Dave Shaffer: Four Decades in Gwangju
Dr. David Shaffer provides answers and insight about teaching English in the Gwangju News monthly column “Letters to KOTESOL.” Beyond the small blurb of information below his picture most of us don’t know about “Dr. Dave” and his long history teaching and living in Gwangju.
Dr. Shaffer grew up in west Pennsylvania, U.S.A. and arrived in Gwangju in 1971. He’s been here ever since, and began his teaching career at Chosun University in 1976 where he is currently a professor in the English Language Department at the College of Foreign Languages.
Besides teaching, he dedicates much of his time to giving about a dozen speeches every year at various English Language Teaching conferences in Korea and other locations in Asia. Among his tasks as President of the Gwangju-Jeonnam chapter of KOTESOL is arranging for guests to give speeches at their monthly and annual meetings.
Dr. Shaffer has studied Chinese character calligraphy and advanced to the highest proficiency level, a rare accomplishment. He has also published many books and research periodicals based on English and Korean language education.
Among other honors, he was awarded the Minister of Internal Affairs (ROK) Award in 1984 and received the Korean Times Contemporary Korean Culture Translation Award in Poetry in 1994.
Gwangju News: When did you come to Korea?
Dr. David Shaffer: I came here in 1971 with the Peace Corps. I came for a two-year service time and extended that for about four years total (the maximum Peace Corps service time was five years). I was in Gwangju for my Peace Corps service. After that, I came to Chosun University. That’s where my career in teaching English began.
“. . . People used newspapers as toilet paper.
Sometimes they were cut into squares
and placed on a nail for easy use.
At that time, the president was always pictured
on the cover of the newspaper,
but you would never find
the cover page in an outhouse . . .”
–
GN: What did you do while serving with the Peace Corps?
Dr. Shaffer: It’s a governmental agency for [U.S.] citizens to volunteer in service to other countries. At that time in Korea, the main programs were in college and middle school English and rural health programs. Our program was the first of its kind: a small program on vocational education.
The U.N. started some vocational education centers around Korea, and I was placed in Gwangju. My students were mostly middle schoolers whose families did not have the means to send them to a university. There were a lot of people at that time; only elementary school was required.
GN: At that time in Korea, people were not speaking any English. Was it really difficult for you to communicate?
Dr. Shaffer: Yes it was. We had Peace Corps training in-country, which was about three months long. There were a lot of Korean language classes and cross-cultural training. For example, we learned how to open a bank account and use the local language to do things like that.
GN: So it was after your work with the Peace Corps that you decided to teach English. What inspired you and led to that decision?
Dr. Shaffer: The people in the Peace Corps did not like how the university English teachers “had it easy”. The teachers were the ones who were making decent money and did not have to learn the language as we did. It wasn’t until after I got out that I considered being a teacher at the university. I stayed in Korea for one more year, but as an English teacher. After that, I decided to stay for more.
“. . .The citizens were patrolling
the neighborhoods in buses.
They were knocking on the sides of the bus
with their bats and clubs.
They had also commandeered these
little personnel carriers
that looked a little bit like small tanks.
Everyone was angry. . .”
–
GN: Tell us about your Korean name.
Dr. Shaffer: My Korean name is Shin Dong-il. I got it from a name maker who was also a fortune teller. It was part of our training when we first arrived. They brought her in from where she was doing her business at the marketplace along the river somewhere, and she did both for me. She created my name and told me my fortune. I presume that she chose “Shin” because it’s a Korean name that sounds closest to my family name “Shaffer”. “Dong” matched the ‘d’ sound from my name “David”. She counted the strokes and included one of the five elements (the character for “wood” is contained in it) that go into a “lucky” name. Also, “Dong-il” means “east-first”. It fits because I came from the east and I’m the oldest son in my family. It all worked out. I’ve been to other fortune tellers who told me it’s a really good name.
GN: You use that name regularly?
Dr. Shaffer: Yes, in fact all the records from the university are in the name Shin Dong-il. If I want something to have the name David Shaffer on it, I have to ask for that to be added. My official name at the university is my Korean name.
GN: You’ve been in Gwangju for about 40 years. I’m sure you’ve seen many changes over the years. What was Gwangju like back then?
Dr. Shaffer: When I first came to Gwangju, almost all the cars on the streets were either taxis or the black chauffeured cars of businessmen. The average person did not have a car. You saw a lot more bicycles on the streets and lots of old buses. You also saw oxen pulling carts on the streets, many of which were making deliveries of packages.
There were very few buildings over five stories high because anything over that would require an elevator. Nobody wanted to go through the expense of installing an elevator, so only a few buildings (like the tourist hotel) were higher. There were open ditches on the sides of the streets for sewage. Most homes did not have plumbing; there were outhouses outside the homes.
People used newspapers as toilet paper. Sometimes they were cut into squares and placed on a nail for easy use. At that time, the president was always pictured on the cover of the newspaper, but you would never find the cover page in an outhouse. Out of fear, people did not want to get caught in an outhouse desecrating a picture of the president.
You didn’t have these huge apartment complexes like you do today. People lived in small homes and some had new houses which were two stories. The family would almost always live on the first floor and rent out the second floor. There was an entrance on the outside to the second floor and usually that was the only way up there.
Talking more about roads, the expressways were underway coming from Seoul to Gwangju. There were four lanes from Seoul all the way down to Daejeon. From Daejeon down to Jeonju, there were two lanes paved. From Jeonju down to Gwangju, it was just an unpaved dirt road.
Those actually were the only paved roads at that time, that leg and the main road that went from Seoul to Busan. It wasn’t until years later that Gwangju had a paved road leading up to Seoul. So, you got used to riding on bumpy roads. The “trot” music they used to play and the bumping up and down on the ride went well together!
GN: Do you have any specific memories of the May 18 revolts that occurred in 1980?
Dr. Shaffer: I was living in Sansu-dong at the time (near Chosun). That was an active area at the time. The citizens were patrolling the neighborhoods in buses. They were knocking on the sides of the bus with their bats and clubs. They had also commandeered these little personnel carriers that looked a little bit like small tanks.
Everyone was angry, and the young men were worried that they might be drafted by the citizen armies to fight. The women were also scared. So many people were in hiding at the time. One of my wife’s friends stayed with us because she lived alone and was too frightened to stay there at home.
GN: What was the fallout like after that tragic event?
Dr. Shaffer: Things were under military control in the area. It was the clean-up time. There were no more demonstrations and things like that afterwards. It was very calm after that. There was stricter government control.
This happened before Chun Doo-hwan became president. He ran a pretty tight ship as president, just as Park Chung-hee had before.
GN: Let’s talk about what you do in your free time here in Gwangju. Do you have any hobbies of interest?
Dr. Shaffer: I don’t do too much outside of my office. I’m even there on weekends. I mainly keep myself busy with work. I do have a few sedentary things I do as hobbies, such as collecting. I have a large collection of Korean stamps, coins and telephone cards.
[Dr. Shaffer stands up, searches his office, and digs up and presents some impressive albums full of various calling cards from the past thirty years.]
GN: Any favorite foods?
Dr. Shaffer: Hmm, I’ll eat almost anything, but my favorite food is pizza! As for Korean food, my favorite is really duinjun guk. It’s made with bean paste. It’s nothing particularly fancy but I really like it, especially when it’s made with potatoes.
“. . . be prepared for the unexpected. Have an open mind for experiencing new ways of doing things.
You should learn about the culture of the country
you will be living and working in.
Things will go well with that attitude
and you’ll adapt easily.”
–
GN: Tell us about your involvement with KOTESOL.
Dr. Shaffer: I got involved when it began. A fellow professor at Honam University heard about it and contacted me about starting a chapter in Gwangju and joining. I wasn’t very active the first few years but later I began getting involved with publications. I became an officer and have been doing that for the past 10 years. I think it’s very worthwhile. Through Korea TESOL, I’ve improved my English teaching and improved in many other ways.
GN: This is a group of English teachers in Korea sharing their ideas and techniques?
Dr. Shaffer: Korea TESOL is about 70 percent non-Korean, native English speakers. There are many other organizations such as ours, but we have chapters (which the other organizations do not). Just about every province has a KOTESOL chapter. We have monthly meetings with invited speakers, which is something like what the GIC does with their weekly talks. Our members are seeking practical education and information.
GN: You’ve been teaching English for a long time in Gwangju. How has the field changed from then to what it is today?
Dr. Shaffer: It’s gotten more professional and it’s gotten older. I guess the two go together. When I first arrived, most people came for one or two years just to save up some money and continue on with their travels. Most did not see teaching English as a career.
For teacher training, there were not so many courses offered then. There were no online courses as there are today.
Students and teachers did not have many teaching materials. When I first started, I went to the bookstore to get a textbook. Laddo’s English and Spoken American English were the only two books available. They taught the audio-lingual method: listen and repeat, again and again.
Tape recorders were expensive and those students who could afford one did not have many options. There were very few tapes for learning English. The tapes were also really expensive, sold in big sets.
The hagwons were not like they are today. There were no native English speakers working in hagwons. Seventh Day Adventists were the only ones with native speaking teachers. These schools were so popular that people would wait in line (every month) at five o’clock in the morning just to be able to register for the new courses. This was in the late 1970s.
In the late 1980s, the universities expanded. Afterwards, college education was much more universal. Before then, college education was a luxury that only a quarter of the population could take advantage of. Now it’s 90 percent or so.
GN: How does the future look for teaching ESL in Korea?
Dr. Shaffer: It’s hard to predict the future, but I would say “good”. Since I’ve been here at Chosun, the level of English of the students coming in has been steadily improving. The teachers we have in our schools, on average, are more skilled because they have better training, materials and education options available. The government provides much better training for English teachers than before.
This year, the EPIK programs will be scaled back. I don’t agree with the rate at which they are doing it, but I do agree that it’s a step in the right direction to have more qualified Koreans teaching English in the classroom instead. With their ability to know and use Korean in the classroom makes them much better teachers.
GN: But many Korean English teachers don’t speak fluently…
Dr. Shaffer: How necessary is it for a Korean speaker of English to sound like me? Americans don’t speak like Australians and so forth. We are all listening to English with a foreign accent. In the future, more so, the English speaker will be doing most of their speaking with non-native speakers. We just have to get used to foreign accents.
GN: If you were meeting a prospective English teacher with no previous experience, what would you say to them?
Dr. Shaffer: Get a 100-hour certificate from a reputable place before you start teaching EFL. There are a number of good sources where you could get training online. You could do it face to face as well.
Next, be prepared for the unexpected. Have an open mind for experiencing new ways of doing things. You should learn about the culture of the country you will be living and working in. Things will go well with that attitude and you’ll adapt easily.
GN: Speaking of culture, how important is it for someone to learn the Korean language while teaching here?
Dr. Shaffer: I think everyone should. Here are two reasons why:
First, if you know more than just a few words in Korean and are somewhat proficient, you’re going to understand what your students are experiencing in the classroom in regards to learning English. You will understand their mistakes and improve your ability to teach them.
Second, the better you are at the language, the more you are respected as a person. Maybe it shouldn’t be that way, but it is.
We tend to do the same thing with our students. We may think if the student speaks English well then they are very smart and studious. If the student does not, then we may think the opposite is true.
Unfortunately, language proficiency plays a big part in how we categorize people (first language and second).
GN: How can people get involved with KOTESOL?
Dr. Shaffer: People can visit the KOTESOL website for information. The best way is to attend a meeting. We have meetings every second Saturday of the month. They’re open to everyone.
You should come to the international conference coming up this October. I’ve been heavily involved with the past eleven conferences and I think ours is the best and definitely the largest. This year we have eleven invited speakers, all great people in our field.
An earlier version of this article appeared
in the September 2011 print version of Gwangju News.