Korean Job Discussion Forums

[big_fella1]

If you have an MA and 2 years research or university teaching experience, you really shouldn't take a job at less than Assistant Professor and for less than w40 million a year.

You are qualified to be a professor under Korean law, you do not require a PhD and your university gets extra research grants and can count you as a professor for staff/student ratios.

Also the usual teaching hours are 9 not 20.

Stop taking jobs that offer 2 million a month for 20 hours a week as you are selling yourself and others short.

[Usurname]

If the teaching hours are 9 hours, how much are your working hours besides the teaching hours like preparing, grading, and office hours?

[Chaparrastique]

[PRagic]

Nobody with an MA and any university teaching experience SHOULD be taking jobs offering only 2 million a month. Nobody qualified should have been taking those jobs 10 years ago. In reality, though, people do take the jobs for whatever reasons.

I've been teaching at university, first as a visiting full time lecturer with a Master's (for 4 years in total), then as a tenure track professor with a Ph.D. (currently Associate Professor) for over 15 years. Aside from some exceptions (e.g. in fine arts, law, and business depending on the university and/or program), I have never heard of anyone, Korean or otherwise, being offered a tenure track Assistant Professor positioin with a four-year university in Korea. Aside from the exceptions mentioned, the only place I know where MA holders can get tenure track positions is with two-year colleges in N. America.

To the best of my knowledge, all ESL teaching postions in Korea are non-tenure track. Some people are accorded the title of 'Visiting Assistant Professor', but 'Visiting Full Time Lecturer' is more common, and even those with the former title are that in title alone unless they hold a Ph.D. Beat your head against the wall and rage against the machine all you will, but everyone in academe knows it so professing (pardon the pun) otherwise is a lesson in futility.

ESL teaching positions are not generally research oriented. Nice if you publish, and some places push that, but it's not usually mandatory and the bar for quality in ESL teaching related publications is set notoriously low. Just ask anyone in ESL teaching! Tenure track positions that include research and student guidance are usually in colleges of education, and the jobs entail teaching teachers how to teach English (or another language, including Korean). There are also positions in Linquistics.

So if you have your doctorate in AL or TESOL, you have a choice to make; you can stay in ESL teaching, and probably on contract as a Visiting Assistant Professor, a title you will have genuinely earned, or you can hope for a tenure track slot teaching content. THOSE jobs WILL entail research, student guidance and administrative duties. Contact hours range from 6-12 depending on the university, but the better jobs will run from 6-9. THESE jobs provide opportunities for grants and travel allotments to attend conferences.

Just chiming in. There seems to be a vast misconception that there is some sort of two-tiered system conspiracy being visited upon foreign teachers here. Coming from someone who has been inside the system for quite some time, I just don't see it.

[Thiuda]

In addendum to what PRagic posted.

MAs with a decade+ experience can also find find full-time positions as language center administrators. I've seen such positions advertised in the US, the EU, as well as Aus and NZ (though admittedly not in SoKo). Salaries range between US 35k p.a. to 90k p.a., come with benefits, no term limits, and a 40h work week (12 teaching hours). Positions in continental Europe are sometimes public servant positions with very high job security and attractive pension packets.

Korea is a country that offers lots of great entry level opportunities for young, relatively inexperienced language teachers. If you want to move out of the entry level you'll have to upgrade your credentials, gain international experience, become an expert in a related area (LMS Admin, Curriculum Design, Materials Design, Teacher Training, Staff Management, CALL/TALL...etc.) and develop a strong professional network.

There is a lot of moaning going on about how difficult it is to find a decent job at Korean universities. No one with any experience working at western universities would write a naive post like the OP did; competition for jobs is much greater at western Unis, with teachers being qualified to the nines and requirements that make an MA w/ 2 years exp. look downright laughable. For example, language teachers in Korea are hired to teach one language, whereas in Europe teachers are often hired to teach two or three languages. Unlike ESL professionals in Korea, teachers in Europe speak the language of their host culture. In Europe, too, you can be hired as Professor with an MA and a pulse, but this is highly unlikely to happen unless you can demonstrate that you are a leader in the field.

GL

[big_fella1]

Tenure in Korea is all but dead. As the government is pushing to close or merge half of the universities in Korea, universities have even started buying tenure back. Tenure in a Korean university is an odds on bet to be for the life of the university rather than the working life of the tenure holder.

Language positions can be research orientated (Computer Aided Language Learning, Intercultural Compentence, etc), however research is difficult to conduct with no access to databases, no funding for conferences (you can't exactly afford to pay for it yourself on 30 million a year), shared offices, extra teaching hours during the semester and holiday teaching as well.

Competition for jobs in universities really depends on the area. TESOL trainers are on the skills shortage list in Australia. Aussie universities tend to hire academics initially on a sessional basis, and they usually don't advertise Level A (non PhD) academic full-time positions. These are offered to sessional lecturers when it's cheaper to employ them full-time rather than sessionally.

Finally regarding language, possibly unfairly, English is the only language you really need in research and most university settings. People say it may be Chinese in the future however I'm of the view that the lack of central control on English which allows English to acquire words from other languages and change according to its use will maintain its place as the global language. Whether English in 100 years is recognisable to today's English speaker is another question entirely.

I wasn't discussing entry level roles as this post refers to MAs with 2 years experience although I assumed that people would know that it's 2 years of university teaching or research experience that is required for these roles.

[PRagic]

The research you're describing would most usually be done by doctorate holders in TT positions. These people have access to funding (internal and external) plus support for conference attendance. No university wants to be the sole source of funding for faculty. This is why ads for most full-time, TT positions emphasize the ability to bring in external funding.

You could say the same about tenure in other places outside of Korea, too. The University of Tennessee system, for example, has bridged the topic of 'de-tenuring' (and firing) tenured faculty. Other systems have, or are looking at, closing positions, even entire departments and programs, if they aren't economically viable. The humanities are obvious first targets.

Tenure in Korea, if you can get a position with a decent university and if you consistently publish and stay professionally active, is far from being dead. Two problems seem to be the perception that anyone can get hired and that anyone hired will get promoted and granted tenure; not true on both accounts. I've chaired hiring committees and seen first hand the number and quality of applicants, and I've seen assistant professors (yes, more than one) let go because they couldn't prioritize and get anything published. The rules of the game are quite simple, but surprisingly some folks just think the rules don't apply or won't catch up with them until it's too late.

I 10000% agree with Thuida in that there are jobs in program management out there. Two buddies of mine are doing that now back in N. America, one in the US and one in Canada.