Korean Job Discussion Forums

Austin · Joined: 23 May 2003 Location: In the kitchen

There are no sides. I flew to Korea on my own, and I am going to leave here on my own.

Why would where my nose is concern you?

I have no problem with your head being buried up your own.

If it makes you happy, keep it there!

Mosley · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

Joe...Thanks!

ulsanchris · Joined: 19 Jun 2003 Location: take a wild guess

THe korean phone companies have a plan for their hand phones, that goes like this. YOu pay them so much money in credit for a month and then you as you talk your credit goes down until you hit zero. then you have to put more money on your phone if you want to talk. If a hogwan wants to provide a phone it should use this placement plan. Otherwise tell the teacher to get their own phone.
All you need ( ithink ) is a korean bank account and a 200,000 won deposit.

Joe Thanks · Joined: 01 Oct 2003 Location: Dudleyville

crazylemongirl · Joined: 23 Mar 2003 Location: almost there...

For the two way street thing, I think it's a product of the system. Schools hire sight unseen teachers and it's a real lottery if your going to get a good or bad one. Teachers sign on a year of their life at sight unseen schools and it's a real lottery if your going to get a good or bad one.

a) teachers who left in may were threatened with instant dismissal at the 11th month if they 'agreed' to accept half their severance.

b) teacher was dismissed for being 'rude' to director at 5 month mark.

For me E - yes. Despite me telling them you have to sort it out and this how you sort it out. Not giving any details till I'm the hell out of my school 11 weeks.

H - my return airfare was paid upfront by the school. My recuirter organised it along with an extra luggage allowance.

I - yes, yes yes. Just new in the country (with no one to talk to) I find out my phone has been cut off. 260,000won later (I was told it was a connection fee) I have it back on. Heard the juice they want to take 200k for a deposit when I finish. As I have kept up with my bills and will get a final reading on the day I'm not going to hand over more than what I owe.

K - I have a badly worded contract.

Perhaps the one that the korean government should be most worried about:

How many hagwons are paying tax?

CLG

Mr. Pink · Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Location: China

OiGirl · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: Hoke-y-gun

crazylemongirl · Joined: 23 Mar 2003 Location: almost there...

I will hopefully meet with my director a month or so before hand to hammer out the details of final pay. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out. She hit up one of the teachers that left my school for 200k, the final bills were 70k. He's knocking on her door right now for the rest ofit.

CLG

TheUrbanMyth · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Location: Retired

some waygug-in · Joined: 25 Jan 2003

There are no sides. I flew to Korea on my own, and I am going to leave here on my own.

Why would where my nose is concern you?

I flew to Korea on my own as well, and it looks as though I will be departing on my own, despite all the BS in my contract about paying the airfare after the completion of a year.

I have no concern about where you choose to put your nose. If it makes you happy, go for it. I only take issue with the assumption that it's always the waeguk's fault. Both sides have fault's and both sides need to take time to see things from the opposite point of view.

Your posts have definately made me re-evalute myself as a teacher, and also re-evalute my attitudes and assumtions about Korea. That does not mean I agree with everything you write, (I still take issue with a lot of what you write) but I do thank you for helping me see another side to things.

Happy trails Cool

Some waygug-in

jajdude · Joined: 18 Jan 2003

I'm not sure if these have been mentioned before, but I have a few ....

One school kept the Japan visa run money from the next pay of a fellow teacher and me. So we said give it back or we don't work. They gave it back but weren't too warm to us after that. We both agreed to stay 6 months at that months. I stayed about 3. I think he stayed 4.

That school also would just pop extra classes onto your schedule with almost no notice.

They also had a bunch of middle school kids and their teacher from Canada visit for two weeks. They had that teacher and some of the kids teaching classes.

It was not a great place. It was in Pohang in 1998. "King George" was the name. I wonder if it survived... another Korean ( a sociopath I think) employer in Vancouver has a school of the same name. The guy I worked with worked there and went to Korea as a favor to his boss, friend of the guy in Pohang. Actually "favor" probably isn't the right word. I think "keeping his job in Canada" when he went back was more like it. I doubt he did though.

Another school (the well-known GKI near Olympic Park) had an objectionable practice of putting pictures of its teachers outside in public places, so if any Korean saw them looking suspiciouly like engaged in private teaching, they might be able to get the teacher busted. The owner was also quite against the foreigners dating Koreans, and did not want the foreign guys hanging out with the Korean women who worked at the company. I'm pretty sure he was or would be upset knowing some of the foreign guys had Korean girlfriends. Well, I guess racism isn't necessarily illegal.

One schools wanted to keep 10% of the pay as a kind of insurance against the foreign teacher running away. But I don't think he lost any money.

I guess there are many more!

And yes, teachers do a lot of bad stuff too.

Yelman · Joined: 10 Jun 2006 Location: Chicago, Ill USA

im thinking to try teaching in Korea.
is presenting ur job conditions for service ok.
you might say i have my own contract.
i would be willing to supply anyone with a copy of it for review.
I did this so as to help keep my butt from being toasted.
maybe useless.

yelman

heydelores · Joined: 24 Apr 2006

Yelman,

People occasionally post contracts for review on the job discussion board. They generally leave out the name of the employer/school. I've never done this myself, but the comments usually look pretty helpful. There are quite a few experienced people on this board who might have some good advice for you. I'd say it's worth a try, especially if this is your first time teaching in Korea.