hankyoreh

or privately run educational institutes.

An English teacher at a language institute in Seoul has been indicted on allegations that lectures she delivered to her students were stolen from a neighboring institute.

According to the charges, the 32 year-old teacher concealed her identity as a worker at a rival institute and attended special English "pronunciation training" classes designed for non-native speakers at the competing institute for a period of three months. She then relayed what she had learned "one hundred percent" to a class she taught elsewhere, according to charges filed by Lee and Heo, both 36 and teachers of the class that was allegedly plundered. The plaintiffs’ full names were not released to the press.

Lee and Heo accuse the teacher of copyright infringement and theft of business secrets. As evidence, they allege that every level of their class and those taught by the defendant are identical in terms of phoneme analysis and studies of the differences between Korean and English. They also allege that material handed out in their class and notes taken by students in the teacher’s own class employ the exact same pronunciation examples. They also say that when they showed 15 of their institute’s students transcripts of recordings of the accused teacher’s class, all of the students agreed the key points being taught were exactly the same.

The two teachers began teaching their "pronunciation training," class in 2003 and say their approach to teaching English was virtually without precedent in Korea. The recent introduction of speaking sections on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) has created a previously nonexistent need to study English pronunciation for many Koreans, they said. Lee and Heo said the class they developed is quite popular, with as many as 500 students a month in attendance.

The teacher accused of "pirating" teaching methods told the Hankyoreh in a telephone conversation on December 22 that she had attended the class taught by Lee and Heo but "never deliberately hid" her identity. She also said that "the content of our lectures is different." She says she has been teaching seven of what she says are original, ongoing lectures since September.

An official at her language institute said he "doesn’t get" how "attending someone else’s lectures for your own personal development infringes upon copyright laws or business secrets."

Language-learning industry officials say it is all too common for teachers to use more popular lectures "for reference," while pretending to be nothing more than students themselves.

One English teacher with four years of experience contacted by the Hankyoreh said that before teaching a TOEFL preparation class he had taken several lectures for non-native English learners over a month-long period in order to "learn how to run a class and attract students." Another teacher, with eight years of experience, said that ahead of changing his teaching style three years ago he attended a "famous" English teacher’s class for close to six months.

No one seems to remember when a case like this has ended up in court. An official with the Korea Association of Hakwon (or hagwon, the Korean name for such extracurricular institutes), said he had not heard of anyone facing criminal charges for "stealing" a lecture’s contents. But it was "only natural that it led to a legal dispute if one institute copies an original lecture from another," he said.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]