OP6) These days, more and more native English speaking teachers are being recruited into the public school system In what ways do you think native and local teachers can team up to provide effective and motivating English instruction in public school sett

In learning English, it is necessary to have experience to communicate with native speakers. For this reason, the government provides English education by native speakers for the public schools. Comparing to the situation 10 years ago, the number of recruiting native speakers is increasing. Most middle schools have native speakers and it seems that more native speakers will be working in public school settings from kindergartens to high schools. In reality, however, classes conducted by native speakers are not effective and practical. Also, students can’t benefit from the classes by native speakers. It means cooperative teaching between native English speaking and Korean English teachers is not being done. To provide effective and motivating English instruction, teaching separately, speaking together about lessons, and including speaking skills in the assessment are good ways to help native and local teachers team up.


First of all, native and local English teachers should teach separately. So far, mostly, Korean English teachers attend the classes as assistants when native speakers teach. The purpose is to help students understand English classes in English. However, this is not genuine English classes by native teachers. Also, both sides of teachers are reluctant to be in the same classrooms because native teachers might feel that they are being watched and local teachers have to do extra work. Therefore, it is better to let the classes conducted by native teachers without local teachers although students can’t understand the classes in English at first. To help students, local teachers can give essential expressions during their own classes.


Next, having meeting to speak together about lesson plans is another way for team-up teaching. Usually native teachers cover speaking and activity areas and local teachers cover regular lessons given by the Korean Education Ministry. Actually, present native teachers’ English classes are not organized and controlled by the government. Through more development of curriculum, both native and local teachers follow the same objectives. For example, with one objective, local teachers teach grammar and detail things first, and then native teachers can lead the classes in more practical way such as presentations based on what local teachers taught. To achieve this, it is important that local teachers throw their pride and consider what is effective and beneficial for the students and so do native teachers.


Lastly, assessing speaking skills is also a helpful way to team up. As we know well, in Korean education, the lessons which are not included in the assessment are not considered as important ones. Therefore, to enhance native teachers’ English classes, contents of their classes need to be assessed. Native teachers usually teach speaking area, so it is reasonable to add speaking test into the current assessment system. By testing speaking skills, students can pay more attention to the speaking area, which leads to solve one of the biggest problems of present Korean English education system that Koreans’ English speaking is not fluent. When testing, it is essential for native and local teachers to discuss the content of test.


All in all, even though we have native English teachers in public school settings, the instruction from them is not effective and practical. Proper team-up teaching between native and local teachers can offer better instruction. The ways to achieve appropriate team-up teaching are providing separate classes conducted by native and local teachers, having meeting to speak together about lesson plans, and adding speaking skill into the assessment system. Still, students in some areas can’t benefit by native speakers in public schools. These days, new English education in Korea is a big issue. In addition to TEE (Teaching English in English), I hope cooperative teaching of native and local teachers will be considered.

The idea of letting a Korean English teacher and a native English teacher teach seperately sounds revolutionary to me. In the sense of giving a while responsibility of the class to each one, it is a very good idea.
But I am cocenred that most of native English teachers are lack of teaching experiences and are not fully motivated to teach students in a passionate way. If we can get good native teachers, your first way can work wonderfully, I think.