Growing dispute over foreign English instructor qualifications

The 2005 English Spectrum Incident

Part 1: English Spectrum and 'Ask The Playboy'
Part 2: The Kimchiland where it’s easy to sleep with women and make money
Part 3: English Spectrum shuts down as Anti-English Spectrum is created
Part 4: How to hunt foreign women
Part 5: Did the foreigners who denigrated Korean women throw a secret party?
Part 6: The 'Ask The Playboy' sexy costume party
Part 7: Stir over ‘lewd party’ involving foreigners and Korean women
Part 8: The 2003 post that tarred foreign English teachers as child molesters
Part 9: Netizens shocked by foreign instructor site introducing how to harass Korean children        
Part 10: 'Recruit a Yankee strike force!'  
Part 11: The Daum signature campaign: 'Let's kick out low quality foreign instructors!'
Part 12: Movement to expel foreign teachers who denigrated Korean women
Part 13: "Middle school girls will do anything"
Part 14: Netizens propose 'Yankee counter strike force'
Part 15: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 1
Part 16: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 2
Part 17: Web messages draw Koreans’ wrath
Part 18: Thai female laborers and white English instructors
Part 19: KBS Morning Newstime: 'I can also suffer from the two faces of the internet'
Part 20: AES: Grandfather Dangun is wailing in his grave! 
Part 21: 'Regret' over the scandal caused by confessions of foreign instructors
Part 22: "Korean men have no excuse"
Part 23: "Unfit foreign instructors should be a 'social issue'"
Part 24: Growing dispute over foreign English instructor qualifications
Part 25: 'Clamor'at foreigner English education site
Part 26: Foreign instructor: "I want to apologize"
Part 27: No putting brakes on 'Internet human rights violations'
Part 28: "They branded us as whores, yanggongju and pimps," part 1
Part 29: "They branded us as whores, yanggongju and pimps," part 2
Part 30: Don't Imagine
Part 31: AES founder's statement
Part 32: 'Foreign instructor' takes third place 
Part 33: Art From Outsider's Point of View
Part 34: U.S. Embassy warns Americans of threats near colleges
Part 35: Internet real name system debated
Part 36: Dirty Korean women who have brought shame to the country?
Part 37: Invasion of Privacy Degrades Korean Women Twice Over
Part 38: 60 unqualified native speaking instructors hired for English instruction
Part 39: The rising tide of unqualified foreign instructors
Part 40: Warrant for Canadian English instructor who molested hagwon owner 
Part 41: MBC Sisa Magazine 2580: "Korea is a paradise" 
Part 42: Foreign instructor: "In two years I slept with 20 Korean women."
Part 43: Viewers shocked by shameless acts of unqualified foreign instructors.
Part 44: Warrant for the arrest of a man in his 30s for breaking into home of foreign instructors
Part 45: Unqualified English instructors seen as major problem here

Part 24: Growing dispute over foreign English instructor qualifications

On January 17, the leftist website Voice of the People published an article about the English Spectrum incident.

Growing dispute over foreign English instructor qualifications
Foreign instructor related policy problems exposed... commercial media reports also a problem

The government's sadaejuui-like English policy has finally led to an incident. Amid thinking that English (is needed to) survive, which is prevalent throughout society, foreign English instructors who haven't even had their qualifications confirmed have penetrated hagwons and universities which has finally caused a problem.

On the 11th, netizens angered by remarks denigrating Korean middle school girl[s] leaked photos posted at 'English Spectrum (a foreign English instructor job site)' of an immoral party at a club in Hongdae.

As the qualification problem of foreign English instructors and problems with Korean English education rise to the surface due to this, we are now facing the second round of the problem.

'The nature of the problem is clouded by the yellow journalism of some media to arouse interest' 

Getting away from the fundamental problem, some attention-getting media reports, the party photos used by netizens and the comments by women in the photos that they'll bring lawsuits has heated up netizen public opinion.

On the 12th, netizens formed the netizen group 'Anti-English Spectrum.'  It hosts a movement to solve the the problems at the heart of this incident, which it judges to be the problems of government education policy and foreign English instructor qualifications and the corruption of entertainment culture in unversity areas.

△ 'Anti English Spectrum' netizen group

However, some media wrote articles with sensational titles such as 'middle school girls will do anything' or 'Yankee counter strike force.'  As well, a daily newspaper clouded the nature of the problem by interviewing the club and the women. These and other such media reports were for nothing but to arouse interest.
As well, as the netizen group denounced the women at the party and brought into question their sense of personal sexual morality, opinion was divided between men and women. But netizens held discussions through chatting every night and started finding clues to solve the essence of the problem.

The Government's sadaejuui-like English policy is also a cause

Related to this problem, Korean Teachers and Educational Workers' Union (KTU) spokesperson Han Man-jung said, "Because there is great demand for English education and many go abroad to study, the government hasn't even grasped the number of foreign English instructors in Korea and hasn't even established policies which can check their qualifications," revealing the problem which stem from the government's foreign language policy.

As well, spokesperson Han said that through US educational capital and capitalist pressure, citizens' preference for English has risen and suggested as an alternative that "research on the actual conditions of foreign English instructors is urgently needed and, centered around improving the government's foreign language policy and confirming whether foreign English instructors have teaching qualifications and whether they have completed a teaching training course, a qualification inspection system should be established."

Citing the media's reports on the Lee Seung-yeon scandal, Citizen's Coalition for Democratic Media assistant administrator Jo Yeong-su criticized some of the yellow journalism in the media: "Media which should propose a method to solve the problem [instead] move away from the heart of the problem and to attract the attention of consumers doesn't confirm the truth and write sensationalist and attention grabbing articles."

Currently at the internet site Daum, a petition titled 'Let's expel low quality foreign instructors' has 9000 signatures and 'Anti English Spectrum' is holding an offline meeting in Hongdae and discussing measures to solve the problem.

△ 'Let's expel low quality foreign instructors' petition signature campaign

----------

Upon reading at the end of the article that "'Anti English Spectrum' is holding an offline meeting in Hongdae and discussing measures to solve the problem,' I kind of feel like I'm watching the end of Birth of a Nation, where the Ku Klux Klan rides in to save the good citizens from scary black people.

Let's get our Voice of the People checklist out:
Accusing the government of sadaejuui? Check.
Interview with the KTU? Check.
Interview with an organization with 'citizens' and 'democratic' in its name? Check.

Well, everything is in order, then.

Ignoring its incorrect assessment of how the incident started (netizens did not leak photos posted at 'English Spectrum" because of remarks "denigrating Korean middle school girls" discovered days later), the Voice of the People reporter states that "the netizen group 'Anti-English Spectrum'... hosts a movement to solve the the problems at the heart of this incident, which it judges to be the problems of government education policy and foreign English instructor qualifications and the corruption of entertainment culture in unversity areas," and you get the idea that the reporter agrees with this, especially when he waves away the "denounc[ing of] the women at the party" and the "question[ing of] their sense of personal sexual morality" to emphasize that netizens were holding "discussions through chatting every night and ... finding clues to solve the essence of the problem." One imagines the reporter either did not read or ignored this AES post which stated that the "essence of the problem" was the "low aspects of foreign instructors."

On top of this, it asserts that the newspapers which tried to publicize the points of view of the victimized women and the club owner were in fact "cloud[ing] the nature of the problem" and "were for nothing but to arouse interest." One wonders why the reporter thought those women's voices weren't important.

The "qualification inspection system" which the KTU spokesperson justifiably called for may have been eventually instituted to confirm whether foreign English instructors had degrees, but it also included drug and HIV tests to check foreign instructors' moral qualifications, which seem to have dealt with KTU complaints about the "structural problem" of foreign instructors' "free attitude towards sex" and "lack of a sense of responsibility" in 2006 (see here and here).

All in all, I'm not in the least surprised that Voice of the People cheered on Anti English Spectrum.