::A Geek in Korea::

My wife teaches storybooks and songs to students at elementary schools around the city. She had a contract with the school and visits the same to elementary schools. She works in this program as an alternative to the private academy system I work in. These cheaper after school public programs were supposed to replace the expensive English education programs that are a huge part of the private education system in Korea, but like most things in Korea, they were set up with little foresight or planning.

The classes are for students that need a little help, or want to try English before investing fully in a private academy. Students that don’t want extra pressure studying, or that can’t afford more classes also enroll. It has a very different feel than the classes I teach that are all about results on tests. This is more of a “feel comfortable in an English speaking environment” sort of attitude.

I accidentally called during a meeting my wife had set up with a parent that wanted to enroll their children. I later heard about the story.

A woman with kids wanted to enroll her kids into the program. The women’s children can’t speak ANY Korean, as they were raised in the United States. She lives in South Carolina, but they are in Korea for summer vacation living with family. The parents were planning to move back to Korea in a few years, and they were worried that their children couldn’t make any friends since they don’t know any Korean. The kids were born in the United States, and are American citizens.

My wife said, “Yeah, sure, add them to my class. No problem. We can read some stories together, they can meet students in my class, and we can have some fun. It will be good for them to make some friends and be comfortable around Korean speakers.” Ironic, as that’s the opposite of the class was designed to do.

The woman was greatly relieved. She said that she had tried to enroll her children into the proper all day Korean classroom for two months while they were in Korea, but the school principal and the head English teacher had denied her children enrollment. She was really worried she was going to be denied by this after school program too. They had brought the children back to Korea so they could enroll in Korean school and the kids were just sitting around all day bored for the past two weeks.

Why would the teachers tell two students that they couldn’t come to class?

The students are completely fluent in English. They know their names in Korean, and nothing else. The head English teacher had denied them access to the rest of classes because there was a fear that having these students in the class would make the Korean teachers that taught English would be embarrassed.

Korean elementary school teachers don’t do a good job teaching English (which explains the private academy and after school programs). Imagine if these two students came to class and spoke better English than their TEACHERS! This would be a “face losing” gesture, and would make the teacher feel ashamed. This is one of the worst things you can do in Korean culture, and is inexcusable. 50% of work decisions in Korea are lying or trying to avoid embarrassing coworkers. No head teacher would allow their teachers to be put in such a position.

My wife shares the class with the new students. She called the other teacher to explain the situation. The other teacher was shocked that she would agree. My wife isn’t embarrased about talking to the kids. She thinks it’s cool to meet kids that can speak English well, and she wants them to have a good time. She’s comfortable to be around native speakers because of me and my friends. It’s great to see her take on challenges because of her confidence in English.