English Toss On Planet Andong

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Easily Franklin's most politically incorrect novel, English Toss is a blackly comic attack on South Korea's private English academies – a vast, unwieldy, profit-driven system that relies upon the mass importation of unqualified, untrained, unsupervised expats who are occasionally sent into the classroom with a stick in their hand. ‘Of course, there are lots of dedicated qualified teachers in Korea but the point of the book is to show that patently unsuitable expats can easily get a job,' he said. ‘None of my characters should be allowed contact with children yet they've been welcomed with open arms. I always conceived the story as a warning – I wouldn't bat an eyelid if I heard about an expat punching out a kid in the classroom. I don't actually have a problem with anyone who is lured to Korea by the free return air tickets and free rent; I'm more concerned by the Koreans who give dodgy expats the opportunity to use the country as a bolt hole. Why should these kids be taught by people who wouldn't be able to get the same job back home because their own country demands standards? Teaching ESL is a skilled profession but far too many of these academies make a mockery of it. Writing a pro-child novel was very difficult but the reward was creating Billy Singleton, an erudite pipe-smoking monster who is my favourite character.'

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