six years. (there's one teacher who lived in england for only two years, but she is the exception, and her english is very good.) bahahahaha, so funny. but makes absolute sense knowing what i know about CYJ. aish.
ReplyDeleteWow, I just had an interview with CYJ Jr.
DeleteIdk how I feel about accepting after reading this...
Any updates on CYJ? Interviewing with them and would like to know if anything has changed (in a positive way I hope).
ReplyDelete