Korean Job Discussion Forums

[HanlSky]

Would you say that you are underpaid compared to American teachers (Starting pay of about 30-something k)?

[sulperman]

It's apples and oranges.

Foreign PS teachers in Korea don't don't make report cards, don't really give grades or tests (beyond a little speaking test in most cases), don't talk to parents, and generally don't have any other school duties beyond teaching.

But as for the average schedule? 22 classes a week- 40 minutes each for elementary, 45 for middle, and 50 for high school. At school 8 hours a day, and you spend the rest of the time preparing for classes or surfing the web or studying or whatever you feel like.

[OThePestO]

[thegreg52]

I'm at a public high school. Public school's contracts stipulate that we will work no more than 22 hours per week. Each class, regardless of time, is rounded up to one hour. So a 45-minute middle school class rounds up to one teaching hour, as does the 50-minute high school class. Personally, I teach 20 classes per week. If there was a middle school teacher teaching 20 classes per week also I guess that technically I would be doing more work than them, but it doesn't seem like enough to really care about.

I do, however, get many more days off than my middle/elementary school counterparts. There are many test days in high school that I don't need to show up for, so I think it's much nicer being at a high school.

[HanlSky]

So if you teach English in Elementary school in Korea, you work 14 2/3 hours a week in classrooms?

I want to spend as little time outside of classroom as possible to prepare for the classes; how much hours would that be in addition to 14 and 2/3 hours of teaching in classrooms?

How much does it turn out to be USD/hr in average?

[debinoxford]

If you really want to spend as little time prepping outside of teaching, then I suggest you look at a hagwon job. I worked one for two years and only had 1 hour a day I wasn't teaching. 30 minutes when I got to school and 30 minutes at the end of the day (sometimes).

[HanlSky]

^
How much did you earn in hagwon?

[HanlSky]

^
How much did you earn in hagwon? How many hours exactly was it that you taught each day?

[Kaypea]

I think you can earn more at a hogwan, but not necessarily. The good thing is it's a private business, so you can look around for the higher paying places and maybe even negotiate a higher wage.

But, you do more work.

It depends how you feel:

At my PS, I have lots of time to lesson plan (at hogwans, you often just "teach from the book" to various extents), to study for my distance MA, to study Korean, to write unhelpful posts on Dave's...

I think I would generally reccomend a hogwan for a first job, because you don't have to lesson plan *as much*, and you'll meet more foreigners.

The pay is generally around 2.0-2.2 for a first time person, according to the job boards. That's comprable to PS pay. But, there are rumors of the 2.8-3.0 jobs... I think they're carefully guarded secrets.

[MalFSU1]

I teach public school for 22 hours....but one is just with two students doing intensive studies and the other is a teachers class that they have stopped coming too. I also teach 4 hours of after school classes within my 9-5 schedule...I get paid quite well for those extra classes. I probably spend about 5 hours a week prepping materials, the rest is spent doing stuff on the internet.

[Louis VI]

Starting work at 2pm or 3pm and finishing by 8pm or 9pm. NOT exactly hard.

Teachers back home devote their life to teaching, or at least, they used to, with all their extracurricular events, coaching and activities. My six hours a day from start to finish is nothing in comparison.

[vermouth]

I don't think there is all that much of a standard day when it comes to Private education (after school programs and Hagwons).

If you teach at a kindergarten you'll start pretty early in the day. I start my day around 9:30.

If you're only at a kindergarten you might be done by 5.

If you teach elementary school you'll probably have your first class around 2. And be done by around 8:30-9.

If you teach middle or high school aged Hagwon students you may not be done till 10 or 11 but you won't start till like 3-4.

The amount of prep can vary quite a bit depending on level and program.

At my elementary school i have maybe 20 minutes of grading and 20 minutes of prep that I have to do before I start but that's it. Everything else is from the materials--and that was good for my first year but you'll quickly find yourself pulling your hair out at how dumb it is.

I have a friend who teaches at an after-school program and he's building the whole of the curricululm and he spends a ton of his free time making stuff for class because it just takes that long.

[HanlSky]

[thegadfly]

Hanlsky,

American teachers get paid relatively less and have more work and more stress than folks that work ESL in Korea. Gross pay numbers in the US may look bigger, but once you factor in accomodations, health coverage, and the much lower tax rate, the net pay of folks in ESL here is much higher....

...and if you are willing to work at actually teaching, you can land a better-than-average gig.

[HanlSky]

Thank you everyone for your helpful replies. I would like to teach Elementary; is it harder to get the ESL job as Elementary teacher?