Korean Job Discussion Forums

[MESL]

Mr. Kim,

You spend a lot of money on recruiting fees, airfare, salaries, contract completion bonuses, apartments, pension funds, and medical insurance. Then what do you have foreign teachers do? Fill out paperwork, grade tests, cut and paste handouts, make copies, etc. Hire Korean university students majoring in English or education as part time teaching assistants. Have them do the administrative work in the staff room and in the classroom. Also let them get some teaching experience and give them a recommendation letter. These teaching assistants will double as translators on trips to the post office, appliance store, travel agency, etc. In addition to making things much easier for your foreign teachers, they will get some extremely useful, real world translation practice. Meanwhile, ask the deans and chairmen to use your school for internships. Then the foreign teachers will be free to concentrate on the academic needs of the students.

Hire teacher trainers and offer ESL certification courses. Of course, use your school for the course observations. Let your Korean and foreign teachers attend the courses for free. Instead of trying to make a profit off the certification courses, offer them at cost. Most foreign teachers know the average price of a certification course, so they will recognize your price as a bargain. State in your brochure and on your website, ��The reason we offer these courses at cost is because we hope our graduates will work for us. But we don��t compromise quality. We hire qualified trainers and offer authentic curriculum.�� In western culture, honesty is considered a virtue.

ECC has a reputation for the lowest pay in Korea. Offer 2.25 million for teaching experience, 2.5 million for ESL certification, 2.7 million for teacher certification, and 3.0 for a degree in education. In your marketing campaigns to parents, emphasize that all your teachers have experience or certification.

Meanwhile, honor the contract and respond to the feedback of your foreign teachers. Offer them clean, fully furnished, single apartments. Make sure all the appliances, fixtures, and utilities work. Don��t keep, lose, or damage any of their documents. Offer them block shifts and no weekends. Don��t schedule them for more than 30 lessons a week unless they express an interest in overtime. Pay them 25,000 won per lesson for overtime. Don��t make them teach kindergarten unless their specialty is preschool. Thoroughly orient them to the school��s system before sending them into the classroom alone. Give them the time, material, supplies, and equipment they need to prepare lessons. Don��t let your expectation of them exceed your support of them. Don��t micromanage their classroom activity or second guess their classroom decisions. Don��t be dogmatic with your education philosophy or rigid with your school policies. Keep the school organized and don��t change their schedule often. Treat them as an integral part of your education system, not as a necessary evil. Don��t threaten them or retaliate against them if they want to leave, assuming they give sufficient notice.

Provide them with information about transportation and lodging before they make ��a visa run.�� Pay for the visa and the hotel. Give them a spending allowance for restaurants and taxis while they are in Japan. For people who get their work visa before they come, reimburse them for postage and trips to the embassy. Give them rides to and from the airport. If you send them to a public school, provide transportation. Send a completely fluent translator every time they go to a government office, even if you think they don��t need one.

If you take good care of your foreign teachers, most of them will take good care of you. Satisfied foreign teachers are more willing to sign another contract. They are also willing to recommend your school. Your teachers and the teachers who attend your certification courses will also give your name to their contacts. In English, we call it ��networking.�� After enough teachers network for you long enough, you won��t have to advertise or use a recruiter.

Do you really think you can just keep firing and hiring foreign teachers until you have the crew you want? You��ll spend a lot of money on recruiter fees and airfare. You��ll have a reputation among foreign teachers as the school to avoid. Anyone who is willing to tolerate the way you treat them because they need the money will probably not be a good teacher. And as you know, parents don��t like to send their children to classes that don��t have foreign teachers.

Most hagwons have difficulty finding enough foreign teachers. If you follow my advice about finding and keeping foreign teachers, you can reverse the situation. Instead of you looking for foreign teachers, foreign teachers will look for you. Instead of struggling to find enough teachers for one school, you��ll have enough foreign teachers to start 2 or 3 more schools.

[alabamaman]

How much do you charge for union dues?

[MESL]

[ Most of this material was addressed to someone who reads English as a second language, so native speakers might find the grammar and punctuation tedious. And forgive me: I'm a good writer, but a terrible speller and one of the world's worst proofreaders.

The more conciliatory material is in the first section, though some of it includes a few flames. The more confrontational material is in the second section. Debunk material is in the third section. The most succinct material is in this first section; letters are short and comments are direct. Material in the other two sections contains many insights on dealing with owners and managers, but it also contains background information necessary to understand the story, so insights will have to be gleaned. Material in the third section is the most entertaining. All of the material is well worth reading for any foreign teacher in Korea struggling to deal with major hagwon problems, which is about 99% of us.

Mr. Kim refers to the co-owner. Mrs. Kang refers to his notorious wife, who unfortunately has returned plague the school again with her wicked behavior and gross mismanagement. Some of this was addressed to my recruiter, some of it to the head foreign teacher, and some it to the head teacher. Outgoing head teacher refers to the head teacher who left at the end of last semester. Incoming head teacher refers to the person who took her place. Both were involved in several situations because the latter was in training, so I made this distinction.

I will not name my recruiter because he did super work for me. I will not name the head foreign teacher because he's going to marry the school secretary (who came through for me many times, and is now an English teacher at another hagwon), return to Canada, and live happily ever after. Beside, later events allow him to plead temporary insanity. I will not name the previous head teacher because she's gone. I will not name the new head teacher because she still has a chance to turn the school around. Other than the co-owners, the one person named in this material is the one person riding around the school on a broom.

Because of space limits, I can post only key material here. Check the table of contents below. Contact me at Morehead Alumni Yahoo if you want the whole thing. If I can find an affordable host with a user friendly website builder, I will post all the material at the domain names below.

(I'm getting strange symbols instead of punctuation. Is this happening elsewhere?)

Hope some of these strategies work for you. More soon. ]

www. ECC Eunpyung .com
www. Eunpyung ECC .com



TABLE OF CONTENTS:
How to recruit and retain foreign teachers
Your people are your most valuable assets
We're leaving the students behind
"I said tourist, not terrorist"
I can't drive a car without wheels
Spell it out for them
How to handle student complaints
Send this little monster home
Tell this little monster to shut up
The big lie
This is a nightmare
Make yourself part of the equation
We didn't get off to a good start


You lied to me
Witch! Witch! Witch!
You're worthless
You're a criminal
Just give me my money
Maybe you're in the wrong business
You're confused
Maybe you didn't hear what I said
Are you crazy?
Keep your hands off me


How many of these accusations do I have to refute?
I don't need this
Don't insult my intelligence
If this is a joke, it's not very funny
How petty can you get?
Whose idea was this?
This school now has a dress code
Sorry I asked
Let's all go to the hospital

[alabamaman]

The name Bukowski pops into my head.....

[seoulsista]

And the 2006 Dave's winner for "Greatest Excercise in Futility" goes to...

[MESL]

Mr. Kim,

I have been here long enough to discover that this school has a distinct "pecking order."

No one can peck on the person at the top of the pecking order; everyone can peck on the person on the bottom of the pecking order. People at the top of the pecking order get much respect; people at the bottom of the pecking order get little respect. People at the top of the pecking order are granted maximum credibility; people at the bottom of the pecking order are granted minimum credibility or no credibility. People at the top of the pecking order can complain constantly and receive immediate, complete satisfaction every time; people at the bottom of the pecking order are not allowed to complain; or if they are allowed to complain, their complaints are ignored. People at the top of the pecking order, if they are savvy, can avoid accountability for all but the most extreme behavior; people at the bottom of the pecking order receive full accountability for even the most minor offenses, and are even held accountable for the behavior of the people above them in the pecking order.

Students are at the top of this pecking order, then you, then the head teacher, then other Korean teachers, then the head foreign teacher, then the other foreign teachers.

There is even a pecking order of foreign teachers. At the top of the pecking order of foreign teachers is the foreign teacher most liked by the Korean teachers, most willing to submit to abuse, and most willing to support the Korean teachers against the foreign teachers; and sometimes, the top of the pecking order of foreign teachers is for the foreign teacher who has worked at the school the longest amount of time.

You can take this pecking order back to hell, because it came from hell and it belongs in hell.

[MESL]

LET'S ALL GO TO THE HOSPITAL

I was in the apartment when it started. It was on a Sunday morning at 11:20. First a hissing sound, then a chemical smell. It made my eyes burn, it made my throat dry, it made my head hurt. It was like those mosquito repellent gadgets with the little hot plate and the chemical filled sponge. When you plug it in, the heat from the plate disperses the chemical. For the first 10 minutes after you plug it in, you can't stand to be in the room. I would turn the air conditioner off until I couldn't stand the heat any more, I would turn the air conditioner on until I couldn't stand the chemical any more. I went back and forth with the heat and the chemical for a month, and it just happened to be the month of August.

The school handyman came and changed the filter. He came back and cleaned the inside. Then a technician came. He brought no tools, he did no tests. He took a peek inside and said, "It just needs to be cleaned. I'll charge you 77,000 won." I told the incoming head teacher, who was translating by phone, I'm not going to pay anybody to do anything to this air conditioner because it's not my air conditioner." Then the owner came out and said the same thing everyone else said, "There's nothing wrong with this air conditioner. Just open the windows." I looked at my watch and said, "It's 9 p.m. I'm scheduled to be in the staff room tomorrow at 2 p.m. I can assure you, sometime in the next 17 hours, that chemical will start coming out of this air conditioner again." The owner was in my apartment when the second technician was scheduled to arrive. I was ready for them this time. If they said, "There's nothing wrong with this air conditioner," I was going to say, "Mr. Kim, you're going to sleep on this couch tonight, and that technician is going to sleep on this floor. Meanwhile, I'm going to close the windows and doors. Tomorrow morning, assuming you're not in the hospital, you can tell me there's nothing wrong with this air conditioner." But the second technician called and said he would be late, so the owner wrote a note in Korean and left. The second technician brought an instrument and hooked it up to something outside. Then he called the owner and said, "There's no Freon leak. If there was a Freon leak, all of the Freon would have leaked out at the same time."

I had been telling everyone that it was Freon. Neither chemistry nor appliance repair are my specialties. I don't know what came out of that air conditioner, but I know when it started and I know what affect it had on my body. I'm telling these people, "My eyes are burning, my throat is dry, my head is aching," and they're telling me, "Change the filter and open the windows." If I leave this school and you get hired, can you figure out where you'll live? That's right, you'll live in my old apartment. Can you figure out what's going to happen when hot weather starts? That's right, a chemical will start coming out of that air conditioner again. Can you figure out what they're going to say to you if you tell them, "The air conditioner in my apartment is leaking a chemical"? That's right, they're going to tell you, "Just change the filter and open the windows.�"

[ Did I mention a major construction project 10 yards from the apartment window? Did I mention that construction workers arrive at 7 a.m. and leave at 8 p.m.? Did I mention that this construction is 7 days a week?

Stay tuned. It gets worse. Much worse.]

[wylies99]

OP-You've met a "Mr. Kim" in Korea, too? What a coincidence! So have I!

[jajdude]

[captain kirk]

The OP's post in the series on 'pecking order' and permissable pecking is pretty funny. Makes it sound like chicken nation. Where I work I've struggled and broken them in (encouraged them to understand and relax) but, at first, the manager was REALLY serious about her position in the pecking order as head pecker.

This was not so at the other branch, where the other manager had been to Australia for a year and came back knowing about 'laid back foreigners'. But with the manager at the other school, who hasn't left Planet Korea, it took her a long time to give up her guns.

They're really serious about pecking. I walked by the office of the boss and she (the manager) stood before him, head bowed, listening to his directives. The body language of the Korean teachers, when in the presence of the boss, is extremely submissive. Like they are kids called into the principal's office. The boss is short and perhaps has a small pee pee but, whatever it is, he's serious about being head pecker.

And his penchant for pecking is contagious, travelling down the hierarchy. But no-one, including the boss, tries to peck me any more because they've discovered it just pisses me off and gets them nowhere, so they seek better pecking elsewhere, the peckers.

[bellum99]

Ahhh Korea....why can't we just come to work, do a good job, go home and forget about work until tomorrow. The land of the backward sun!!

[MESL]

WE DIDN�T GET OFF TO A GOOD START

Dear Recruiter,

The owner and the head teacher decided I didn't need any training because I have so much experience. This is crazy. Every school has its own system and every teacher needs to learn that system. They also decided that the head foreign teacher would train me. This is crazy too. The head foreign teacher has a full load of classes. The result is that I learned the school's system a little bit one day and a little bit another day, a little bit from one person and a little bit from another person - and sometimes from the students. Because of all my experience, the head teacher was afraid I would lose face if she gave me too much training. No, I lost face because she DIDN'T give me ENOUGH training. Another big mistake was not informing me about any of these decisions. Also, the school is not very organized and lacks a lot of material. The result of all this was disaster. In spite of all these situations, their expectations of me never stopped. Some of the parents complained too. So the level of accountability has been far higher than the level of training and equipping.

The owner observed one of my classes yesterday. He chose a very bad day to observe. Odyssey 3B, page 23 is the most unusual and most difficult of any lesson in the 12 textbooks I've taught [details later]. After the observation, he had a meeting with me, the head teacher, and one of my team teachers [ she was later appointed new head teacher ]. He started the meeting by saying, "Ask yourself if you're a good teacher, because if you're not a good teacher, you can't work at this school." During this meeting, I had to answer many accusations. After I showed him my folders and notebooks and explained my strategies, he said, "I�m convinced you�re a good teacher." The meeting ended without any of them acknowledging they tried to blame me for a problem they caused.

First he neglected his duty as the owner, then he put me through hell, then he almost fired me, then he made me answer many accusations, then smiled and left as if everything was OK. Everything is not OK. I'm the one who needs to call a meeting. I have many more complaints about him and his head teacher than they have about me. I can't have any more of these meetings and I can't answer any more accusations. Meanwhile, I can't try to meet any more of their expectations of me until they start fulfilling their responsibilities toward me.

[MESL]

MAYBE YOU�RE IN THE WRONG BUSINESS

Mr. Kim,

In English, we call it �The glory days.� Years ago, this school had 800 students and 60 kindergarten students. Yours was the first hagwon in this area and the first English kindergarten in Korea. Now it has 200 students and 7 kindergarten students. Meanwhile, competing schools are prospering.

Mrs. Kang abused and cheated many foreign teachers. Several teachers fled the school because of her. She also lost a lot of students because she mismanaged the school.

Because you made such a good impression on me during my early dealings with you, I considered saying to you, �I have a lot of teaching experience, a lot of recruiting experience, and a lot of management experience. I also have a degree in media, including an emphasis in advertising. I�ll be glad to help you restore the school to its �glory days�.�

Since then, I�ve seen another side of you. During the summer staff meetings and during my initial discussions with you, your emphasis was on meeting the needs of the teachers so they could meet the needs of the students. But beginning with the new semester, your emphasis has been on holding the teachers accountable to respond to the complaints of the students.

What is the explanation for this change? Did Mrs. Kang tell you, �You tell those teachers you�re the boss!�? Did Mrs. Kang tell you, �You tell those teachers our students are our customers!�? What does Mrs. Kang know about managing a hagwon? Under her leadership, the school�s enrollment dropped 3 / 4. Under her leadership, the school had a high turnover of foreign teachers and a very high turnover of Korean teachers. Mrs. Kang is a failure. Why would you accept advice from a failure?

You�ve been pretending that you have 14 years of experience with foreign teachers. Mrs. Kang managed this school for 14 years. You�ve been managing this school for only a few months. I�m the first foreign teacher you hired. If you�re going to manage this school, you need to understand that foreign teachers simply will not tolerate abuse. Nor will they work for an employer who violates the contract. Nor do they like to work at a school that is in turmoil.

One foreign teacher at this school fled a week before the end of her contract. I estimate she gave up about 5 million won in benefits because she simply could not tolerate the situation at the school one more week. In English, we call it �the midnight run.� How many of foreign teachers have done �the midnight run� from this school? Mrs. Kang turned the school over to you because two foreign teachers did �the midnight run� the same week. Another foreign teacher served notice about the same time as the two �midnight runs.� You need to keep the students happy or they will complain to their parents. But you need to treat your foreign teachers with respect or they will do �the midnight run.�

They will also blacklist you. Even one of Mrs. Kang�s foreign managers blacklisted her saying, �She won�t accept advice, she won�t learn from her experience, she won�t change, etc.� I�m not going to do �the midnight run,� but I might blacklist you.

You�ve been managing a hagwon for a few months. I�ve been an ESL teacher for 5 years, and I�ve recruited part time in every country where I�ve taught. I need to listen to advice from you and from everyone else. But you need to listen to advice from me more than I need to listen to advice from you, especially during this crucial time for your school.

If you don�t fundamentally change the way you manage this school, it will continue on its downward path at the same rate as under Mrs. Kang. If you don�t have the understanding, skills, or willingness to make the necessary changes, you are on a collision course with destruction. Do you really think you can turn this school around by having staff meetings 3 times a week, establishing a dress code, posting a list of student complaints, and offering a trip to Guam if enrollment exceeds 300? If you�re not going to change the way you manage, I would advise you to sell the school and start a different business. Otherwise, eventually you�ll have a school with no foreign teachers and no students.

[MESL]

MAYBE YOU DIDN�T HEAR WHAT I SAID

To: Mr. Kim

I have made certain things clear to you, your outgoing and incoming head teachers, your head foreign teacher, my team teacher, and my recruiter. I have said these things many times, but all of you keep pretending you don�t understand or that I never said them:


-- The agenda is long, the courses are many, the lessons are only 40 minutes, and the breaks are only 5 minutes.
-- The staff room is extremely disorganized.
-- The school is in constant turmoil.
-- If I go into the classroom uninformed, unequipped, and without adequate notice, I go into the classroom unprepared; if I go into the classroom unprepared, don�t expect a good lesson.
-- My teaching methods come from the ECC teacher�s guides and the Kim & Johnson ESL bookstore, not from Mars.


-- Your Korean teachers go into your office with a bad report about me, I don�t go into your office with a bad report about them.
-- I have been faithful to you, you have not been faithful to me.
-- My list of complaints against you is a lot longer than your list of complaints against me, and a lot more serious.
-- You caused this problem.
-- You have put me through hell.
-- You broke the contract.
-- I�m not stupid and I wasn�t born yesterday.
-- I did not come to Korea to get involved in a soap opera.


One more time:
-- I am not in communication with my team teachers.
-- I cannot speak Korean.
-- I cannot read minds.
-- I cannot put a square peg in a round hole.
-- I cannot perform miracles.
-- Do not blame me for someone else�s behavior.
-- Don�t believe everything students tell you.


One more time:
-- No more meetings and accusations.
-- No more backstabbing and abusive behavior.
-- No more double standard and hypocritical accountability.
-- No more pettiness and tediousness.
-- No more unequal support versus expectation.
-- No more micromanagement and second guessing.
-- No more dogmatism and rigidness.

[MESL]

SPELL IT OUT FOR THEM

During registration interviews, these rules should be explained to parents and students:

-- Do not speak Korean, Kornglish, or broken English in the classroom.
-- Bring textbooks, workbooks, notebooks, pencils, and to every lesson.
-- Write your Korean name, English name, and course name on all textbooks, workbooks, tests, exercises, notebooks, and forms.
-- You must participate when it�s your turn.
-- Do homework every day.
-- Keep a dairy and bring it once a week.
-- Dairies and homework have to be kept in two different notebooks.
-- During lessons, do not talk while the teacher is talking, leave the classroom without the teacher�s permission, get out of your desk without the teacher�s permission, start the workbook until the teacher tells you, do homework, play with toys, use mobile phones, or bother other students.
-- Do not use curse words or make obscene gestures.
-- Do not copy another student�s work.
-- Do not ask for more rewards or less punishment.
-- Do not go into the staff room or any of the offices.
-- Do not take anything out of a teacher�s basket or bag.
-- Do not operate any equipment.
-- Do not slam doors, yell, or otherwise make loud noise.
-- Do not run in the hall.
-- Do not do anything that might cause injury to you or someone else.
-- Do not damage school property.
-- Go to the bathroom and drink water during the break.

These rules should also be posted in English and Korean in every classroom.