Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Medic]

I did telephone teaching for a short time when I was in Seoul, and learned a lot about Korean culture from some of the students. A lot of the females used it to meet up with and practice live with their teachers. Interesting experience.

I'm not in Seoul now, but would like to continue doing it. Their are plenty of companies doing telephone teaching, but I can't find any outside of Seoul. Anyone know of any?

[saint_moi]

that's the most interesting thing I've heard all weekend. How much were they paying you to teach over the phone? *bleep* that sounds bizarre. Teaching on the phone. I'd love to give that a bash if it pays about the same as *ahem* privts *ahem*. Please let me know. I'm in Wonju by the way. Know clue if that's happening here.

[Son Deureo!]

*bump*

The Fonz wanted to know if this was worth doing, and so do I. It sounds much less risky than teaching privates, and if you can do it from home, much easier. How's the pay? What companies are decent? Which ones are scamjobs?

I see ads in the Korea Times and Herald all the time for this.

Someone's gotta know something about this.

[BTM]

I hate talking on the phone, which is a downside, but you can drink beer while 'teaching,' which would be a pretty big upside!

I'd be interested to hear more, too.

[Lost Seoul]

As tempting as phone teaching may be to some I'd like to point out that this kind of teaching holds some of the same kinds of risks as teaching for a hagwon so make sure you do your homework folks. Take the below case for example:

http://www.englishspectrum.com/form2.php3?table=news_blackbook
No.196 : BEWARE OF INTER-EDU PHONE TEACHING COMPANY.
Name: Jonathan
Date: 2003-07-14 14:47:40
View: 16


To whom it may concern.

This is to inform all teachers doing phone teaching and those intending to do so , to please stay away from INTER- EDU INC a new phone teaching company that takes pride in Refusing to pay teachers salary. INTER -EDU is a scam , with thier inxperienced and troublesome 2 men total staff, they would ask you to do anything including persuading students from other institutes to enroll with them and at the end of the month still find it difficult to pay a teachers salary. I worked with Inter -edu right after it's started the phone teaching bussiness a few months ago but the issue always is paying my salary which is not even much. Beware of INTER-EDU and avoid working to enrich the 2 men greedy INTER-EDU Staff. To be more specific do not respond to any mail from
www.Inter-edu.co.kr or 02-3664-7474.

[RedRob]

I have been offered this gig a few times, once I went as far as sorting out a time table , but it was a nightmare. I was getting paid by the person,. I did the math-stupidly after setting up talk times with monkey boy salary men. The pay turned out to be about 13 000 per hour, so I called tthe head office and ditched the lot.
Oddly, it was my hogwan manager who offered me the work thru a friend of hers.
The main problem was that dealing with these guys with poor english face to face ain't so bad, 'cos you can use body language as well, but talking to a complete stranger on the phone was tough.
The other problem I had was inflexibility on behalf of the business guys I was supposed to coach.
I had about 20 conversations like this:
-
HI Its redrob here from kimchimoneybags phone skool. Howsyadoin'?
......I'm pine tank youandyou?
Just Fine thanks, I'm writing up a schedule, you can have any thing from 9am to 1145am or 9pm to 1145pm whats good for you?
........OK thankyou 645am thankyounicetomeetchu
Errm Sorry mate (Repeat myself)
........AhhhhhOk thankyou no 645am? OK 7.00 am thankyouverymuchee
Errrm, Sorry mate (repeat myself)
........AmmmmOk 7.10am? OK?

Anyways you get the picture, at first I thought it was me, but I'm not kidding I did this like 20 times! Then I thought this gig is kinda tough, lets do the math.
Dopey features here assumed that because the job came from my school owner, that it would pay at least my O/Time rate of 20 thou or even a bit more if things went well.

What I think happened was a common Korean problem of trying to keep everyone happy and fking up completely in the process.ie: Telling me- you set the times and choose the students you like, then telling potential students- you set the times you want to learn, our teachers are totally flexible.


I met someone who was doing it last week, she said the pay was about 15000, but it was using webcams, which might be a bit easier, and she didn't seem to mind it at all, so each to their own huh?

[Len8]

I've done it, but the paye wasn't the greatest. I used to get up at 6 in the morning, and do it for two hours. Didn't mind it, because I got to know the people I was talking to after a while. Built up kind of a relationship I guess. Couple of times I'd sleep in, but by then they all knew me, so I'd ring them all up and catch them at a different time.

Like the original poster I went out with them a lot too. Was kind of bored so I said what the heck. Some of the girls made a habbit of dating different guys who were doing it.

Also had to say I was at the company office. Customers weren't supposed to know it was done from home.

[Daami]

I also did it for a little while. I was on about 1.85m a month I think... with an apartment just around the corner from where I lived.

I worked from an office and had to be there from 3pm until about 10.30pm. However the telephone calls were to students at a scheduled time every weeknight and I didn't really have all that many calls to make. As I recall I had absolutely no calls to make between 5 and 7.30pm so basically I just sat in the office and read, studied Korean, surfed the 'net (when the boss was out) or did some writing.... got kinda boring really.

It was possibly the easiest job I ever had yet I have to say I enjoy a much more "hands-on" approach. Generally I enjoy the classrooms.... I get a lot more stimulation and satisfaction from "real" people as opposed to voices on the phone....

Hmmm.... that last paragraph could be taken many ways but I'm gonna post it anyhow .....

[chi-chi]

mods you may delete

[Walter Mitty]

[saint_moi]

Well waddya know. I'm just about to start this queer telephonic endeavour, so I'll fill ya'll in later. I bought a computer to do the teaching and they pay your internet fee, so I'm just interested in 1st paying off my pc and then doing a little chit chat everyday while im sitting on my naught so that I have free fast internet. i lurve Korean internet.

[The Bobster]

[RedRob]

[Zed]