This afternoon, I finished reading Korean Teachers, a novel by the Korean writer Seo Su-Jin. I read the English version translated by Elizabeth Buehler, which I chanced upon while browsing in a local bookstore in Singapore. Since Korean literature had always interested me and yet I had read very few books by Korean authors so far, I decided to give this novel a try.
Korean Teachers turned out to be a very interesting read. The novel revolves around the professional and private lives of four different women who teach Korean in a language school in Seoul.
With the massive appeal of Korean pop culture, including K-pop, dramas, and films, as well as fashion and cosmetics, the Korean language has risen in popularity among language learners around the world. Even setting aside Korea’s soft power, the country’s technological prowess in numerous industries provides incentive for business people to learn Korean.
One might think that teaching Korean is a highly popular and sought-after profession, but Korean Teachers reveals that the reality is not always rosy and hopeful, not only for those working in the industry, but also for foreign students enrolled in language schools to study Korean.
One recurring theme in the novel is the lack of stability of a teaching position in a Korean language school. The four women constantly worry about the possibility that their teaching contracts might not be renewed, regardless of how experienced they are in teaching the language.
More often than not, their fate is influenced by their students’ evaluations at the end of each school term. Even if you are an effective teacher, if you are not well-liked by students, you risk being rated poorly. Also, it goes without saying that not every student is motivated to study or pleasant to deal with. Some students repeat a level multiple times and can even be disruptive in class.
Students have their own difficulties too. The novel mentions the instance where a group of Vietnamese students suddenly went missing and stopped attending class as they went underground to work illegally in factories. Their broker agency hired gangsters to find them and take them to the airport. This reflected badly on the school in the eyes of the immigration authorities, affecting their reputation and making them even more desperate to attract new students.
This is reminiscent of Japan in the late 80s and early 90s—right in the middle of its economic boom—when there was a massive influx of Mainland Chinese students and workers who sought substantially higher wages and a much better life than in their homeland.
Numerous Japanese language schools cropped up everywhere to accommodate them, and there were similar issues of some students being disruptive in class or skipping school altogether as their primary aim was to earn a living rather than study Japanese.
It’s not hard to imagine the working conditions of Japanese teachers back then, who were hired to cope with heavy workloads and students who were not necessarily motivated to study. Most language schools closed down as Japan’s economy went south in the subsequent years, and Japanese teachers were let go accordingly.
History might not always repeat, but it definitely rhymes. I feel that what’s described in Korean Teachers is a microcosm of the issues faced by language schools both in Korea and beyond. Running a language-teaching business is no picnic by any stretch of the imagination, even if the language being taught is in hot demand around the world.
Curiously, Korean Teachers was published in 2020, a couple of years before the launch of ChatGPT and other generative AI chatbots, which has substantially affected the business landscape for language learning. The situation facing language teachers has drastically changed. In order for them to survive, they need to leverage on skills that cannot be commoditized by AI.
As a language-learning enthusiast, I did a great deal of thinking while reading Korean Teachers. Regardless of advances in technology, I like to believe that language learning will never become obsolete as a human intellectual activity and those dedicated language teachers will continue to be relevant and command decent wages in the years ahead.
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