Bomb English! 폭탄영어!, Bomb English #2 – New English Education Policy in Korea - Part 1

Michael: Welcome to ‘Bomb English.' (We da bomb!) With hosts Michael and Jennifer podcasting direct from Seoul. Jennifer: Real people, real topics, real English. Hello and welcome to episode 2 of ‘Bomb English.' Michael: (We da bomb!) I did it this time. Jennifer: I don't think Michael's (We da bomb!) is as cute as mine. Michael: Oh, I can't do that. Jennifer: I've noticed. Michael: I've too high. It's too high. (We da bomb!) Yunji: (We da bomb!) Michael: Oh, that's pretty good. So this is Michael and Jennifer but we have a new co-host with us today. Yunji: You finally hear a Korean voice. I'm Korean girl and… I'm Korean girl? Yes… Michael: And your name would be? Yunji: Would be Yunji, Yunji Jeong, yes. Michael: Yunji? Yunji: Call me Yun. Short, easy to remember, easy to remember. Michael: Now, we know each other from Yongin, from when you were a student teacher. Yunji: Right. Michael: Right Yunji: German student teacher. Michael: German, yes. Jennifer: So you teach German? Yunji: No. Jennifer: I am confused. Yunji: I taught once in Yongin when I was a student teacher. It was good, real good. They got impressed. Michael: Ah Jennifer: She, so you were the German TA and you're not teaching German now. What do you teach? Yunji: I'm teaching English. Ha ha. Michael: Oh~ (She da bomb!) Jennifer: She is the… Yunji: (I'm da bomb!) Jennifer: (She da bomb!) Michael: Ha ha ha ha. So you teach English, what level? Where do you teach? Yunji: In primary school, middle school, and in company. Michael: Ah… Yunji: At school and company. Michael: Oh, so you do… Ah, you teach on a lot of different levels. Yunji: Yes, right. Jennifer: So you're an English teacher and there's some new English teaching regulations that are coming into play soon. What are they? Yunji: What are they? Their English new policy is for people who can speak English, right? Michael: Yeah. Yunji: People who speak English can be teachers, right? Jennifer: I hope so. Yunji: Do you know? Jennifer: No. Yunji: Actually, as for me, it's a good chance, good opportunity, wonderful opportunity for me because I'm a German teacher. But you know, German is not popular lately. Actually the students don't learn German. Michael: Oh, it's less popular than before. Yunji: Sure. Not less, much less popular. Michael: Oh. Yunji: Nowadays, they learn Chinese or Japanese. Asian language is very popular. So, I want to be an English teacher. Like, you know, full-time teacher. Michael: And your English is fine. I mean, it's good English. Yunji: I think so. No, no. Jennifer: We have two Michaels in the room now! No, your English is excellent… Yunji: And, and so the English new policy can be helpful to me. But to the other person, but to the other person, I don't know about that. Jennifer: So basically the policy is that English classes in Korea from now on should be actually taught in… Yunji: English. Michael: English! Jennifer: What language were they teaching it in before? Yunji: Korean. Jennifer: Ahhhh. Yunji: Korean and English. But nowadays I'm speaking English and Korean in class, actually. Michael: Yeah. Yunji: It's very good. Michael: It sounds like you can conduct English classes in English without a problem. Yunji: Not much problem, I think. Michael: Yeah. Yunji: Uh-huh, because I don't speak English too much. I speak English, properly. And, yeah even though they can't understand my speaking in English, but they love to hear that and they don't feel not comfortable, no, not at all. “What is that? What are you talking about?” they ask me and I can answer, right, the question. It will help them so much, I think to learn English. Michael: And every word you say, isn't perfect. Yunji: Of course not. Michael: Sometimes you make mistakes. I make mistakes in Korean. Yunji: Uh-huh. Jennifer: Boy, I make mistakes all the time! And not just in Korean, in my own language, in English. Michael: Um, so it's okay. I know that in Korea, you know the teaching, kind of the teaching culture, the teacher making a mistake is not seen as a good thing. Yunji: Especially in good school like ○○○○외고 like that. Michael: Yeah, foreign language high schools. Yunji: Uh-huh. Michael: Yeah, so but if you make a mistake, how do your students…Do they know you make a mistake? I mean, you're just talking and every word doesn't come out perfectly all the time. What do, how do they react? Yunji: Just some people who is, who went abroad, they will notice, yeah…I think. Michael: So some students speak more natural English than you do? Yunji: Sure, much better than me. Some students, yeah. Uh, but, yeah, I think they understand because I'm not, you know, Englishman, I'm not American. Michael: Yeah. Yunji: So they know, you know, the mistaking, make mistaking of English can be very, is very natural thing to do. Jennifer: I actually learn the most when I make mistakes in other languages. I never remember when I've said something right, but if I make a mistake, which I do by the way all the time, in the future, I remember making that mistake and it's easy for me to pick up on it and do it better in the future. Michael: When I studied German, my German teacher never spoke in English and, in fact, I only heard him speak English one day. So, you know, English, should be taught in English right? What's so, why are some people, why are some people against this idea? Yunji: I think some people who can't speak English in the class, probably old teachers like 50s or 40s, or a person who's not familiar with American culture, they don't want to speak English in English class, actually. “Why do we have to speak English? We can't, we can teach them in Korean,” they think that way. So that's the problem. But, you know, most of 20s or 30s students, students or teachers, they love to learn English in English. So I think some people who is not familiar with English is against, because they feel, they feel fear, they feel scared that they will lose the job. Michael: Ah… Jennifer: I have to say there's a lot of teachers that I know who teach English in schools who can't actually speak English. It really surprised me. When I first started teaching, there were other teachers in the English department with me, and I couldn't speak in English with them. We had to speak in Korean, which was really bad because I didn't speak Korean then, but they couldn't communicate with me in English, even though they were supposed to be English teachers. Michael: Yes, we were on the same program and, we were, I was in 제주도, you were in 안동 and 경주. Jennifer: Woo-hoo 경주! Yoo-hoo! Michael: And, my, at my school, the head English teacher could not speak any English to me. I could not understand any word he said, and at that time my Korean was not at a high level, so I could not say anything to him in Korean, he could not understand anything in English. So he would avoid me in the school because if we talked, it was usually obvious that he could not communicate with me. And there are lots of good English teachers who can speak but there are also, you know, some teachers who cannot communicate in English. Jennifer: And it's really strange because when I've studied languages in America, it's inconceivable that… Michael: (Inconceivable!) Yunji: What is ‘inconceivable'? Jennifer: It means you couldn't even think of it. It's beyond your ability to imagine. Michael: Beyond your ability to ‘conceive.' Jennifer: Yeah. ‘Conceive' means to think of something. Michael: And there was this, also from a movie. (Inconceivable!) Jennifer: Which movie? Michael: ‘The Princess Bride.' Jennifer: Oh, oh! Michael: We'll put that in there. Jennifer: Put the, put the actual clip in. Michael: Yes. (A: He didn't fall? Inconceivable! B: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. A: Inconceivable!) Jennifer: Usually the prefix ‘in' in front of any word means ‘not.' It's like ‘비' or ‘무' or ‘불' in front of a Korean word. It means ‘not!' So ‘in'conceivable means “not conceivable,” or not something you can think of. Anyway, it's inconceivable to me (Inconceivable!) that, that a teacher of any language in America would be teaching a language they couldn't actually communicate in. If you're a Spanish teacher, you're expected to be able to speak fluent Spanish. And if you're a German teacher, you're expected to be able to speak fluent German. If you teach Japanese, you should speak fluent Japanese. Whether or not that's the only language you use as an instructor in the classroom, everybody would still expect that you're fluent in the language. I've never met a Spanish teacher who wouldn't be able to go to Spain and speak with people in the native language there. Whereas here in Korea, I've met English teachers who really, just don't speak English. Michael: And this is not to say that America's school system is perfect, because we have lots of problems. And I think Korea's problem is pedagogy. It's pedagological. Pedagological? Yunji: What is that word? Jennifer: That sounds like a really nasty operation. Michael: I'm sorry. Jennifer: That's a doctor you do not wanna visit. Where do you have to go today? I have to go to the pedagologist. Michael: I'm sorry. I made a mistake! I need my pedagology removed. It's pedagogical, right? Pedagological. So I think Korea's problem is, it's pedagogical, which means having to do with how you teach, teaching philosophy, teaching theory. Whereas America's problem is more “fundy,” it's money. Public schools in big cities often don't have enough money but in Korea, Korea has the money, and the Korean teachers receive, how many years of English training? Yunji: Even though they got to learn English for 10 years, they can't speak English. They can read. Michael: So what's the problem? Why not? Yunji: Because we don't speak English in the class. We don't speak! Michael: You're afraid to speak. Yunji: Yeah, of course. Jennifer: It's really strange how convinced my students were, when they started my class, that they couldn't speak or understand English. Because my classes, of course, always in English, all the time. And I had teachers and students telling me that “students can't understand everything you say,” and the students would tell me “we don't understand everything you say.” But even without understanding 100%, my students always completed whatever task or assignment I'd given them, even though they weren't operating at 100%. They got enough of it to understand. There was actual communication going on. Michael: They got your message. Jennifer: They got the message. And despite what they all said about, “Oh teacher, we can't speak English.” Michael: They understood what you just told them. Jennifer: Right! And actually my students were pretty good at communicating. Michael: Yeah, this is the problem I, and even outside of English, I think, again, it's a pedagogical problem, ha ha. Yunji: Good. Jennifer: Nailed it that time, nicely done! Michael: Um, you know, I teach U.S. History and the students, they read through the history and, you know, they'll maybe read 20 pages of the textbook. And they say, “Teacher, I can't understand. I didn't understand all of it!” and they get really stressed, and there's this Korean mindset: If I could not understand 100% the first time, something's wrong with me. And I said, “You know, American students think U.S. History is difficult, too. They read the textbook and they don't understand many parts. It's okay. That's why I'm a teacher, I explain to you.” But they get a lot of stress if they don't understand 100% the first time. Yunji: That's why I think Korean teachers can help them if they can't understand the parts, we can explain in English and in Korean again. And some parts have to be done in Korean, actually. Michael: Yeah. Yunji: So that, so, I'm very pro to this policy, but I think some people who has already teaching qualification, will be against to them because, you know, the teachers, the people who can speak English very well, or much better than people who has teaching qualification, even though, you know, the people can speak English, but they don't have teaching qualification, they can speak English much better, right? Yeah, some people can… Michael: They lived in the States for 10 years, or something like that. Yunji: So, so, you know, to get the teaching qualification they have spent much more time and energy and effort to get it, right? But they feel like it's unfair. We spent many things, we sacrificed many things. You know, but you didn't get that and you taught them – that's not fair, they feel that way, I think. That's the problem right now.