Korean Job Discussion Forums

[wylies99]

Get the school's info ASAP. Push your recruiter to get a school for you ASAP. Call them. Then you can deal with the school directly for move-in date/immigration/etc...


BTW, some recruiters have better connections with GEPIK than others. That impacts many things.

[sojusucks]

Try to be close to Seoul or at least close to a subway station. You'll thank me later.

[elzoog]

[NohopeSeriously]

Rural schools in Gyeonggi-do is infamous for having a very rep, including native Korean teachers.

It's not surprising to say that the Gyeonggi-do Education Board is often cited as the worst Provincial Education Board in Korea. And GEPIK is the only public English program in Gyeonggi-do.

My biggest regret in life is that I applied to a GEPIK position.

Never apply to GEPIK. You'll thank me later.

[minos]

I 'll say it once and I'll say it again:


Minos RULE

Korean rural = florida retirement village or family oriented suburb(if your lucky!)

It's not a matter of being social, nightlife, fun, etc.

It's more like:

Do you prefer friends in their 20-30s?(go major city) or 40+(rural is fine)?
Do you hang out with other families or other single people?
Do you hang out with lots of old people back home(yes for rural)?


Lastly, the entire town business is usually oriented to it's age groups. In many rural towns that means a small amount of places for the young and a gazillion for grandparents, families, and small children.

[rogue123]

I work at a GEPIK elementary rural. I live in a village, not a town, a village of maybe 2-3000 people. In terms of Korea, it is so small there is no PC bang. There is no Family Mart. But there are a few Korean restaurants and a ghetto convenience store with the usual snacks and sweets and some overpriced food/veggies. I take the bus 10 minutes to go to a town that has a grocery store. Behind my place there is a "mountain" with a Buddhist temple and some hiking trails. I'm from the northwest, and I love the outdoors and hiking, so this is cool, but June through October the tree covered hills aren't enjoyable to hike due to the blinding amount insects. English is not a priority at the school, none of the other teachers save the librarian speak very much of it, and I have never received any feedback about what or how I teach. That is great. Like almost all GEPIK rural positions, I have no dedicated co-teacher to assist in the classroom, and all the kids are sent to my classroom by their homeroom teachers. Some don't have the textbooks. Many of my students wear the same clothes day after day, a couple are orphans. Most are quite poor by Korean standards. In the beginning I went from classroom to classroom, which from what I've heard, is most common for English teachers at a rural school. Later I got my own classroom. The school and my house are surrounded by farms and fields and the school and its soccer field are the focal point of the community. The main paved roads are to narrow to bike or run on safely, so after school one can run at the school where most of the kids are all the time, or walk around through the country side. I enjoy more choices than that for physical outdoor activities. My class sizes range from 22-45 students, grade 1-6, and kindergarten is 18 students. It is likely you will teach all the grades the smaller the school gets. Luckily there are two ski resorts nearby so it was fun in the winter. And on its route the Seoul bus stops in the village, and takes about 50 minutes to get there. I go to Seoul EVERY weekend. I will finish my second year here in 4 months. My school lost funding, so I am the first and last foreign teacher at this school. Which was fine to hear, because I wasn't going to stay on any longer. I became proficient at the violin again and solid in a couple new languages. Writing and drawing as well. Hobbies are your new friends. If that isn't for you, maybe you will love bumpkin Korea and study and learn Korean. Props if you do. Otherwise find religion. The Christians proselytize like crazy here and are the only ones decent at english. Good luck to you and all who tread GEPIK rural.

[young_clinton]

[andrewchon]

rogue123's 마을 sounds like it is small enough to not sell American cigarettes. If I had to smoke Korean ciggies: well, that'll be too rural for me.

[wylies99]

You don't want to teach at a rural school, unless you have no other choice for employment. I have heard so many horror stories. I heard about a male teacher who was in a rural GEPIK area, and he was the first foreign teacher in that town. When he tried to shop at the local grocery store they called the police. He eventually got a letter from the Principal introducing him, in Korean, and he was told to show it to people if they refused to let him into the stores.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[shostahoosier]

[young_clinton]

There is going to be a serious difference between residing in a community of 2 or 3000 and a community of 15000. If at all possible your residency (apartment) should be in a community no less than 15000, and a community that has a bus terminal with direct buses to Seoul. In my opinion those are the key elements.

[suki]

I like being in a rural assignment. Every time I visit Seoul, I'm SO HAPPY to leave the crush of people and get back to a slower pace. Plus, it's really lovely and visually refreshing. My students are a lot less stressed out - they don't care about English grades, but because they're not angry and pressured, they tend to be much friendlier. And, because there are less of them, you get to know them better, only their English level is so low it's almost impossible to have a meaningful conversation.

The bad thing about these GEPIK rural assignments is that your peers are kind of grumpy. Most commute long distances, sometimes from the complete opposite side of Gyeonggi-do, don't have a life of their own because they also teach night school, and don't have time to socialize with you or deal with you and your foreigner needs. Very few - maybe none - of the other teachers will live in town and the last thing they want to do is hang out with anybody from school. So it's very isolating in that regard.

Hooking up with other neighboring foreigners may also be harder than you imagine, as the next town or two may not be convenient to get to, takes planning, and therefore nothing's spontaneous.

Will add to the previous voices that said to try and get something on the subway line.

I have a few beefs with program leadership, but the program itself seems to get better each year. But I wish I had started out with EPIK instead, simply because the 5 year relocation of Gyeonggi teachers far from their homes causes a lot of unhappiness among the Korean English Teachers, and they tend to be in GEPIK because they didn't feel competitive enough to attempt applying to Seoul (or so they have told me) So these factors can affect their classroom management. Of course this will vary with the co-teacher, but that's been my experience.

[morrisonhotel]

[Modernist]

Jesus, and I thought my school was rural.

Lots of great comments here about the reality of rural schools. I second [third?] the thought that students are less stressed out and more friendly. Suki's point about the extraordinarily low level of comprehension is also bang on in my experience; only maybe 20-30% of my students can even understand simple directions in English.

One thing I would say, though, is about motivation. The bottom third or so of my students really don't care in any way about learning English. Their families can't afford or don't use hagwons, so they don't put any effort into PS classes. I have yet to discover much in terms of mechanisms to get them engaged or receptive to learning.

As far as living rural goes, I can only say that I must have lucked out as though my school is in a crossroads of maybe 5-7000, my co-teacher found an apartment for me in the local center, complete with Line 1 subway station only a few minutes away. [+ E-Mart, markets, decent restaurants, PC bangs and all the standard Korean city features]. I get the rural pay without having to actually, you know, be there