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ntwrightsmom
Joined: 19 Oct 2007
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 Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:54 pm Post subject: How many people are being hired at Hongdae? |
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| Does anyone know how many English instructors are being hired at Hongdae for the spring semester? They interviewed 43 people. |
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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:22 pm Post subject: |
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| I heard they hired like 20 (maybe) last year, and they overhired back then. That was just a rumor, though. |
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kiwiana
Joined: 29 Nov 2007
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| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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Some teachers found it hard to make up the minimum 12 hours per week as student enrollments for many classes were low this year. Therefore, it seems that Hongik may have over hired at the start of 2007.
I have heard rumors that they were looking to hire around 10-15 new teachers. However, the official number may not be known yet as the employment status of several colleagues is still pending a decision from management.
My friends who were lucky enough to get an interview said that Hongik would let them know if they got a job between the 17th and the 21st of December. |
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TECO
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 1:33 am Post subject: |
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10 - 20 new teachers, depending on what happens with renewals, is the word I got from H.R. at HongDae.
They appear to have a lot of foreign teachers there at the moment. |
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Hyeon Een
Joined: 24 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:06 am Post subject: |
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Is it a good place to work?
With that many foreign teachers is there annoying office politics? Are there managers or supervisors or head teachers breathing down your neck? Are there lots of meetings and paperwork? The salary and hours seem good but I'm curious about the other conditions. I earn a bit less but there's no office politics, no meetings, no paperwork except for submitting grades and marking exams and homework and total freedom to teach what we want. So what's life like at Hongdae outside of the hours and salary?
I haven't applied BTW =) |
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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:14 am Post subject: |
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Low base hours (12) for decent pay (above 2.5, I think) and a long 5 month vacation.
I heard that instructors claw for more hours, but everyone wants them, so extra hours are actually hard to come by.
Contracts are for 2 years. |
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ntwrightsmom
Joined: 19 Oct 2007
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:19 am Post subject: |
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| Is that an estimate for the Seoul campus or does it include Jochiwon? Any idea what the number would be for each? |
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Hyeon Een
Joined: 24 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:42 am Post subject: |
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| bassexpander wrote: |
Low base hours (12) for decent pay (above 2.5, I think) and a long 5 month vacation.
I heard that instructors claw for more hours, but everyone wants them, so extra hours are actually hard to come by.
Contracts are for 2 years. |
And... OUTSIDE of the hours and pay, how is it? =) Heard anything? |
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kiwiana
Joined: 29 Nov 2007
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:43 am Post subject: |
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Starting with a BA at Jochiwon (usually only 3 consecutive days a week) is currently 3.14 million (3.34 with MA).
Starting with a BA at Seoul (usually 4 days per week) is 2.94 (3.14 with MA). Salary doesn't include housing.
All main course material is supplied by management. There is very little obligatory paperwork. Office politics are everywhere but not such a big issue--we barely see each other with the small amount of hours we work.
Management never breaths down your neck (unless you are incompetent and miss classes etc).
All correspondence is done by email by competent bilinguals. NO shitty meetings (except for the team lunch that they pay you 180,000 won to attend 1 week prior to the start of each semester).
Overtime (if you happen to get it) is at around 40,000 won per hour which is pretty good compared to many other uni's. |
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Hyeon Een
Joined: 24 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:06 am Post subject: |
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| kiwiana wrote: |
Starting with a BA at Jochiwon (usually only 3 consecutive days a week) is currently 3.14 million (3.34 with MA).
Starting with a BA at Seoul (usually 4 days per week) is 2.94 (3.14 with MA). Salary doesn't include housing.
All main course material is supplied by management. There is very little obligatory paperwork. Office politics are everywhere but not such a big issue--we barely see each other with the small amount of hours we work.
Management never breaths down your neck (unless you are incompetent and miss classes etc).
All correspondence is done by email by competent bilinguals. NO *beep* meetings (except for the team lunch that they pay you 180,000 won to attend 1 week prior to the start of each semester).
Overtime (if you happen to get it) is at around 40,000 won per hour which is pretty good compared to many other uni's. |
Hmm. Sounds awesome now. Maybe I'll apply next year =) |
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hogwonguy1979
Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Location: the racoon den
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:48 am Post subject: |
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| kiwiana wrote: |
Starting with a BA at Jochiwon (usually only 3 consecutive days a week) is currently 3.14 million (3.34 with MA).
Starting with a BA at Seoul (usually 4 days per week) is 2.94 (3.14 with MA). Salary doesn't include housing.
All main course material is supplied by management. There is very little obligatory paperwork. Office politics are everywhere but not such a big issue--we barely see each other with the small amount of hours we work.
Management never breaths down your neck (unless you are incompetent and miss classes etc).
All correspondence is done by email by competent bilinguals. NO *beep* meetings (except for the team lunch that they pay you 180,000 won to attend 1 week prior to the start of each semester).
Overtime (if you happen to get it) is at around 40,000 won per hour which is pretty good compared to many other uni's. |
yeah thats pretty much it, there are some courses where the office politics are nuts, you learn which courses are those and avoid them but most of the course coordinators are really good people who really want to help if you are a newbie with a course.
there is a language center associated but i have no idea how people get to teach those classes. also there is a camp down at jochiwon both in the summer and winter but its optional in fact its hard to get selected as there is an "audition" process for it
tas are pretty good and yeah all correspondence is done by email.
big thing now is they are apparently capping everybody at 4 years. next year may be a huge turnover as all those people who were hired 3 years ago will finishing their 4th year and who knows what they will do |
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Rockwell Bergstrom
Joined: 21 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:02 am Post subject: |
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| Heard from admin that the four year cap is not set in stone. More or less it is based on someone's performance and qualifications. |
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TECO
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:49 am Post subject: |
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| Rockwell Bergstrom wrote: |
| Heard from admin that the four year cap is not set in stone. More or less it is based on someone's performance and qualifications. |
R.B.,
I've had a few telephone conversations with the lady in H.R. at HongDae and she clearly told me that the 4 year rule is very unlikely to be waived for teachers - even the good ones with high student evaluations. In fact, I believe the phrase she used was, "...it's impossible."
Ahaa!!  This was as recently as November and December.
I had applied but didn't go in for the interview because the contracts are only 2 years with no guarantee of renewal.
She also said, even if an instructor is renewed after two years, or a second time, s/he is shown the door after 4 years. Again, I asked her if the policy was "flexible" and she said it wasn't.
Edit:
I just remembered, I asked Na Yeon, the woman in admin. who deals with foreign instructors, if there were any teachers that had their contracts continuously renewed and who were not subject to the 4-year limitation. She told me that if an instructor was hired prior to 2001 that they were not subject to the 4-year limitation.
In fact, it seems that they have all kinds of random stuff going on with the terms of foreign English teachers at HongDae with respect to E1 or E2 visas, housing, salary, and renewals.
Depending on when you were hired, you may have a completely different set of terms in your contract compared to a coworker who was hired a couple of years earlier than you.
HongDae is not looking for long-term teachers. They want people who will come in for 2 or 3 years and then move on, unfortunately. |
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Rockwell Bergstrom
Joined: 21 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 7:01 am Post subject: |
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Well, all I can say is that not long ago she conveyed to me that it was possible.
And that's what a number of my coworkers have told me in the staff room there.
TECO, I think you're right that they are not looking for teachers to stay on very long. Now, will they try to hold onto a few who they believe are "good" teachers? I believe, maybe.
It seems like since instituting limits a number of universities (Korea and Ewha, for example) do make exceptions for those they deem to be "very good" teachers. |
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hogwonguy1979
Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Location: the racoon den
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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| the way it was presented in a meeting was you could stay beyond 4 years was if you had "made a significant contribution to the university community" when asked what that meant it seemed if you were got a teaching award, do stuff on tv( some are on tv) etc. if you are a decent teacher, get decent evals and stayed under the radar, beyond 4 years could be tough |
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