Ten Magazine Book Club invites KOTESOL members to their October meeting on Saturday, 25th October, featuring very special guest Matt VanVolkenburg, who writes the highly popular, acclaimed blog 'Gusts of Popular Feeling'.
This event will be FREE for all KOTESOL Members. (Flash your membership card, or print out your profile from the KOTESOL website - http://koreatesol.org/user)
From the first-recorded English lesson in 1816 to Lee Myung-bak's promises of a "native speaker in every school,” English has played many different roles in Korea's history: from its use in Korean attempts to preserve its sovereignty and Japanese efforts to present Korea as a 'failed state' at the turn of the last century to the radical expansion of the study of English as a foreign language over the past twenty years. This presentation will look at the experiences of those teaching the language, including missionaries, Peace Corps Volunteers, 'beeper cowboys' and even World War II prisoners of war. At the same time, while the Korean government has perceived mastery of English as necessary for Korea to compete in a globalized world, it has also shown distrust of the culture attached to the language, a wariness which stretches back to the days of the Joseon Dynasty, and manifestations of both the desire to learn the language and the distrust of the accompanying culture - and the teachers who embody it - will also be examined.
See more information on this presentation at http://www.facebook.com/events/377136165766896/
Date: Saturday 25th October.
Time: 4pm to 6pm.
Admission fee: 5,000won (Students 3,000won) – KOTESOL Members FREE!
Place: Haechi Hall in Seoul Global Cultural Center
(5th Floor M Plaza in Myeong-dong) (www.facebook.com/Seoulcenter3789)
Full directions are here: http://www.seoultourism.kr/2013/eng/center/center3.asp
(Call Barry on 010 5138 8859 if you get lost or can't find it, he will come meet you at exit 6 Myeong-dong station.)
