Korean Job Discussion Forums

[MoonArisa]

Hi everyone,

I've been searching in previous topics and the "newest" seem to be from 2010 or early 2011, and I was wondering if anyone had more current information about how the company is... particularly the Gangnam branch.

I've read almost nothing but negative comments here, and logically nothing but good comments on their website, and mixed information from some people here, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it all. I've also heard there's a gag order in contracts preventing you to talk to new teachers while you work there and for three years following...

Grateful for your insights and comments!
~MA

[thebektionary]

Don't do it. My friend works there (the one in Gangnam) and she hates it. She struggles with money. She's never able to save. She has to pay her own rent... IN GANGNAM... which is like 700,000 won a month.

What's the point? I like working in Korea because of the monetary flexibility and ability to save.

[Son Deureo!]

Pagoda has been around for about 20 years, under the same management the entire time, and there are posts about Pagoda dating back to the beginning of this board.

Is there some kind of dramatic change you expect to have happened there in the past year or so?

[justthefacts]

I may be able to offer those looking for information about Pagoda. I worked for them several years ago. I never had any problem getting paid. I worked split shifts for about half the time I was there which were difficult-but it was what I signed up for so no complaints there. I generally enjoyed the other teachers. I did however have some unpleasant experiences. I was recruited by Ian Windsor. Other posts about Ian on this website, in my opinion, hit the nail on the head. I was under the impression, that I would receive a return ticket upon my completion of service. Of course this was most likely written in the contract (I really can't remember) but I was only provided with a one way ticket to Korea. That is my fault for not reading the contract, so nobody to blame but myself. Read your contract very closely when signing with Pagoda. What should be understood about Pagoda is this- If you want to go to Korea, make some money, and are not really focused on teaching, it can be a good place to work. However your success there will depend if the Korean students (henceforth referedto as customers) like you and if you stay in good graces with the management. I found the management to be lacking in many regards. Should you, however want to actually teach it is probably not a good choice for you. Pagoda is simply a business with very little focus on delivering some sort of quality instruction for their customers. As evidence of this I can tell you that Mrs. Park, the CEO of Pagoda, cannot speak English. An English school with an owner and CEO that can't speak English? Just how seriously does she/Pagoda take English education? During our three day training and orientation I gave a demo lesson. Afterwards I was told that it was an excellent demo by the trainer and later by Windsor that I had done excellent in training overall . About a week after classes started we were then evaluated by the head trainer. Again, I was given basically an A plus on my performance. Then a few days later the head teacher came to me and said there were complaints from the customers and I would have to go about things differently. Eventually I abandoned trying to actually teach any grammar that was being presented in the textbooks being used as it immediately lead to complaints. What I started doing was trying to have conversations in class with the customers. This was what Pagoda really wanted, as did the customers in my "class". This in the end did not go over well. Koreans in general are extremely ethnocentric people and in all honesty I probably laughed at times when during our conversations somebody would explain "fan death" (the majority of Korean believe that if you sleep with a fan on it will suck all the air out of the room you will die), the "fact" that the moon landings were faked, or how surgical alteration of an Korean child's tongue can enable him to speak English like a white person. I would try to reason with them on these points even going as far as to explain how the principles of Occam's Razor would illustrate the highly unlikely event that 500,000 people were involved in some conspiracy to fake the moon landings, or pointing out the fact that Asian Americans speak with an indistinguishable accent from those Americans descended from Europeans. Looking back It was my fault. Bringing up the concepts of Occam's Razor to support an argument with a group of Koreans that have signed up with a "school" like Pagoda would be like trying to explain the the intricacies of string theory to a group of ESL teachers. My bad. An illustration of how Pagoda will use its teachers to the extent that they will tolerate it can be seen in the different rules which each group of teachers must abide. At the Jongno branch in Seoul where I worked there were the Western teachers who taught the bulk of the classes. We were treated the best, we made more money and put up with less the least b.s. Then there were the the Korean Americans. They were treated much differently. They did not make as much money and they had no perks really. (by perks I mean things like having to bring their own markers, or not getting pizza at their meetings ect. The western teachers were served pizza right in front of the other teachers. There were also Japanese and Chinese teachers and my guess is they were treated even worse. Asians will put up with a lot more crap that westerners will from their employer, Pagoda knows this and will exploit it. It shows their true colors. So if you go to work for them keep that in mind. Read your contract, don't expect to actually teach, and realize that the management is all about making money and in my experience can be quite petty at times.

[War Eagle]

Man, you have got to use some paragraphing skills. I'm sure you probably have some good points, but I gave up by like line 5 or 6.