Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Bruce W Sims]

[avae]

Thanks again for your help! Yes, it's hard for me to recognize sarcasm in posts. I did a search and you're right, Wonderland is blacklisted. I did, however, find a few people on other sites said that it depends on which Wonderland you work at because they had a great time, but the majority advised people not to work there. I think I'll stay away from Wonderland.
Thanks!

[Bowden_PSM]

I worked at 2 hagwons out of 4 places. One I re-signed at.

1) Small independent ip-shi (everything) hagwon. Run by an older Korean guy and his wife, who had lived in the countryside for generations. They were very fair. No curriculum, but they were open to any approach. I liked the idea, as it gave me room for maneuver. I was a crap teacher, being 22 and right off the boat. They were patient, and paid on time (though the Korean staff never were). Morale was low, as students were jumping ship. Discipline problems with the kids; in fact I often didn't like them. But I liked my boss, and my house and Korea, so I was willing to put up with a lot. At 2.1 (& 2.2 after resigning 6 months), it was a great starting wage too. I was the only foreign teacher in a place in the countryside. This alone gives you some room for maneuver, as the owners know how hard it is to recruit a replacement. A positive experience; I still visit them every six months to see how they are doing.

2) Hagwon 2 was in the same small town and offered me 2.25 back at the end of 2005, which wasn't bad money at all. Another ipshi hagwon run as an independent (I stayed away from chains). Again, I was the only foreign teacher. The boss let his wife run everything and she was as nutty as she was controlling. Didn't like the CCTV in the classes. Was put in charge of cubiculum, so this was good; I could choose what I wanted to teach. They never forced much paperwork out of me, but sometimes it was like I didn't exist. I could go a whole week without talking to any other the 14 staff (I was the only English teacher). Had another decent one-room unit with great furnishings. Paid on time, and had no major problems. It was an ok existence.

3) Public school job. Worse experience of my life. Almost had me leave Korea on a sour note for the rest of my life. So intolerable I don't want to get into it much. Overtime withheld. Incompetent, seedy, racist management. Completely disorganized all the time. Sometimes had to teach with co-teachers (didn't like the majority of that). Shoebox apartment, with the most basic of furniture, no balcony, washer machine in the kitchen. 8 hours a day, even if there was nothing to do. There were often unpaid, extra duties forced upon us (including weekends sometimes). Couldn't do simple things like go to the post office or bank without getting permission from my boss to leave early (even though there was nothing to do - he would act so magnanimous when he granted approval - what a jerk). Just barely made it through my contract - and only just.

4) Private university. Fantastic. Everything is much better here based on my experience. Stayed 2.5 years. Good pay, great apartment, own office, little to no supervision (we're on our own to run our classes as we see fit), many different types of classes (business, army, drama, e-commerce, conversation, pronunciation, etc.).

So, in conclusion: University jobs trump all, but for sure, it is possible to have a good experience with a hagwon. My advice is to find a solid independently run one (that has been around a while), talk to the previous teacher before signing, and be the only foreigner there.

[Bowden_PSM]

I worked at 2 hagwons out of 4 places. One I re-signed at.

1) Small independent ip-shi (everything) hagwon. Run by an older Korean guy and his wife, who had lived in the countryside for generations. They were very fair. No curriculum, but they were open to any approach. I liked the idea, as it gave me room for maneuver. I was a crap teacher, being 22 and right off the boat. They were patient, and paid on time (though the Korean staff never were). Morale was low, as students were jumping ship. Discipline problems with the kids; in fact I often didn't like them. But I liked my boss, and my house and Korea, so I was willing to put up with a lot. At 2.1 (& 2.2 after resigning 6 months), it was a great starting wage too. I was the only foreign teacher in a place in the countryside. This alone gives you some room for maneuver, as the owners know how hard it is to recruit a replacement. A positive experience; I still visit them every six months to see how they are doing.

2) Hagwon 2 was in the same small town and offered me 2.25 back at the end of 2005, which wasn't bad money at all. Another ipshi hagwon run as an independent (I stayed away from chains). Again, I was the only foreign teacher. The boss let his wife run everything and she was as nutty as she was controlling. Didn't like the CCTV in the classes. Was put in charge of cubiculum, so this was good; I could choose what I wanted to teach. They never forced much paperwork out of me, but sometimes it was like I didn't exist. I could go a whole week without talking to any other the 14 staff (I was the only English teacher). Had another decent one-room unit with great furnishings. Paid on time, and had no major problems. It was an ok existence.

3) Public school job. Worse experience of my life. Almost had me leave Korea on a sour note for the rest of my life. So intolerable I don't want to get into it much. Overtime withheld. Incompetent, seedy, racist management. Completely disorganized all the time. Sometimes had to teach with co-teachers (didn't like the majority of that). Shoebox apartment, with the most basic of furniture, no balcony, washer machine in the kitchen. 8 hours a day, even if there was nothing to do. There were often unpaid, extra duties forced upon us (including weekends sometimes). Couldn't do simple things like go to the post office or bank without getting permission from my boss to leave early (even though there was nothing to do - he would act so magnanimous when he granted approval - what a jerk). Just barely made it through my contract - and only just.

4) Private university. Fantastic. Everything is much better here based on my experience. Stayed 2.5 years. Good pay, great apartment, own office, little to no supervision (we're on our own to run our classes as we see fit), many different types of classes (business, army, drama, e-commerce, conversation, pronunciation, etc.).

So, in conclusion: University jobs trump all, but for sure, it is possible to have a good experience with a hagwon. My advice is to find a solid independently run one (that has been around a while), talk to the previous teacher before signing, and be the only foreigner there.

[Illysook]

It really boils down to what your employer is willing to put into you. The hagwon owner who hands you a phonics workbook and says "go teach your class" hasn't any right to expect much from you and anything that you learn about teaching will be at your own initiative. This was my first hagwon experience and I found it extremely frustrating. I couldn't wait to go home.

This past year, I worked at a public school. They sent me to a 3 day GEPIK seminar. It wasn't worth much but I had co-teachers who were sometimes willing to give me feedback, but not much. I taught high school kids who were extremely unmotivated. It was quite frustrating but the schedule was very easy.

When I left the public high school, I decided to pursue the CELTA certificate. Now I will teach at a hagwon that mostly caters to adults. This particular hagwon is part of a chain with a policy manual that is telling me that my growth as a teacher is important to my employer. I think that it will be the best year yet.

[danielspaniel]

I've been working in a hagwon for almost four months and I have mixed feelings about it. On the positive side my working hours are good, I mostly have small class sizes, I have a nice three-bedroom apartment (with a free bike) with low utility bills, my boss is a nice lady, I (mostly) get paid on time and the salary is good. On the negative side the curriculum here is dull dull dull and very repetitive, a lot of the children seem like spoiled brats and they're really starting to bore me. But maybe I just need a break.

So I wouldn't say that my experience has negative so far, for the most part its positive and I've been lucky - there are some hagwon horror stories. That said, I wont be renewing the contract when it's done and if I was to teach in Korea again it would definitely not be in a Hagwon.

[Snowkr]

I didn't go through and read the replies here. I just wanted to answer the topic question: "Do positive hogwan experiences exist?"

For me, it's a huge YES. My hogwan job in 2005-06 was awesome. Several years later I came back to Korea and landed a great position in a training program which was also wonderful and huge honor for someone like me. But the management and accountability in the little hogwan I worked in years before was far superior to the "elite" training center I worked in years afterward in Korea.

I even wrote to my old hogwan boss and told him that even though I valued my current job and respected the employers and co-workers greatly, I found him to be the best manager/director/administrator I'd ever had the privilege of meeting and working with in Korea.

A school is only as good as its management-- but I doubt I need to reiterate this for participants here!

[CPJ]

Some hagwon jobs are great! Most are just average. Some are horrible!

All I can recommend is to ask a lot of questions to the current or former teachers. You should know exactly what you're getting after you do this and can make your own decisions. I think most people that are complaining about how horrible their hagwon job is , they are the ones that just never did their homework.

I go out and have met hundreds of people in town. Only a small percentage work at the horrible hagwons and they are the ones that never asked enough questions.

Public schools are about the same. Some are great, most are average, and some are shitty. The main problem is that you won't be able to talk to a previous or current teacher as you get placed after you bought your own flight to Korea and completed the orientation. Kind of hard to back out then and that's why the public schools do it that way.

Also, someone posted to not use a recruiter as they work for the schools. I think most recruiters work for themselves and I've never understood the 'avoid recruiters' mentality. Except for 1 job I found through a friend, the rest were through recruiters. I don't expect them to be my best friend or anything like that but they sure sent me a lot of job offers.

My public school job - not so good - through a recruiter.
My hagwon job that my friend set up - excellent.
My hagwon jobs through recruiters - excellent, very good, excellent, excellent, very good and my current one is excellent.

And if you're in a big city, only an idiot or a momma's boy is going to have huge culture shock. I could go a whole year knowing how to say only 'hello' and 'thank you' in Korean and still get by. everyone wants to speak to me in English.

[ineedajob]

bumping this because i want to hear from more. i'm thinking about teaching in s.korea. i am more interested in teaching at a hagwon because of the small class sizes but i've been hearing a lot of horror stories - mainly in regards to pay. if you're at a good hagwon, i would like to know what were the deciding factors before you signed.

[beentheredonethat777]

Once upon a time I worked at a very good new hogwan in a rural village.
The owners were super nice, pretty wealthy, had lived abroad,(but couldn't speak English) knew how to treat and respect Westerners and their privacy; gave me a huge three bedroom super clean, fully furnished ( with sofas, chairs and dining room tables, etc.) apartment within three minutes walking distance to the school. She even travelled to Costco and bought Western food for the fridge and cabinets.
The pay was good(2.7 , because of my experience) plus free 3 - course dinners three days a week, and bonuses. The students had all studied abroad so their English was insanely high level. We used American textbooks. The class size was 1 -6 students max! Everything was legit. (which is rare for a hogwan)

Believe it or not, I actually ended up quitting. Why? One of the other English teachers almost drove me crazy. I dreaded going to work every day. I really love teaching ;but the situation was unbearable.

My co-teacher was a basket case,( should have gotten treatment sooner, everybody's out to get me), suicidal Korean-American. He was angry at life,God, his parents, the sun, the moon, waking up, hated kids, Korea, his heritage, and teaching, He also hated that he was a Korean American and not just American. (He voiced all of these things on a daily basis, several times a time, to all who was within ear shot. Just in case you were wondering how I knew)
His greeting to all, upon his entry into the teacher's room was, " I hate living,I wish I was dead." I am a positive, upbeat person, so this negative energy, was very disturbing to me.

The owners would often ask him to translate ( I think that is why his behavior was tolerated for so long) for the foreigners at teachers meeting. He would (mis-translate on purpose) yell at us and often say he wishes one of us would die. The torture was unbearable! For my own sanity, I eventually quit and begged for a release/transfer letter. It was granted. Thank God!

He got fired the next day. I don't know why, exactly. What I do know for sure, had I have known he was not going to be there to harass me/us daily, I would still be there today.


Oh yeah, before signing the contract, you were also allowed to choose one of your favorite holidays from your home country as an additional vacation day, to be off with pay!

I'm still in contact with the current teachers there.

The apartment is the same but the dinners have ceased. The students still enjoy learning English and are very competitive. You can still pick your favorite holiday, The salaries vary from 2.4- 3.5 for bi-lingual head teacher)
Now it is more of test prep center, intensive learning style.
Still, it was a great school! If any of the current teachers need/decide to leave, I 'll post you.

I have worked in both public and private schools. I prefer the hogwans for class size and English speaking ability of the students and co-teachers.

[faeriehazel]

The first hakwon I worked at was a Chungdahm franchise. This was back in 2005, when Chungdahm was just starting to expand. Pros: I was fresh out of college and managed to get paid 30 an hour, which worked out to about 3 mil a month. My co-workers were great. The hakwon was in Sindorim, where the kids are a lot less cutthroat and bratty than the kids in the Gangnam area. Cons: The owner was racist. Oh, he'd act nice and take us all out to dinner occasionally and stuff. But occasionally he'd take me aside and say that I should never trust the white teachers (I'm ethnically Korean) because white people always stab you in the back later on. Whenever conflict arose he expect me to be on his side. Drove me nuts. Really unpleasant guy to work with.

Second hakwon was two years later - Chungdahm main branch. VERY different from the franchise. Didn't have to deal with the owner - in fact, the owner changed several times and I was barely aware of it. Pros: It's a big business so you don't have to worry about stuff like not getting paid on time. As long as you teach the way they want you to teach, they pretty much leave you alone. There are a lot of instructors at the big branches so it's easy to meet people. I actually had a lot of fun my first six months at main branch, and I made some really good friends. Also, there is room for promotion, if you're interested in that sort of thing. At a regular hakwon the most you can hope for is head teacher, maybe. You can take an unpaid break of three months if you want, and when you come back you'll usually still have a job. (Unless they hate you.) Cons: There is no room for creativity (except maybe with the upper Masters levels, but those classes are not given to everyone). Every so often the CEO comes up with some batshit insane idea and the branches are forced to implement it. You have to work weekends, and you get no paid vacation. Once we had a week off because of the swine flu scare (it was pretty much quarantine, we were asked to stay in our houses) and we all joked that it was the only paid vacation we were likely to get.

Third hakwon was a boutique in the Gangnam area. Pros: the management there really care about learning. They are all teachers themselves, and they are sincerely passionate about teaching kids. You are given a lot of room to implement your own ideas in your classroom. The classes are centered around reading actual books, not stupid textbooks. The class sizes are usually kept to below ten kids. Generally the people there are nice people and dedicated to their work. Cons: things can be a bit disorganized because the hakwon is small. Everything rests heavily on the shoulders of a very few people, and they are only human. The owner is eccentric and can be frustrating to deal with sometimes. People who are passionate can also be stubborn about what they think is right and wrong.

TL;DR - you're always taking more of a risk with smaller hakwons. They have the potential to be awesome but also terrible. Big hakwons like Chungdahm (and maybe Avalon) are pretty much run like a corporation, so things are a bit more predictable but you'll never have any room to be creative with your teaching, and you'll have to deal with the kind of petty bureaucracy that any office drone might have to deal with.

[happiness]

Yeah, Im working for a big chain, but a small school in Gyeongi. My boss is very nice to me, but Im chill anyway, Im not uptight about half the things ppl whine about here. I give some, they give some. Thats the key I think. All of my hagwons have been decent.

[Who's Your Daddy?]

I have found public school the most dissatisfying place to work. The curriculum is terrible. Apart from Grade 3, before you teach the topic most of the students usually know the material. So basically, it feels like an act, you pretend to teach the material, the students pretend to learn it again. It feels like such a waste of time (apart from the actual sitting around wasting time), and your self respect drops.

Although hogwons have their problems, the teaching seems more real. And you have more power to change the curriculum.

===
Here are some lesson topics:

Grade 6, Lesson 2: I'll play the Guitar.
Grade 6, Lesson 9: I'm going to fly a Kite.

So both these lessons teach the future tense. And each lesson, has 7 classes. So the Grade 6 students spend 14 lessons on basically the same subject.

The kids know it's a waste of time, and they know that you know it too.

Sidenote: If you look at the authors of the textbooks, not one non-Korean.

[young_clinton]

Does anyone have an idea as to the percentage of bad Hogwans that exist in Korea? I'm talking about the kind that rip you off, have unreasonable expectations and ridiculous reasons for firing NET's etc.

[EZE]

I worked for Reading Town Olympic Park in 2006-2007 and the owner there was just amazing.

My second hagwon was Wonderland so of course it was horrible.

I'm in my 14th month at my current hagwon. If Reading Town was an A+ and Wonderland was an F, my current one would be a B-.