IESC : WHY IESC

Dr. Kim himself was an English teacher in Korea before he went to the U.S. to pursue graduate studies in 1959. While visiting Korea in 1994, he toured English classes in many high schools, and found the teaching materials and methods not far different from those employed in the 1950's: the medium of instructions was Korean, not English, and teaching relied on one or two textbooks throughout the academic year. The curriculum consisted of 20 or so units with similar formats, which would not likely arouse the interest of students. As a matter of fact, it was reported that Korean students ranked 131st out of 171 countries on the basis of TOFEL tests conducted between 1992 through 1994.

Dr. Kim proposed to the Korean government a radically different approach of teaching English. Specifically, he proposed placing native speakers of English in the classroom. IESC would recruit and train them in the U.S. and supervise them where they were placed in Korea. Kyongnam Province and the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education accepted this proposal. IESC then recruited the first Teachers Service Corps members, who were native English teachers and mostly second generation Korean-Americans. IESC wanted to give these Korean-Americans the opportunity to experience teaching, while also learning Korean culture and language during their tour of duty.