Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Bibbitybop]

I have a friend who is considering hogwans in Korea. He has an offer from Gangseo SLP.

I've read up on SLP schools (a.k.a. Slave Labor Program) and am telling my friend to be wary. Does anyone have specific information or recommendations about the Gangseo SLP?

Cheers.

[ttompatz]

[ProsePech]

I used to work at that SLP. It's not that bad. You get paid on time. If you need an advance you can get it. The curriculum is set up for elementry and middle school classes. The studio apartments aren't massive but they are nice and they're close to everything including the Han and they are in nice officetels-they're about 12-13pyung. You won't work 30% over the time they say. The high-kids program 1 to 1-9 is really a group of false beginners. The kids that were there 2 years ago when I was there were really sweet most of the time. I have almost a hundred pictures of the kids when I worked there and I cried when I left.
There were runners I won't lie. The people who have done runners from that school weren't competent enough to finish out their contracts or weren't prepared for Korea. The boss that runs it is a bit of a twit but I still know two of the elementry/middle school teachers-both Korean and they're pretty good. The rules for no Korean are stictly adhered to at that school and the Korean teachers are near native speaker and when they don't know something they will ask for your help or to explain something.

Vacation time is 1 week at Christmas and one week in summer which is pretty typical for a hogwan that teaches from kindy to middle school.
Find out for your friend which grades they'd be teaching. I loved teaching science, and art. I wasn't fond of teaching phonics and gym but you can't win them all.

[garykasparov]

ProsePech

Working Hours

( 1 ) What were your working hours?
( 2 ) When did you prepare for your classes?
( 3 ) How long did you prepare for your classes?
( 4 ) How long were your breaks?
( 5 ) Did your employer allow you to use your breaks freely?
( 6 ) How many classes did you teach per day?
( 7 ) How much time do you spend teaching per class?
( 8 ) What hours do you work during the summer vacation, winter vacation, and weekends?

Job Duties

( 1 ) What job duties did you perform that were not written in your contract?
( 2 ) How often did you perform the above duties?

Wages & Overtime Wages

( 1 ) Did your employer always pay overtime wages?
( 2 ) Did your employer pay your wages in cash or deposit your wages into your Korean bank account?
( 3 ) How did your employer calculate overtime wages?

Pay receipt

( 1 ) Did your employer provide pay receipts that clearly stated the date of pay, pay period dates, overtime wages earned, monthly salary including deductions from your monthly salary for ( 1 ) pension, ( 2 ) income tax and ( 3 ) health insurance?

Health Insurance

( 1 ) When did your employer provided you with a health insurance card?
( 2 ) Did your employer pay contributions for both parties to the National Health Insurance Corporation?
( 3 ) Did your employer respect your right to medical privacy?

Pension

( 1 ) Did your employer pay into the Korean Pension Plan?

Income Taxes

( 1 ) Did your employer always deduct the correct amount for income taxes from your monthly salary?
( 2 ) Did your employer pay deductions from your monthly salary for income taxes to the tax office?

Severance Pay

( 1 ) Did your employer always pay severance pay upon completion of your contract?

Living Conditions

( 1 ) Was your apartment clean upon arrival?
( 2 ) Were you provided with all the furnishings as stated in your contract?
( 3 ) Were all the furnishings/appliances in working order when you moved into your apartment?
( 4 ) Were the bills in your name or your employer's name?
( 5 ) If the bills were in your employer's name, did your employer deduct the correct amount from your monthly salary for utilities?
( 6 ) Did your employer respect your right to privacy?

Paid Annual Leave

( 1 ) When and how do you use your paid annual leave?

Dismissal

( 1 ) Does your employer have a reputation of dismissing teachers for the sole purpose of not paying them last month�s wages, airfare and severance pay?

Financial

( 1 ) Was the school in financial trouble?

Discipline Methods

( 1 ) Was your employer abusive towards students?
( 2 ) Was your employer abusive towards teachers?

Paid Sick Leave

( 1 ) Did you use a paid sick leave day?
( 2 ) If yes to ( 1 ), how did your employer react?
( 3 ) If teachers used a day of paid sick leave, did your employer require them to work another day to make up for the hours missed?

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=105423

[ttompatz]

[ProsePech]

Working Hours

( 1 ) What were your working hours? mon-fri depended on the day:
Mon1:20-7:40 Tues 1:20-6:40 Wed 1:20-7:40 Thurs 2-6:40 Fri 1:20-7:40
These are approx, it was 2 years ago!
( 2 ) When did you prepare for your classes? less than an hour before
( 3 ) How long did you prepare for your classes? less than an hour
( 4 ) How long were your breaks? 10min between each 80min session
( 5 ) Did your employer allow you to use your breaks freely? yes
( 6 ) How many classes did you teach per day? no more than 8 EVER.
( 7 ) How much time do you spend teaching per class? 30min-let the kids do some in class work
( 8 ) What hours do you work during the summer vacation, winter vacation, and weekends? you don't work any of those, there were no weekend classes and the school shuts down for summer/winter vacation. Intensives are different

Job Duties

( 1 ) What job duties did you perform that were not written in your contract? zero
( 2 ) How often did you perform the above duties? zero

Wages & Overtime Wages

( 1 ) Did your employer always pay overtime wages? yes but I rarely did overtime
( 2 ) Did your employer pay your wages in cash or deposit your wages into your Korean bank account? deposited always into the bank acct.
( 3 ) How did your employer calculate overtime wages? don't recall, don't care

Pay receipt

( 1 ) Did your employer provide pay receipts that clearly stated the date of pay, pay period dates, overtime wages earned, monthly salary including deductions from your monthly salary for ( 1 ) pension, ( 2 ) income tax and ( 3 ) health insurance?
Yes, all of the above

Health Insurance

( 1 ) When did your employer provided you with a health insurance card? within a week of being at the school
( 2 ) Did your employer pay contributions for both parties to the National Health Insurance Corporation? yes
( 3 ) Did your employer respect your right to medical privacy? yes

Pension

( 1 ) Did your employer pay into the Korean Pension Plan? yes, and I got my pension back promptly, it's a little hard not to when the Pension office shares a parking lot with the school, it's behind and to the left. Annie was the Korean woman that helped me with that at the office, she speaks very good English.

Income Taxes

( 1 ) Did your employer always deduct the correct amount for income taxes from your monthly salary? Yep
( 2 ) Did your employer pay deductions from your monthly salary for income taxes to the tax office? all was done as was supposed to

Severance Pay

( 1 ) Did your employer always pay severance pay upon completion of your contract? Yes

Living Conditions

( 1 ) Was your apartment clean upon arrival? the first place wasn't great but after six months we were moved to the current apt which are Humanvil and another one-can't remember the name and they had the cleaning lady from the school come and clean them first-but do your own cleanliness check.
( 2 ) Were you provided with all the furnishings as stated in your contract? yes-actually more
( 3 ) Were all the furnishings/appliances in working order when you moved into your apartment? yep
( 4 ) Were the bills in your name or your employer's name? yours! you're supposed to pay the utilities
( 5 ) If the bills were in your employer's name, did your employer deduct the correct amount from your monthly salary for utilities? n/a
( 6 ) Did your employer respect your right to privacy? yes

Paid Annual Leave

( 1 ) When and how do you use your paid annual leave? when I was given them-one week at Christmas-couldn't afford to go home so stayed in Seoul. One week for summer-I went to Taiwan for 8 days, not that that is any of your business

Dismissal

( 1 ) Does your employer have a reputation of dismissing teachers for the sole purpose of not paying them last month�s wages, airfare and severance pay? no, never.

Financial

( 1 ) Was the school in financial trouble? no.

Discipline Methods

( 1 ) Was your employer abusive towards students? no, we had a strict, you must do your best to be nice to the students
( 2 ) Was your employer abusive towards teachers? never.

Paid Sick Leave

( 1 ) Did you use a paid sick leave day? 5 days are in the contract, I used 2-at the end of the contract whatever days you do not use are added to the severence so I got back 300,000won for unused days.
( 2 ) If yes to ( 1 ), how did your employer react? with dismay but was never discouraged from using it
( 3 ) If teachers used a day of paid sick leave, did your employer require them to work another day to make up for the hours missed? never. how could you make up for it when the school was closed on weekends?

I have been teaching for now over 5 years. I already had 2 years exp in Japan and have always been professional. The training wasn't great but while I was there no one left because they were treated unfairly. One left over Christmas because she was home-sick. One did a runner at the end of her first month because she thought Korea would be just like the rest of SE. Everyone else finished contracts-EVERYONE.

[ProsePech]

ttompatz: You're a big jerk and I'm very glad that I have made only 4 posts in 3 years of belonging to this board because of people like you

21 classes of 90 minutes = 31.5 FULL hours in the classroom. I had 18 hours of class
Your average hakwon monkey works 30 classes of 50 minutes or 25 FULL hours in the classroom.
At SLP you will spend 6 1/2 hours MORE time in the classroom PER WEEK and you get the same money as the next guy. that's wrong at that SLP. do not make generalizations. Please.
And as an afterthought, a PS teacher spends just under 15 hours per week in the classroom (22 classes of 40 minutes) for the same money.

ASK if anyone has an NHIC medical card (bet you they don't). Of course I had mine, and I used it and my co-workers who had to go to Yongsei Hospotial and Severence Hospital that year also had theirs.
ASK if anyone got a pension refund (bet you they didn't). We all did.
You'll be working kindy to elementary and early middle school so you can expect your work day will be about 10 hours long. Not true. Kindy teachers work kindy to early elementry only. The rest usually teach afternoon kindy to middle school and the school closed shop before 9pm
ASK if you have to feed or be with the kids at lunch time. sometimes the Kindy teachers had to have lunch with the their kids but no one else did.

I stand firmly on SLP being in a close race with Wonderland for the absolute WORST hakwon chain to work for in the country.

Actually I have a friend who worked for Wonderland out in Ansan this year and she had a perfectly good year with them.

[garykasparov]

RE: ProsePech answering the above questions

Any teacher from SLP who gives a stellar report is full of beans. ProsePech isn't being truthful. Is ProsePech a Korean working at SLP?

[ttompatz]

[jkamphof]

[Draz]

Sometimes it's not that bad but even when it isn't that bad, it looks like it could still be better.

I plan to become the anti-ttompatz and rail against public school jobs every time they come up. I will write a comparison of my hogwan experience and public school experience (at the hagwon there is HOT WATER in the bathroom so you can WASH YOUR HANDS properly!!! Public school ran out of TOILET PAPER all the time!) and copy and paste it into every thread. Watch for it!

[ProsePech]

to anyone who wants to ask here's my email for further information.
[email protected]
I won't be checking this thread again.

I'm Canadian and I think that Gary trying to come up with the sad excuse that he thinks I'm Korean is pretty lame.

My take on hogwans: do your research! you cannot paint all the SLPs or Wonderlands with the same brush. You're an idiot if you do and you'll miss out on a good opportunity if you do.

[polonius]

I can't say that I really know anything about SLP. I did meet a teacher who worked at an SLP in Nowon, and had been working there for over 3 years. He had a lot of good things to say about it, and never paid any attention to all the negativity cast on this website.

So, I would suggest, get in touch with current teachers at the school, and not rely on disgruntled people who post only when irate. Gary Kasparov did give a good list of questions to ask current teachers. It is a sticky. It is best to get in touch with them.

Just remember that those who are discontent always speak loudest. There may be many teachers that work at SLP that are very happy, but don't post on this forum because a) only a small percentage of ESL teachers in Korea actually visit this site and post regularly, and b) you won't find people shouting their barbaric 'Yaup' from the rooftops when they are happy. They tend to go along with business as if it were usual.

[ttompatz]

[garykasparov]

ProsePech


meredithpech@hotmail.com > Why should forum members send an e-mail to your current girlfriend?