Foreign teachers packing their bags for S. Korea(52952)-英语教育-(169)-21英语网

本文作者： 21ST

韩国:经济危机催热英语外教市场

据韩国《中央日报》报道，经济危机背景下，赴韩国担任外语教师的以英语为母语的人数未减反增。对此，韩国教育界人士分析说，随着该国英语热的持续升温，对外教的需求也将进一步加大，不会因为经济危机的到来受过多影响。

THE total number of people living in South Korea on E-2 visas, issued to native English speaking teachers, amounted to 21,105 in March — up more than 2,000 from a year ago, according to data released by the South Korean Ministry of Justice, the JoongAng Daily has reported.

South Korean official analysis shows that, as the global financial crisis deepens, more English teachers are arriving in South Korea or choosing to extend their stay in the country to escape the gloomy job market in their home countries. While there are no independent data on how many native English speakers renewed their contracts, interviews with recruiting agencies for teachers of English as a second language and teachers themselves revealed an upward trend.

Footprints Recruiting, a teachers placement agency based in Vancouver, Canada, said it placed 100 more teachers in South Korea from last September to February this year, compared with the same period a year before. “We have definitely noticed a surge in applications recently,” said Ben Glickman, head of Footprints. Gone2Korea, another Canada-based recruiting agency, said there were few open positions at the popular Sogang Language Program campus in Gyeonggi, because most of the teachers there had re-signed their contracts.

According to South Korean educators, the nation’s English language fever makes positions for foreign teachers relatively abundant, even in the face of an economic crisis. For foreigners hoping to return home and find jobs in education, there appear to be few prospects.