Korean Job Discussion Forums

fozziejr2 · Joined: 05 May 2008 Location: soon to be korea (august 08)

So I am thinking of taking this 3-4 weeks summer 'camp' job teaching at a University 4 days a week in Seoul. It is for 7-13 year olds, and the pay is decent. I have YET to teach english out there, and actually would be going before i start working for the ministry of education in South Korea. Will I be totally lost? Are these jobs pretty easy? I have NO idea what to expect from taking on a job like this. It has tons of little classes like imitative speaking, responsive practice, reading, word attack skills, drama in english.....I mean seriously I will have some few hours orientation the day before then I start working and have not taught english before. Please ease my pains. Hopefully someone will bring up something about american beef during my classes.

poet13 · Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 4:40 pm Post subject:

It's nice extra cash. I do four weeks a year, two in the winter, two in the summer. Its an extra 4.4 milion a year to me on top of my regular salary. I do about 20 classes a week, though I'm there from 8:45 till 3pm. After the first round of camps, I sat in a meeting for and AAR, and they asked me what could make the camps better. I told them that students levels didn't matter. The most important thing for the teachers was having motivated students. They actually listened to me, and since then, camps have been a joy at all levels.

fozziejr2 · Joined: 05 May 2008 Location: soon to be korea (august 08)

Yeah but do you think these camps would be hard if you hadn't taught or got adjusted to Korea yet? I just dont want to be standing up there clueless. After all these anti-america posts I am sort of under the impression some of these people might automatically hate me.

Yesterday · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 6:45 am Post subject:

I'm Seoul Lost · Joined: 19 Jun 2006 Location: In the mountains of Gyeonggi

poet13 · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 1:12 pm Post subject:

"Yeah but do you think these camps would be hard if you hadn't taught or got adjusted to Korea yet? I just dont want to be standing up there clueless. After all these anti-america posts I am sort of under the impression some of these people might automatically hate me"

The first camp I did in Korea was about 2 weeks after I got here. no prep, nada. One morning, my haggie owner said we have a camp this week....It was elementary, but it was cool.

"Please explain - how - after you told them this - the students became more motivated....??"

Simple. Instead of choosing the students from the various schools according to their English level (they previously only chose the highest and we got a lot of kids who just didn't want to be there.), they now select them by how much they want to participate in the camp. Individual teachers submit the names of students who they believe really want to do it, and there are a few students from each school sent to the camps. In the case of my school, we know who is motivated and who is not. Often it's the lower level students who are more motivated. They are the ones we invite to camp.

""Floggings will continue until morale improves!""

Floggings help.