South Korean Students in U.S. for Teaching Experience

GongJu National University in Seoul, South Korea, recently signed an agreement to collaborate in the delivery of education programs to teachers and prospective teachers in Korea with Utah State University’s Emma Eccles Jones College of Education Human Services.

 

GongJu National University president Woo-Soo Jeon, GongJu, director of Teacher Education Yang-Hwan Sol, and Kwon Oh-Sung, dean of planning affairs at GongJu, visited USU and spoke at the signing ceremony. USU Provost Raymond T. Coward and Mike Freeman, associate dean of the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services, signed the agreement from USU.

 

Students from GongJu come to the United States for various reasons, according to Edwin Jenson, director of concurrent enrollment at USU. Undergraduate students come for the semester-long practicum experience in local schools, and potential graduate students come because a U.S. teacher licensure allows them to be more competitive for education positions in international schools as well as in Korea. He expects that other practicing teachers will come for a sabbatical experience.

 

“Their experience in the U.S. schools will be a valuable entry in their applications for employment as teachers in Korea as well as other countries, and also their English ability will be highly prized,” Jenson said. “Their experience here in U.S. schools will be very valuable in their applications for employment.”

 

The first cohort worked as teachers at Ogden City School District in fall 2009. The second cohort is expected to arrive mid-February and to work in Logan City School District.

 

The competition for employment as an educator is keen in Korea, Jenson said. Placement rates for graduates are approximately 10 percent. Korean students who major in teacher education are in the top 10-15 percent of their university classmates. They are highly skilled in critical skills —math, science and computers, which are the high-demand subjects in the United States also.

 

Jenson said that teachers and principals from Ogden City School District told him the Korean students serve as role models for local students who also are English second language learners. He said everyone was awed both at how well the South Korean students learned the language, but, more important at how well they taught.

 

“The schools wanted to hire them based on how very well the students performed as teachers,” he said. “They were excellent at every level.”

 

Korean students lived with host families while they were in the U.S. so they could learn how Americans live first-hand, Jenson said. On the other hand, the host families also expressed appreciation for the cultural exchanges and developed the friendships with them.

 

“I was completely pleased with my host family,” said Su Jung Lee, one of the Korean students in this program. “My friends and I always said we met angels. They really wanted to show the real American cultures to me and I learned a lot.”