26 Language Teaching
The Guest English Teachers’ Program
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
February 2022
TEACHING & LEARNING
Inter view with Program Manager Jonathan Moffett
N
ative English-speaking teachers in Korea are not something new. They made an early splash in Korea when the government invited the U.S. Peace Corps to supply them to public schools and universities (1966–1980). After outside assistance was no longer necessary, Korea developed its own program of placing expat English teachers in its public schools – commonly referred to as “EPIK” (English Program in Korea). Now we hear of “Gwangju Guest English Teachers,” and to understand the program better, we have interviewed the program manager, Jonathan Moffett. Interviewer: Thank you for making time for this interview, Jonathan. In this interview, I would like to delve into the Gwangju Guest English Teachers’ (GET) Program and your relation to it. But first of all, could you tell us a little about your life before coming to Korea? Jonathan: No problem at all. Well, I came to Korea basically immediately after I graduated from university in the United States, my home country. I originally studied psychology, and after a year abroad, teaching here and traveling, I was planning on going to graduate ▲ Jonathan Moffett school in psychology in the US, but I ended up changing directions completely and decided to pursue a career in education as a result of the positive experiences I had had with education in Korea. I am originally from a small town in the United States named after a specific breed of cattle: Hereford. Interviewer: So, what motivated you to come to Korea rather than to the many other destinations there are for
2022�02��.indd 26
teaching and travel? Did you originally come in the EPIK program? Jonathan: Well, I will answer the second part of the question first. I did indeed originally come through EPIK – I applied directly. What motivated me to do so, and how I knew about the EPIK program itself, was a little more fortuitous. In a nutshell, I found out that I needed to take two full semesters of a foreign language as a requirement to graduate my university. I had assumed my three years of Spanish and one year of Latin from high school were enough to fulfill the requirement, but apparently there were some recent policy changes. I did not find out about the change in graduation requirements until the only possible language classes remaining open for registration were Korean 101 and Intermediate German. Speaking no German, I went with Korean. Through this course, I ended up meeting a lot of Korean exchange students and became close to quite a few. My Korean professor, Dr. Grace Howard, was also super great, and I had an awesome relationship with her. Dr. Grace was very supportive and ultimately let me know about the opportunity to apply to EPIK, and more or less strongly nudged me to do so. Without her help, I never would have ended up here. Interviewer: So, you originally did come through the EPIK program. I am somewhat confused with the terminology related to your program. There is “Gwangju EPIK,” but I also see “GET Program” and “GICCE.” How do they differ, or do they differ? Jonathan: This is quite a confusing point for virtually everyone. To put it simply, EPIK (English Program in Korea) essentially now functions almost exclusively as a recruiter for Korea’s National Institute of International Education (NIIED), the real “power” behind the scenes. NIIED is responsible for accepting or denying applicants that EPIK delivers to them. EPIK used to be more expansive and responsible for more back in the day, but its role has been gradually decreased to it now basically
2022-01-24 �� 1:25:25
