Are Filipino Women in Korea Qualified English Teachers?

As the demand of English education is increasing, the demand for Native English speaking teachers (NEST) is rising, especially in Asian countries. However, due to the low number of NEST, the Korean government is suggesting that Filipino Women be used as English teachers as an alternative. This study aims to answer three questions: (1) are Filipino women in Korea qualified to teach English based on the error analysis of their written essays? (2) what are the linguistic features found in their diagnostic essays? and (3) is their written English better than Korean college students' written English based on the comparison of the two groups? The findings from the Filipino participants show the most frequently occurring errors are related to punctuation usage (commas and hyphens), vocabulary (word choice), verb usage, redundancy, and even as basic as capitalization usage. The results from the comparison of the two groups show that the percentage of the Filipino participants' written error was 14% while the percentage of the Korean participants was 17%. The findings would give us some ideas on the qualification of Filipino women in Korea as English teachers.