Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bassexpander]

I know Korea has at least a few foreigners who have Ph.D's.


I'm curious, and have a few questions:

1. What kind of things do you publish? Have you published anything that is currently popular, or groundbreaking in the ESL field? Are you considered the father of anything we would have heard of, such as "tasked-based learning?"

2. Do you travel around to other countries a lot and give speeches, such as many of the headliner (not boutique rooms with the MAs) presenters at ESL conferences, like Rod Ellis, Marc Helgesen, or Jack Richards?

3. Have you published any ESL books that are carried by Cambridge, Oxford, a major Korean publisher, or used by the Korean government? Sell lots of copies?

4. Do other teachers at your uni use your book or materials? At other unis? Public schools? Hagwons?

5. Why do you choose to stay here?

Just curious -- what have you done with your Ph.D to advance education in this small country the size of Indiana, which has millions of desperate ESL learners? How are you proving the usefulness of your Ph.D status? I'm quite curious about this. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but I see little "popular" material (not that popular always means good) from people actually living/working in Korea. It always seems to be someone from the outside.

Maybe you find it terribly difficult to "break into" the book industry here... if so, tell us about it. That would be interesting.

Here's your chance to showcase your talents! Maybe we'll buy something!

[keysbottles]

Recent publications of my son, who lives and teaches math in SK

Recent Publications: click on the name for the linked pdf file



1) Infinite Products of Compact Filters (with I. Labuda)

Stability of some classes of filters under the infinite (Tichonov) product operation is investigated. Applications to productivity of some types of set valued maps are given. (Mathematica Slovaka)


2) Inherent Compactness of Upper Continuous Set Valued Maps (with I. Labuda)

Half of the paper, roughly, is devoted to an overview of research originally connected with the names of Vainstein, Choquet and Dolecki. This gives a proper perspective for the other half, in which new Choquet-Dolecki theorems are given. Our stress is on showing an essential unity of methods in this area of analysis/topology. (Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics)

3) Compact Families of Sets (with I. Labuda)

Let X be a pretopological convergence space. We study general schemes of compactness of families of sets. Some earlier results are discussed within a new unified setting and a few errors contained in the relevant literature are noted. The main achievement is a series of "reduction theorems" which allow general schemes to be reduced to more palatable types of filter compactness. (Mathematica Slovaka)

[bassexpander]

I was looking for ELS-related material, but you surprised me. Tell us about your son. Is he Korean, or half-Korean? Korea is a pretty math-intense country!

[bassexpander]

Anyone?

Feel free to have a friend post for you, if you're afraid to out yourself here.

[keysbottles]

My son has a PhD in math from an American University. He teaches for an American University in SK. No Asian blood but a mixture of German, American Indian and UK, a typical American mutt.

He and his wife are in their 5th year in SK. My daughter and her hubby have been here almost 3 years. My wife and I came over in July 07 for a one year stay. Everyone teaches but me,,,I'm too old. :)

[hellofaniceguy]

I think that anyone with a PhD would not be wasting his or her hard earned education and time in korea.

[zappadelta]

[bassexpander]

[bellum99]

Yup..they can teach at home and have respect and a future. I wonder why they are here, too. I have met a few certified public school teachers here and I know why they are here. They are freaks.. weird looking boys and girls. It takes more than a teaching certificate or a Phd to get a great job.

[bassexpander]

[keysbottles]

We come from the country in Arkansas. A great place to live and raise a family but if you choose to live there about the only professions available are teaching or the medical field. Those of you who are familiar with my state, Mississippi or others in the area, there are very limited opportunities unless your family owns the local bank etc. My father was a teacher in a one room school pre WWII. I taught science for 6 years, my wife is a retired science teacher, her brother a Professor in Ga., two of my children and their spouses are teachers.

hellofaniceguy couldn't understand why my son would wast time here. He is in SK for the same reason most of you are here,,the money. He has bought and paid for a cattle farm back home, and plans to retire in 5 more years,,he is currently 33. He works 9 hours per week, nine months a year,,has vacationed in most Asian and European countries. They spent last summer in Thailand, training at the Bangkok Fight Club. These are the reasons he is in SK with a PhD.

My daughter and her husband are saving for a new home,"back home".

We have a place to go home to. We own our home and small cattle farm that relatives are watching over. This is the first time my wife and I have been our of the States. We are trying to organize a Trans-Siberian train trip to Europe and fly home from Rome this summer.

Some of you seemed interested in our situation, others I'm sure, will be bored with this post. Have a nice evening.

[cubanlord]

[the_beaver]

[Mr. Pink]

Keys your story isn't boring, so don't take it that way. There seem to be a lot of Korea haters. What many don't seem to understand is Korea offers decent salaries (after taxes) and a low cost of living compared to other countries.

Imagine if you took your PhD and taught in Tokyo, London, Berlin, Paris...the cost of living would be 2-3x what it is in Korea, which means at the end of the day you are saving less.

I am doubtful if I had a PhD I would be interested in earning less money just to experience a local culture. All the work and effort it takes to get a PhD, most want financial or scholarly rewards. Korea offers pretty good financial rewards for the reasons mentioned above.

[bellum99]