Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ambienteye]

So! I've been lurking here for several months. I'm considering going over this summer/fall.

I was originally going to try for Japan but the promise free housing and airfare lured me to SoKo, as I'm sure it does many.

However! In my research, it seems there is an disturbing amount of disgruntled ex-teachers, "midnight runs" and corrupt schools. I'm approaching my prospects with caution and research, but it obviously won't guarantee I won't have a negative experience in the country. I know much of it has to do with the school with which one is placed and the individual's expectation, but I'm curious if it's really *that* bad, or if it's just easy to gripe.

So I made a little survey below. All questions obviously optional.

Before I get to that, has anyone had any experience with Access South Korea Now (asknow.ca)? They look like need a webdesigner, but otherwise they *seem* like helpful and straightforward people. But still, it's a recruiter and therefore I am skeptical.

Also, feel free to PM me if you want to talk about your specific school. I'm still in the job search phase and anything is helpful.

Okay, survey now!

1. How long have you been in SoKo?

2. Did you have prior EFL teaching experience (optional:where) before coming to SoKo?

3. What kind of an institute do you teach at (e.g. public, hagwon, etc.)?

4. What age group do you teach?

5. Is your school located in a city, suburb, small town or a rural area?

6. On a scale of 1(worst)-10(best), how satisfied are you with your current position?

7. Has your employer stuck to initial contract? If not, what aspects did they break?

8. Have they ever failed to pay you on time?

9. Do you know anyone personally (as in NOT online, so as to not skew the results) who has escaped via a midnight run?

10. Do you know anyone personally (again, not online) to be fired unfairly before their contract was through? Details welcome.

11. Did you use a recruiter? If so, who and any comments about them?

12. What is your LEAST favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo?

13. What is your favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo?

Thanks so much!

[poet13]

1. How long have you been in SoKo? Teaching about 2 years.

2. Did you have prior EFL teaching experience (optional:where) before coming to SoKo? Yes

3. What kind of an institute do you teach at (e.g. public, hagwon, etc.)? Private Boys Middle School.

4. What age group do you teach? 14-16, which is 13-15 in the rest of the world.

5. Is your school located in a city, suburb, small town or a rural area? rural

6. On a scale of 1(worst)-10(best), how satisfied are you with your current position? 8.5

7. Has your employer stuck to initial contract? If not, what aspects did they break? yes, this employer has. previous employer screwed with em in just about every money way you can imagine.

8. Have they ever failed to pay you on time? this employer, NO. previous employer, see previous question.

9. Do you know anyone personally (as in NOT online, so as to not skew the results) who has escaped via a midnight run? no

10. Do you know anyone personally (again, not online) to be fired unfairly before their contract was through? Details welcome. no

11. Did you use a recruiter? If so, who and any comments about them? yes. Yun recruiting. Apparently the lady who helped me is great, but there might be another lady there who has dissapoitned some people.

12. What is your LEAST favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo? The nasty social drinking and eating customs of sharing glasses and food.

13. What is your favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoK. My students are the best.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Great survey.



Okay, survey now!

1. How long have you been in SoKo?

Almost 2 1/2 years. BTW, no one calls it SoKo. That sounds like some place in Japan.

2. Did you have prior EFL teaching experience (optional:where) before coming to SoKo?

A tiny bit.

3. What kind of an institute do you teach at (e.g. public, hagwon, etc.)?

Public school.

4. What age group do you teach?

12-18 year olds in western years.

5. Is your school located in a city, suburb, small town or a rural area?

Small town.

6. On a scale of 1(worst)-10(best), how satisfied are you with your current position?

9

7. Has your employer stuck to initial contract? If not, what aspects did they break?

My contract allows me to get an E2 visa. Everything else we work out by private agreement to the greatest extent we can get away with it and both parties are very satisfied the vast majority of the time. My contract is really quite meaningless for all intents and purposees.

8. Have they ever failed to pay you on time?

No.

9. Do you know anyone personally (as in NOT online, so as to not skew the results) who has escaped via a midnight run?

Yes, many.

10. Do you know anyone personally (again, not online) to be fired unfairly before their contract was through? Details welcome.

Yes. They're all long stories.

11. Did you use a recruiter? If so, who and any comments about them?

Not really - my school district was initially using a contact at a uni to take applicants.

12. What is your LEAST favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo?

The most insecure, cowardly people on earth and an English educational system that's absolutely messed up.

13. What is your favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo?

The fact that the English educational system is so absolutely messed up that they have to pay people like me decent money and give good benefits to help them out, or at least make the pretense that that's what's going on, and work with fantastic students.

Thanks so much!

NP

[ambienteye]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[marckot]

1. How long have you been in SoKo?

3 years

2. Did you have prior EFL teaching experience (optional:where) before coming to SoKo?

I taught for almost 3 years prior to Korea.

3. What kind of an institute do you teach at (e.g. public, hagwon, etc.)?

Private boys high school.

4. What age group do you teach?

16-19

5. Is your school located in a city, suburb, small town or a rural area?

Small town.

6. On a scale of 1(worst)-10(best), how satisfied are you with your current position?

9

7. Has your employer stuck to initial contract? If not, what aspects did they break?

Yes the contract is honored.

8. Have they ever failed to pay you on time?

No.

9. Do you know anyone personally (as in NOT online, so as to not skew the results) who has escaped via a midnight run?

None

10. Do you know anyone personally (again, not online) to be fired unfairly before their contract was through? Details welcome.

None

11. Did you use a recruiter? If so, who and any comments about them?

I used ESL-Planet (Rowan). They are very good and trustworthy

12. What is your LEAST favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo?

Very little creative and individual thinking. Air quality is really bad.

13. What is your favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo?

No crime that directly affect or endanger my life. Korean food is
very good.

[makemischief]

I met the guy who runs Access South Korea Now at a KOTESOL conference. He seemed like a really decent guy. Not to say this means his company is for certain, but I'd say he's at the very least better than a lot of other recruiters.

[some waygug-in]

1. How long have you been in SoKo?

What is SoKo? Is that a district of Seoul or another way of referring to the ROK? If it's the latter, 5 years off and on.

2. Did you have prior EFL teaching experience (optional:where) before coming to SoKo?

Yes, I taught EFL for a year and a half in Mexico.

3. What kind of an institute do you teach at (e.g. public, hagwon, etc.)?

I now teach at a public school, but my previous 4 jobs were hagwans.

4. What age group do you teach?

I teach grades 4, 5 and 6 this term. In hagwans I taught everything from grade 1 up to senior citizens.

5. Is your school located in a city, suburb, small town or a rural area?

My school is located in a suburb of a small city near Pusan.

6. On a scale of 1(worst)-10(best), how satisfied are you with your current position?

8.5



7. Has your employer stuck to initial contract? If not, what aspects did they break?

So far yes, but the hagwans all tried to jerk me around one way or another.

8. Have they ever failed to pay you on time?

Today is my first payday and I haven't had time to check yet.

Of the hagwans, Only 1 out of 4 had serious pay problems.

9. Do you know anyone personally (as in NOT online, so as to not skew the results) who has escaped via a midnight run?

Yes. I helped a young Australian girl escape because she was being taken advantage of (badly in my opinion).

I also left one job because they wanted me to work illegally.

I left a second job because they weren't paying me regularly.

10. Do you know anyone personally (again, not online) to be fired unfairly before their contract was through? Details welcome.

I've heard of some cases, but I don't know the full details. So I can't really say whether they were fair or not. I will say this though, there are always 3 sides to every story:
a) what the teachers say

b) what the school says.

c) what really happened.

11. Did you use a recruiter? If so, who and any comments about them?

I've used 2 recruiters so far, one experience was not the best and the second was adequate.

12. What is your LEAST favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo?

Again, what is SoKo? I must be a dunce or something.

If you mean South Korea, I'd have to say the lack of variety and the lack of interesting things to do. I am not in Seoul, so take that into account.

If you are talking about work, then I guess it's that it's not very easy to change jobs. (especially if you get stuck in a place that's crap) The employer holds most of the cards and without a release letter, you can't change jobs until the term of your contract is expired.

13. What is your favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo?

Right now, I'd say that I feel like I am really teaching, for the first time in a long time. (not babysitting) My job is not too difficult, I am able to save money and I have enough free time to pursue other interests. (hobbies, study etc.)

I hope this helps.

Cheers

[Saxiif]

You get a lot of complaints because getting fucked over gets people to post more than a normal job and while most of us have decent jobs now, almost all of us who've been here a while have had at least one shitty/contract-breaking job in the past.

Also, feel free to PM me if you want to talk about your specific school. I'm still in the job search phase and anything is helpful.

Okay, survey now!

1. How long have you been in SoKo? Three and half years.

2. Did you have prior EFL teaching experience (optional:where) before coming to SoKo? No, but some tutoring of campus janitors in English at my university.

3. What kind of an institute do you teach at (e.g. public, hagwon, etc.)? Hagwon.

4. What age group do you teach? Currently 4th to 9th grades.

5. Is your school located in a city, suburb, small town or a rural area? Apgujeong in Seoul (yuppie land).

6. On a scale of 1(worst)-10(best), how satisfied are you with your current position? 8

7. Has your employer stuck to initial contract? If not, what aspects did they break? Yup, although right now my contract doesn't bear any real relationship to my actual terms to employment since neither of us have bothered to change it since I started working over two years ago and I've gotten raises etc. since then. Past employers have blatantly violated contracts.

8. Have they ever failed to pay you on time? No. Past employes have though.

9. Do you know anyone personally (as in NOT online, so as to not skew the results) who has escaped via a midnight run? Yes, several. Sometimes the school is bad, sometimes the teacher is bad and often its because teachers don't have anything specific against the school but decided they're not cut out for teaching/living in Korea and don't want to risk their boss screwing with them if they quit without immediately leaving the country.

10. Do you know anyone personally (again, not online) to be fired unfairly before their contract was through? Details welcome. Yes, I was fired from my last job for not wanting to move from Seoul to Suwon.

11. Did you use a recruiter? If so, who and any comments about them? Not for my current job, no, recruits are paid by the schools not by the teachers so they act in the interest of the schools 90% of the time.

12. What is your LEAST favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo? Crappy/overpriced beer.

13. What is your favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo? Convenience. Lots of little things that make life convenient from 24 hour delivery chicken, clubs open till dawn, restaurants always with walking distance, good subway system, etc. There are very few day to day hassles in my life.

[ajuma]

1. How long have you been in SoKo?

11 years (off and on, but mostly on).

2. Did you have prior EFL teaching experience (optional:where) before coming to SoKo?

Does teaching religious ed count??

3. What kind of an institute do you teach at (e.g. public, hagwon, etc.)?

Uni

4. What age group do you teach?

20-27

5. Is your school located in a city, suburb, small town or a rural area?

Uni town...small in summer and winter, lots bigger in fall and spring.


6. On a scale of 1(worst)-10(best), how satisfied are you with your current position?

9

7. Has your employer stuck to initial contract? If not, what aspects did they break?

Yep...had some pension issues, but didn't affect me.


8. Have they ever failed to pay you on time?

NEVER!! In fact, if payday is on a weekend, we get paid the Friday before.


9. Do you know anyone personally (as in NOT online, so as to not skew the results) who has escaped via a midnight run?

Yep...ME! From a hagwon many moons ago.

10. Do you know anyone personally (again, not online) to be fired unfairly before their contract was through? Details welcome.

Yeah, but long story.

11. Did you use a recruiter? If so, who and any comments about them?

Yes for my first job (1996!!) and I guess they were ok...

12. What is your LEAST favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo?

Everyone speaks Korean!!


13. What is your favorite thing (work or no) about life in SoKo

My students and my quality of life. Where else could I get so much vacation, so few working hours and so much money??? 9-5 5 days a week with 2 weeks of vacation a year??? NEVER AGAIN!!

[pest2]

[pest2]

OP:

Keep in mind that most of the people who post on Dave's have been here for a while. The truth is that the average stay for a native ESL teacher in Korea is <2years. If that's the case, you might want to weight anyone who has been here less than a year a bit more heavily. If people stay here longer than average, doesnt it seem sorta self evident they are happier than average? Otherwise they wouldnt stay.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[laogaiguk]

[pest2]