Korean Job Discussion Forums

[spyro25]

I am considering going back to the UK in 2010 to start a Ph.D in TESOL, primarily looking at researching assessment in TESOL, and I was wondering if there were any other Ph.Ds / Ed.Ds on Dave's who could share their experiences about such a course. I'm only at the proposal stage so far, collecting journals to go through over the coming year, but I am curious where you did you programs, and how long you spent having classes against doing research in the field. I imagine I would do most of the actual research for the Ph.D in Korea, seeing as how it is my most familiar context and all.

any other ph.d's out there want to share their experiences? I hope to land work in a top university either in korea or worldwide after graduation as TESOL is still a relatively new discipline and is one of the boom industries right now, with many unis as yet unable to offer a course (a gap which would be filled by yours truly!)

[PRagic]

Didn't do mine in anything ESL related, but I can tell you one thing: Don't get too psyched up about getting a killer job right after you graduate. You might get picked up by a good school in Korea, but even with a Ph.D. in TESOL, they'll probably still have you teaching 4 classes a semester!

For the better jobs at better universities in N. America and Europe, you need at least one year of teaching experience past the post-doc and, depending on the dicipline, at least 3 published papers in ranked SSCI journals. That takes time as a top-50% journal publication can take 1-1.5 years from initial submission to publication.

Good on you for going for the degree. Just be patient when you're wrapping up. My advice would be to do a one year post-doc at the biggest name school that'll have you. Even if the pay is terrible, it'll give you time to cut up and publish a few papers from your dissertation, and that will help you immensely down the road.

[spyro25]

that sounds like sound advice and will be something I will look into. To be honest, korea is probably the LAST place i would choose to come after graduating! Plenty of uni's back home don't yet offer courses in TESOL yet it is supposed to be a booming industry for the ones that do. I think finding employment at a uni who might be crying out to open an undergrad or MA TESOL course might be a reasonable option right now.

a couple of terms every few years or so at PUFS in pusan would be very nice too, in case i got the korea bug again (wife is korean so.....)