Korean Job Discussion Forums

[withnail]

IMHO, one of the most thankless tasks I�ve ever done was to be a DoS (Director of Studies) in a hagwon. Now if you listen to the podcast on this issue on the midnightrunner�s excellent website, you�ll hear a thoroughly nice chap talk about his experience thus far in a decent hagwon, working with thoroughly reasonable Korean managers with very few real problems. However I�m sure many people in this job listening to that podcast were disappointed because the situation of the interviewee is very far from the norm. I sense a lot of people tuned in to learn something about how to deal with the key problems only to hear about a relative utopia. I don�t mean of course that we should wallow in a swamp of negativity, self-pity and a persecution mindset but we need to get real as there are often real problems in this position.

My advice to anyone considering such a move would first of all be never to arrive into this sort of job from outside, but rather only if you have been a teacher in that establishment for at least a couple of years. In other words be very cautious about accepting a DoS/Head teacher job advertised online. Luckily there don�t seem to be many of these positions offered in this way.

The first thing I learned was that the job title was a complete misnomer. Head Teacher would have been a little more like it but I would say �Teacher�s representative� would have been about right. I had to work under a hard-nosed business ajoshi with a background in running a franchise for a large Korean EFL chain. My expectations/assumptions about this position were hopelessly wrong coming from a Western EFL background. This was my own stupid fault for accepting the position without doing an awful lot more research.

In the autobiography of the famous old geordie football player Len Shackleton, there is a chapter entitled "What directors know about football" It consists pointedly of a single, blank page. The same could apply to what many Korean hagwon owners know about how to treat foreign English teachers. The problem is that solving problems of cultural difference is a two-way street but with hagwon owners it tends to be "my way or the highway!"

The Korean manager spoke almost no English and gave his orders translated through desk girls. My job was to �control the teachers� (his words) and in effect that meant to keep them sweet in the face of each new, mindless initiative that he dreamed up. Stuff like:

 blending classes of very different levels
 Instructing the DoS to recruit a teacher from an agency, then backing out just before a contract was sent leaving the poor guy dangling.
 Upon 2 teachers� departure at the end of their contracts, replacing them with just one. Then when finally accepting that another was needed, quibbling over the salary of a returning teacher, forcing her to send jpg images of her bank statements to prove her previous salary from our own school!

 Forcing a teacher requiring a day off to go round collecting signatures of agreement for those who were covering his classes.

 Revising the entire list of courses offered without consultation with the DoS then putting posters up around the school advertising the new programme.

 Hiring new Korean teachers and displaying their photos on posters around the school without telling anyone.

 Putting a pay-as-you go meter on the photocopier


I was not able to consistently keep the peace between the teachers and the Korean manager and in the end I just looked powerless! It�s difficult to know how success could have been achieved. I guess the only thing might have been fluency in Korean. Having a desk girl translate didn�t help as they were so scared of his rages there was a lot of stuff they wouldn�t translate! One of the worst things though was that there was no intelligent marketing being done that any of us could see and when the money didn�t come rolling in as expected, the response was brutal cost-cutting!

Anyway, I like most of the teachers finished my contract and got on my bike! Actually I suffered a little bit from battered wife syndrome in that with certain concessions I actually would have continued. I felt a bit like the England football manager Bobby Robson who after being told he was no longer required shortly before the start of the 1990 world cup remarked: "It was such a shame. Just when I was getting into my stride they threw away all my experience and wanted to started afresh with someone with no experience"(paraphrase)

My boss was glad to see the back of me and replied to my request for changes to the effect that a second year wasn't on offer anyway. They replaced me with one of the teachers I'd hired. That hurt! Incidentally I've learned that my replacement is on his way after just a year and so the dance goes on!

So here�s my advice:

1. Spend a lengthy period just getting the Korean manager on your side. Take considerable pains to show him what a nice and reasonable person you are without asking him for anything and especially any changes in this period.
2. Try to get him to agree to at least a weekly meeting. Try to get him to come out for a meal with the teachers once in a while so that they become more than just faces to him. One of the hardest things for me to get used to was the lack of communication. Your boss will expect to do as he pleases and you will be told after the fact and often not at all! This will make you feel unvalued and embarrassed. Unless you can gently persuade the boss to put you in the picture in advance of the changes, you'll have to learn not to get angry about it.
3. Be honest and real with the teachers. Talk to them about what you learn of the management style.
4. Do your best to protect the teachers� interests but never ever lose your temper with the Korean boss no matter what!
5. The drive for academic integrity will have to come very slowly if the boss is essentially a profiteer.
6. As mentioned before, only take a job like this from inside, otherwise you�ll have no idea what you are letting yourself in for. Also I really think you have to have spent a couple of years in Korea first.
7. The best way to smooth your path with the teachers is to spend most of your time helping them out as much as possible with their teaching. Often it is only in this area that you really have authority to do as you wish. Learn to be a real people person. �He who would be first, must be last� This is one of the few ways to hold on to authority when being undermined from above.
8. In the end, I guess you gotta win that Korean boss over no matter how long it takes�If it can't be done, get outta there! In my experience it takes about a year to learn how to make lemonade from many many lemons! I learned I wasn't cut out for it! All things taken together it was a valuable insight into the Confucian mindset and a real baptism of fire as it was my first job in Korea. However there is so much unpaid work, so much indignity together with no real vacation that I learned that in Korea it's better and more enjoyable just to be a teacher. I really respect those who can do this well but really you would need an enlightened Korean hagwon manager/owner to deal with who speaks English and preferably under 45 with experience of life outside Korea.

[Voyeur]

Often being a Head Teacher can be a horrific job.

And rarely is the extra pay worth it for the hours that go in.

[VanIslander]

A Korean friend was opening a new hagwon and wanted me to be his assistant director. Before committing I made eight recommendations regarding getting the business off the ground and NONE were adopted, he readily agreeing and just as readily caving in to the pants in the family: his ajumma wife decides everything despite his claim to the contrary. He "consults" her as she's his "partner" but that's not how it looks.

I said no thanks.

3.5 mill just ain't enough to put up with *beep* politics.

I teach what I want how I want in my own hagwon classes, my small sphere of total control, and that's enough. It would be nice to influence the curriculum more broadly but twice to thrice a week is enough to see improvement in my students' English skills so I'm content with what I have.

[withnail]

slave labour...

[polonius]

So, I was the one in Bassexpander's podcast. Like I said in the podcast, I have heard of the many horror stories out there, and I feel for those teachers.

I have worked hard for the past 5 years in my management position. I have ensured that the upper management trusts me and my decisions, and I in turn pass that trust onto my teachers.

The truth be told, the biggest headaches I have had over the years while managing a foreign staff of 23 teachers, are some of the antics that I have dealt with from my foreign staff. I used to do all the interviewing and hiring for 3 of our campuses, and it is really difficult to get a read of a teacher based on a 30 minute phone interview.

I have had to fire teachers for reasons ranging from teachers offering my students private lessons during class hours. He wrote his email address on the board and told them to have their parents get in touch with him. I have had teachers showing up to work drunk, falling asleep in class, using a Nintendo DS (when I asked why he was using it, he responded, �Oh, I didn�t realize that it was against the rules�) or talking on their cell phones for over 5 minutes in a class (If it were an emergency, I would have understood, but it was so that he could give a friend directions to his apartment.) One teacher was consistently verbally abusive to a Korean teacher. Others have completely neglected our curriculum and simply went into class and played games. When dealing with these teachers, I really do my best to try to help protect them from themselves. I talk to them a few times to explain the issues, if they don't rectify the situation, I write them a written warning, and then I will release them after the third or fourth incident. And rather than fire them with cause and put them out on the street, I give them 30 days notice so that they can make other plans to get themselves on their feet. There was one teacher who was arrested for stealing scooters, another for having a green package sent in the mail. We had to sever ties with these teachers immediately, but I did everything I could to help find them legal counsel. I do have more, but I think you get the point.

While there have been times when I have had to make suggestions to my managers in order to fix problems, they are often rectified quickly. I have to ask ask more than once to be given information ahead of time rather than the day of.

[withnail]

Sounds like you are doing a great job - the whole picture changes with reasonable Korean managers. I would go easy on the "my teachers" "my students" "my managers" thing. You are bound to get get ridiculed for delusions of grandeur! Just a thought...

[red_devil]

It is not the norm. The only successful and relatively pain free head teachers are ones that have built significant credibility and respect with the school, Korean teachers, and management by having been a proactive and enthusiastic teacher for many years, and the school is relatively good to being with.

If you do not go that route you are destined for a life of pain, politics, and resentment. These teachers often just become the bitches for the Korean management, the hired thug to do the dirty work, the speakerphone for management to talk to teachers, enforce meaningless and pointless rules, and work OT organizing workshops, and being the general poster child for the school. 99.9% of the time the extra pay will NOT justify the abuse.

They would not pay me enough to take on one of those roles.