Are EPIK finally bucking up their ideas?
It seems EPIK have decided to raise the bar and hire teachers slightly more appropriately qualified to teach English in Korea. Previously the minimum qualification was a degree which would qualify you as a level one teacher.
The recruitment team we went through, ESL Starter, recently wrote on their facebook page:
This is an important update regarding EPIK hiring policy for the upcoming semester.
We received the new recruitment guidelines today and one of the major changes is that all applicants for Spring semester must be Level 2 or above by January 20th, 2011.
To be a Level 2 candidate, applicants need one of the following qualifications:
– Teacher’s license
– TEFL / TESOL or CELTA certificate (100+ hours)
– Bachelor’s degree in Education, English* or Linguistics
– Master’s degree in any discipline
– 1 year full time teaching experience with Bachelor’s degree in any discipline
Clearly this is a positive move for Korean public schools. I’m often surprised by the low level of English shown by some EPIK teachers on Facebook and in the occasional email. In fact, many teachers couldn’t tell you the difference between a noun and a verb.
Granted you don’t need a strong grasp of grammar in the classroom but as an English teacher you should have some idea of basic grammatical terms. Spelling also seems to be a major challenge for a handful of EPIK teachers I know.
I’d be interested in knowing the reasons for this change. I imagine it has something to do with the shrinking budget available for hiring native English teachers evidenced in other programs such as GEPIK. If this were the case there would be less teaching positions available in public schools. With the growing economic problems in the West there may also be an increasing number of people applying for these positions. Obviously these conditions would allow EPIK to be significantly choosier than in previous years.
The problem with this change is that 100 hour Mickey-Mouse ESL courses are a dime-a-dozen on the Internet. I’m sure there are a few fraudulent companies out there who’d give you a certificate without you actually putting any work in.
At least by adding this extra hurdle it might actually help to separate the wheat from the chaff. If people are put off by a 100 hour ESL course then they’re probably not ideal candidates to be English teachers.
Despite the obvious workarounds, this seems like a positive move to me. EPIK are still a long way from the higher standards set by its Japanese equivalent, JET, but at least they are going in the right direction.
Now if they could only start applying stricter guidelines on who actually qualifies to be a good co-teacher/handler…
