GFET: More Than Gwangju Filipinos Teaching English
Written and photographed by Sun-young Yoon (Sherryl Sambo).
Gwangju is home to diverse foreign residents of different nationalities, professions, and backgrounds. This includes a significant number of Filipinos who have come here as either marriage migrants, workers, professionals, or students. Since the Philippines uses English as a second language, marriage migrants land opportunities to teach English in various institutions like English academies, schools, social welfare centers, and children centers.
In connection with this, a small group of Filipino marriage migrants created a group of Filipino English teachers that aims to provide a place where fellow Filipinos teaching English in the city can gather and share teaching strategies that can help them become better educators. The group is called Gwangju Filipino English Teachers (GFET), and it conducts monthly meetings every third Tuesday from 10 a.m. to noon at the Gwangju International Center (GIC). GFET invites presenters every month who can impart information on any topic related to teaching that could help the attendees improve their teaching. GFET also participates regularly in various Gwangju foreigner’s community activities such as GIC Day, Gwangju Filipino Catholic community events, and volunteer programs like culture classes that promote the culture of the Philippines and English classes for multicultural children.
As the group is about to celebrate its fifth anniversary in July 2020, GFET has decided to widen its scope of activities and programs. Aside from the regular monthly meetings for teachers and yearly GFET Hanguel Day Korean Song Festival events, GFET introduced the “GFET’s Livelihood Program” this year, which is not exclusive to Filipino English teachers but is also for Filipino workers, students, and people of other nationalities. GFET’s previous livelihood programs featured Korean cooking classes, barista training, and rice wine-making programs. In addition, at the request of Filipino workers, GFET will also launch its own Korean language program, which will be taught in Tagalog so that attendees can understand the lectures more effectively, thereby helping them interact and communicate better in their workplace. Furthermore, this language program will help them prepare for the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) in an attempt to change their visas from an E9 to an E7. This program will begin in January and will benefit 20 Filipino workers.
Recently, GFET has also become a bridge to initiate the Night Market program for foreigners at Daein Market every third and fourth Saturday of the month, where international food and crafts booths run by people from different countries will offer traditional food and other goods representative of their cultures. This project not only creates an environment where Koreans and foreigners can get together but can also help marriage migrants, foreign workers, and foreign students earn extra money and obtain their spot in Korean society.
This year, GFET aims to create more programs that will benefit not just the Filipino community but the foreign community as a whole. In line with this plan, we encourage all the existing foreign communities in Gwangju to join hands in making Gwangju a friendly place for expats to live in.
The Author
Sun-young Yoon (Sherryl Sambo) has been living in Korea for 12 years. In addition to being the president of GFET, she is currently working as a full-time English teacher at Reading Star Academy’s Suwan branch. She also works as the English conversation class instructor (advanced level) at the GIC and participates as a translator for the GIC’s Multicultural Community Translation Program. At present, she is earning a PhD in English Language Education at Chonnam National University, serving as a volunteer for the Gwangju Filipino Catholic Community, and working as a coordinator for the Night Market program at Daein Market.