English Teaching: The Future Looks Bright

[성김 대사]

Even though I was never the best student in my class, I have always believed in education.  The American author Ralph Ellison once said, “Education is all a matter of building bridges,” and this is especially true for increasing our people-to-people ties. 

Welcome to the U.S. Embassy, future English teachers of Korea!

Last week, I had a chance to meet twenty future Korean education bridge-builders.  They are undergraduate third-year students from Korea’s National Universities of Education throughout the peninsula who are studying to become English teachers for Korea’s primary schools.  These undergraduates were participating in our Embassy’s first ever “Building Future Leaders in English Teaching” program, hosted by our Regional English Language Office (RELO).

To give you a brief introduction, RELO is a new office here in the U.S. Embassy and its role is to offer assistance and support to English education professionals in Korea, plus Taiwan and Japan.  The Korea RELO office is led by George Scholz, who has been in this industry for 35 years.

The “Building Future Leaders in English Teaching” program took place in the Embassy’s American Center Korea and lasted for three days.  During the program, these future teachers practiced “how to” techniques for teaching English to young learners in the classroom.  The participants learned through individual reviews of print and digital material, peer sharing, small-group discussions and class presentations.  

Students give a class presentation to their peers.

I very much enjoyed my exchange with these bright future teachers.  One participant from Gongju National University of Education asked what advice I would give to 20-year-olds.  Now this may make me sound old and old-fashioned, but my answer was very simple: value education, friends and family.  A student from Daegu National University of Education asked how a person can become truly bilingual.  I answered that there is no substitute for practice.  While growing up in Los Angeles, I tried to practice Korean at home and at Korean restaurants but I now wish I had tried harder.  I am confident that these future teachers will be able to inspire their students to practice and strive to be perfectly bilingual.   

A well-deserved wrap-up dinner at RELO Scholz’s residence

Through the RELO, the Embassy not only hosts this program but many other English language programs such as e-Teacher online scholarships, English Language Fellows, English Teaching Assistants and many, many more.  You can learn all about these and other English outreach programs at http://seoul.usembassy.gov/relo.html or you can e-mail the RELO at: americanenglishseoul@state.gov.