Famous English Teacher a Fraud
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Lee Ji-young, vibrant radio presenter who attracted an audience of
tens of thousands to learn English with pop songs, was revealed to
have faked her diplomas.
Lee had said she went to Britain and graduated from University of
Brighton, earning a master's degree from the same school in
1996.
In fact she graduated from elementary, middle and high school in
Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, but after failing a university
entrance exam, went to Britain to take an English language course
for a year in Hove, a small coastal town, and then a local
educational institution for another year in Brighton.
After returning to Korea, she labeled herself as the holder of a
British university's master's degree and found work at Yonsei
University foreign language institute and Lee Ik-hoon Language
Institute before landing a job as a radio presenter in 2000.
Lee has worked for the state-run radio KBS English educational
program ``Good Morning Pops'' for seven years. The program that
encourages learning useful English expressions through pop song
lyrics, was one of the most popular on radio and Lee was awarded
Best Radio Master of Ceremonies in 2004.
She is said to have talent for her work, and her classes at English
institutes were always full of students. Her articles on the
program's message board always had more than 20,000 viewers'
hits.
She has written two English textbooks where she introduced herself
as a graduate of the University of Brighton.
Lee said that her family was in debt and when one of her
acquaintances who thought she had a degree offered her a job, she
couldn't tell the truth and accepted it, that kept on till this
day.
