Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Weigookin74]

[Malislamusrex]

South Korea will start to phase out unskilled work to SEA countries and China. When this happens South Korea will try and develop skilled workers with high English skill. When they realise they don't have the ability for that there is going to be a big problem. They will invest in English with no clear plan or objective. Maybe more foreign teachers... who knows what's popular.

swings and roundabouts.

[Yaya]

I think two big factors that will affect the industry are the low birth rate and the rapidly aging population. That means fewer children to teach and more senior citizens who probably have no use for English in Korea.

[earthquakez]

2 highly relevant points by yaya.

I'll add my own. In China the market for native English speaking teachers WILL only get better. It already is now - and there are places that people with BAs and good cvs with interesting things on them (editing etc) can get university/college teaching jobs.

Yes there is red tape but not as bad as you'd think. All it needs is a percentage of the North American graduates etc who are presently looking at Korea thru their facebook connections etc to turn their attention to China and bingo - Korea's not going to look that good.

Compared to two yrs ago, many of the Chinese employers are offering more money per month and when you think of how far that money goes in many place outside Shanghai and Beijing, then Korea loses its lustre.

I predict if the situation in China keeps developing then more and more of the young/er teachers coming to Korea will look there, and why wouldn't they? As a youngish (in his 30s) veteran of working in different countries including Japan, the thing that really struck me when I first looked at working in Korea was how restrictive the E-2 visa is.

Koreans continually whine about the quality of native English speaking teachers and biyotch about their commitment etc but don't want to accept that even the best teachers with great cvs on E-2s are disadvantaged by the whims and caprice of Korean employers because the E-2 only allows
1) 1 yr permission to stay before possible renewal;
2) Only English teaching on the E-2 visa.

These restrictions ensure that native speakers on E-2s with interesting and diversified English language jobs on their cv cannot do editing work etc. They are often locked out of teaching English to people in business, IT, etc as the general lack of English teaching, other English language work history of many E-2 visa holders means the E-2 isn't seen as a visa for qualified people. Koreans choose to recruit people with zero or not much work history on the E-2.

By qualified I am also talking about real life teaching, publishing, etc work outside Korea. That's why F visas are often demanded for English centred jobs that the better, more experienced English teacher on E-2 visas could do.

No point in the Korean complaint about unqualified native English speaking teachers if Koreans don't want to treat those qualified with respect for what they've done in their life outside Korea.

Unless Korea takes a leaf outta the Japanese system where your visa as an English teacher gives you the ability to do some planning for your future by making a 3yr stay possible after the initial 1 yr, and allows those experienced and talented native speakers to diversify then Korea will keep getting sub standard native English speaking workers.

The Korean moaning and whining about lack of Korean speaking skills among native English teachers is just plain stupid when those employees have little idea whether they will actually be in Korea beyond yr to yr renewals. When I was in Japan most of the native English speaking teachers I met could speak Japanese far better than native speakers of English generally can speak Korean.

They had incentive to learn Japanese unlike in Korea where the leash of the E-2 stops English teachers from abroad from really bothering. If you keep reminding people they are transitory, they will respond in kind.

Korea and Koreans need to lift their game here or cease their nonsensical griping. You can't tell people they're not wanted beyond a yr or two and expect them to be putting their energies into learning your language or trying to understand your culture.

If China wises up and starts to treat native English speaking teachers with the same measure of dignity as the Japanese visa system does then Korea will have to offer better pay and conditions, and maybe cut out the arrogant demands for 6 month only apostilled documents.

[Yaya]

The funny thing is, Korea is always trying to best Japan but hasn't done so on visas for teachers of English.

Perhaps if many teachers left over the visa problem, Korea might be spurred into action.

[earthquakez]

If Korea genuinely wanted good to great native speaking English teachers, instead of creating stupid bureaucratic hoops designed for the most desperate to get all the documentation together, Korean govt ministeries and politicians would call for these changes.

1) No graduate straight outta college/university would be eligible for an E-2 with no real job experience related to teaching/tutoring/the English language.

Vacation jobs or working to put yourself thru your course wouldn't cut it unless your job had something to do with the categories above.

OR

2) Priority would be given to people who majored in the English language and related fields - English literature, linguistics, communications studies, , media studies, journalism. There could be a points system and the person who majored in something unrelated would have to have a Celta or something similar.

3) I don't think Celta, TESOL, MA, Phd etc qualifications should be needed for teaching English in Korea except at college/uni level.

Let's face it, even public school jobs are a lottery with too many native speakers being undermined by lazy or hostile Korean 'co' teachers, many of whom want the waygug to handle the class and all the curriculum on their own.

Recruiting native speakers who actually have the cv that shows they've done this kind of work is sufficient. Even among those of us who've done a lot of English teaching jobs in different countries, there are many of us who've encountered obstructionist rubbish in the school system by both govt and different schools.

If Korea and Koreans are serious about wanting better teachers they should have a points system for issuing E-2s.

If a public school at any level or a hagwon wants to employ Tanner or Lindsay who graduated from their Canadian/US higher ed institution with a degree in politics, feminist theory, history, architecture, economics, etc with not one bit of work history related to English language skills in action on their cv, then they're going to have to think again because Tanner, Lindsay and their friends won't score high enough to get an E-2 visa unless they do a course that shows them how to teach English.

[overq64]

OK.

If people in power wanted better English teachers to come to Korea and make a long term committment they could very easily design a system that encouraged rather than discouraged it.

The hagwon owners lobby hard for the status quo because it gives them the control they crave. If they ever employ a really competent, committed teacher against the odds (maybe 1 in 100 of us fit this bill) it just causes problems for them since the students will be upset when the teacher leaves or the they are transferred to a different class.

They like mediocre, expendible teachers who are easily replaced.

To answer the OP I think there will be EFL work in Korea of similar quality to the present for another 10 years at least.

The wages will go up and down but generally fall in real terms. They will stay competetive with other similar places.

[Yaya]

It seems getting a job is harder than it used to be, but those who persist will get employed. Gone, however, are the days when a native speaker from the West could work for a year at a hakwon, get their severance pay, travel either back home or in Asia for a few months, then return to Korea and look for another job that they could get in a week.

Another point is about whether the ESL industry in Korea will really advance. I've been here since the mid-1990s and talk of the sector getting better was all around, yet is it that much better now than back then? I think not. I will say, however, that the low birth rate, bad job market and tight finances of Koreans, a bigger supply of native speakers from the West, and the return of Koreans who studied abroad might hamper the market for native speakers. Who knows, Koreans might follow the lead of Japan and just put a lot less emphasis on learning English, esp. with the emergence of China and other developing countries in Asia like Vietnam and Indonesia.

[Yaya]

Here's an interesting post from The Globe and Mail from a 29-year-old man who can't find a job in Canada despite graduating from college.

At the age of 29, I've likely forever lost the following opportunities due to cost and probable inability to make up for lost wages and career potential:

- Getting married.

- Having children.

- Owning a home that's bigger than 500 square feet. (hint: that's not big.)

- Studying any more, whether that means grad school, law school, or even just night classes at a random community college.

- Retirement. Sure, I'd love to be investing for it. But with what money?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/a-29-year-old-on-the-difficulties-of-landing-a-first-job/article4184375/?page=1

[silkhighway]

[earthquakez]

To Yaya - Yeah, it sucks.

Some posters here forget that there are quite a few people who don't have daddy's and mummy's contacts to get the unadvertised jobs.

Canada seems like Australia, where I spent a fair bit of time not so long ago. Both are British Commonwealth countries, unlike the US' version of immigrant country both are immigrant countries that tax highly to provide everybody with welfare regardless of whether they paid into the system or have just arrived in the country.

Both countries just don't have enough industries to employ all their citizens yet still take numbers of immigrants that's over what it should be, given that there are more than enough highly skilled Canadians and Aussies to fill the positions available.

As a Brit I was surprised to find out how many Brits had migrated to Australia and were doing management level positions for state-run or partially state-run companies. I can tell you that there are more than enough Australians to do that. I'm guessing that Canadians are also having this problem.

I was talking to some Aussie friends not so long ago and they said there was a recent research project done into the massive migration intakes since the last 12 yrs or so.

The project found that the 'skilled' migrants are mostly not more skilled than Australians and in some cases less and are of course competing with Aussies for jobs. When some of them and the asylum seekers coming from boats (as opposed to UN refugee programs) end up on the taxpayer's bill and the average stay on welfare for newcomers is from 2 to 5 yrs, then that aint benefiting anybody who is Australian.

So the 'benefits' for Australians include being beaten out for jobs in their field by newer people, overcrowded transportation, rising taxes to pay for the dole for new arrivals, increasingly jammed roads which apparently were relatively unknown in Australia until the early 2,000s and a bubble housing market pricing students and lower middle - working class people out of the rental market except for outer suburbs.

There are similarities with the UK too but there aren't as many Brits arriving in Korea because they don't have jobs back home. We have membership of the European Union which helps keep Brits at home and in Europe.

Canadians and Aussies whose great grandparents/great great grandparents came from what was then Great Britain and Ireland have no right to return to the UK/Republic of Ireland, become residents, work there.

That sucks too - we don't look after our own. No wonder so many Canadians are coming but I still think Korean Immigration needs to limit any native English speakers from any of the approved countries who don't have a major in English or a cv with English teaching or whatever on it.

Then we might have some accountability of Koreans in this industry and we might have better wages and conditions.

[DE16]

I am thinking of taking the tesol class here in Oklahoma but I dont have a degree. I was told that you have to have a degree to teach in Korea. Is this true?

[newb]

[ttompatz]

[No_hite_pls]