Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jennad]

What's the general consensus on after school postions? I see them advertised a lot of this site and on worknplay.

They seem to good to be true. Why would anyone work 8-10 hours at a hagwon when they could make the same amount of money or more working an after school position for 5-6 hours? Most of the ads I saw even provided housing and insurance.

What's the catch?

[ayahyaha]

I am only speaking from my own experience. Either way, I think they're a lot easier. The hours are fewer and it's less stressful than a hagwon.

A few drawbacks:
--The Korean teachers who work at the school where I teach pretty clearly resent our presence there.

--The kids all run across the street and load up on candy before class, so they can be even more hyper than usual.

--Some kids who are clearly special needs (i.e. ADD, maybe even borderline autistic, other emotional issues) are stuck in these classes and ignored by their parents, so there's some difficult babysitting.

--I have heard teachers of after-school programs in poorer neighborhoods say that their kids didn't care AT ALL and were actually pretty mean and resentful to the teacher.

--The school won't let us copy or use their facilities, so we're on our own for materials if we want anything extra.

On the upside, the kids I teach are so much nicer than the kids I taught at a hagwon. I'm not sure why. Also, I see my kids every day, so we have an actual relationship instead of seeing each other once a week or so.

[jennad]

[YTMND]

I taught after school classes at 2 public schools, one was in conjunction with regular public school classes. The younger ones stay, but the older ones will eventually go to hagwon. They come late, leave early, eat in class, and you don't always have the same mix of students every day.

However, you can do whatever you want, no principal or hagwon owner breathing down your back. I had great Korean co-teachers, so I didn't have any problems with the Korean staff.

At both schools, I would go with the co-teacher to a bookstore and we would choose books together. Then, my co-teacher would order them through the school. However, if you are new to this, then you should be taking notes and writing up variations to lessons. After a while, you'll want to do your own thing. Continue to take notes, improve lesson plans, then your problem won't be content, but what not to teach because you won't have time to do everything.

You'll have to repeat lessons too if students yesterday don't show up today. This is something that usually doesn't happen in regular classes at public schools or hagwons.

[plchron]

got a buddy that got placed in an public afterschool program after orientation. It is like a hagwon style environment for poor people. He had no experience and no idea what he was getting into.
After a few 'complaints' he became micromanaged, insulted by his co-teachers, etc. Basically he is getting hagwon problems without hagwon pay. But because it is a PS position he does get paid on time and is not screwed with from other angles (pension, health, vacation all no problems).

[jfromtheway]

In my opinion, you can't beat it. But, that being said, situations will vary, and I probably have one of the best after school positions on the island: I take hour long naps at work sometimes, none of the kids show up on time so I start most classes 15-30 minutes late (sometimes I don't even teach at all), the after school company I work for (my boss) isn't even allowed to enter the school premises, and I get random, long vacations. Generally, six hours, less than four of which are teaching, no CCTV monitoring you constantly, no actual boss, being able to choose where you live, and on and on and on. The kids are also nicer, as noted above, since they view you as an actual teacher.

What I'm about to say is not going to sit right with certain people, but I don't really care about the people who would care about it anyway. Before I came to Korea I had a bit of time and ordered a second FBI CRC. I flew here knowing fully how horrible most hagwons were, and having read about after school jobs, mainly on this site. I bailed on my hagwon early on because it simply entailed too much nonsense and I would have been miserable had I stayed a full year. After that, I nagged every after school company I could get in touch with to set me up with a new job. I would recommend trying this approach for certain people.

The most important thing to do, if you work an after school position, is love your Korean co-teacher. Offer to buy her stuff and be aggressively nice. You exist as long as she says you exist, since everything flows through her. She talks to the moms, she gets the complaints, she deals with the AS director the most, she speaks with the AS company much more than you do, and she disseminates your evaluation to every party involved. Love her.

If someone put a gun to my head and told me I had to go back and teach at a hagwon, I'd say, "this better be fatal".

[kingssurfer]

Let me answer the question by the op

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=203541&highlight=

Hagwon? same amount of money to teach 5 hours a day and never see your boss. Giving you additonal time to work more and make twice the amount you would working at a hagwon, working the same number of hours a week.
F%&k Hagwons

[minos]

The above comments are pretty acurate, I had some crazy nutters and really good kids too.

A big problem is motivation. Some companies practically keep zero tabs on you nor provide any rewards system for doing well. Punishment is pretty much delt to your korean co-worker only (ie: Whipping boy).

If you love teaching, it's great.

If you don't.....well, your gonna get lazy real quick unless you monitor yourself.

As long as your not losing mass amounts of students or in red, nobody will bother you at corporate.

[FDNY]

I'm going into my 3rd year with an after school program. The only reason I stay is the money and working hours. 3.2M for 4.5-5 hours/day. It is pretty hard to beat that. It isn't the best job. There are some crappy things:

-Coteachers are paid on commission depending on how many students are registered. Therefore the Korean coteacher is sweet as pie to these rude kids. The western teacher has to be careful and speak nicely when disciplining the students. Some of these kids are rude animals.

-The coteacher is the boss regardless of how much experience he/she has. It can be a trial taking orders from a 25-year-old idiot with no experience.

-I'm sure the company is getting kickbacks from the book publisher. Therefore the books are rubbish.

-Vacations are five days winter and five days summer. Not much by western standards.

-No pension deductions. I don�t mind this because I put into two private funds already.

[saram_]

As you can see from the answers, they are real hit and miss..

Teaching at an afterschool program can be great with short hours, little prep...no hassle from company and you have loads of time to do whatever...

On the other hand, many of these companies now expect the teacher in 2 hours before class begins, you could be placed at a shitty school with little support and after-school progs are always at the mercy of the school.
So much is dependent on the relationship between the prinicipal of the school and the company u work with. Contracts between public school and afterschool companies are usually a year. Sometimes they get renewed but not always. The prinicipals expect some good rewards for allowing the afterschool progs in their schools.

Also, each school u get placed in is soo different...
You could end up teaching 5 classes of 16 kids for 50 mins from 12.20-5.20 where the school expects u in at 11 or the hours could be 1.00- 5.00..
Then there is the the matter of having a co teacher which is great or not depending on who who you are with and who u are yourself.
So many variables involved..

Make sure you know as much as u can about the public school u are getting in to before signing up for the Afterschool prog and also the exact demands of the afterschool company itself with regards time prep time..etc

Id give them a tentative yes-- but watch out for signs early if not all going to plan!

[alistaircandlin]

Here's my two cents worth:

I had an afterschool position for one year between 2005-2006, at an elementary school up in Sungshin. I preferred it to working at a Hagwon, which is what I'd done the previous year.

I used to arrive at school at 11am, but we didn't start teaching until 1pm. The two hours were used for lesson preparation and for eating lunch. Then I'd have four or five classes of between five and twelve students. We'd be finished by 5.30pm at the latest.

What I liked about this job was that it left the evening free. I could go to the gym then meet my girlfriend for dinner afterwards. Then I could stay up late, and get up at 10 if I wanted to. It was a job that I didn't take home with me. Go to school from 11am - 5.30pm. Job done. I rarely did any planning outside of those hours. I've often looked back on that year since then and thought that it was a very relaxed lifestyle.

I also liked the fact that I was left to plan my own lessons with no intervention from managers - mind you this never really happened at a hagwon either, now that I think about it. But there's something about an afterschool position that means you are just left to your own devices - you'll probably need to follow textbooks, but the way you use them, and develop the language points is up to you. I look back on it, now that I have a bit more experience in teaching, and think it would be a great job: small classes of students, late start, not stressful.

The thing that prevents me from looking for an afterschool job now is that I can get better pay at a public school, or other positions, and that the holidays are not so good - two weeks' compared to six weeks' at a public school. At my job in 2005 the facilities were not so good either: no computer, no projector, or IWB, and no aircon, but obviously this would differ from school to school.

My co-worker was fine: we had a good working relationship, and chatted over lunch. But this is the one big issue I've heard other people mention - if you have a difficult relationship with the KET, then it could be a drag. Also, you are quite separate from the rest of the school - or at least we were; that is, none of the other teachers (except for the vice-principal) had anything to do with us. I didn't actually mind this, because I'm quite happy to do my own thing, but I think this might bother some people - you can be quite isolated in a afterschool position; one of the nice things about hagwons is that you can hang out with other foreign teachers.

[CPT]

I spent two years in hagwons, a decent year in an after school job, a horrible year with the same after school job, and now I'm going back to one of my old hagwon jobs because, hours aside, it is much better. For me, anyway. I like the structure and security of a reputable hagwon.

From what I understand, after school programs exist in some kind of legal grey area, meaning there's usually something sketchy about them. Double bank accounts, no health insurance, no pension, non guaranteed hours/pay, etc, etc.

It seems like most will only hire F2s as new teachers now, which forces them to be a bit more on the up and up, since F2's can tell them to stick it if they don't.

Most responses in this thread have been fairly positive, but I would just say that in the same way you can't paint all hagwon, public school, or university jobs with the same brush, you can't judge one after school job based on another.

[ayahyaha]

[ayahyaha]

[Gorf]

HUGE yea. I love it. 20-25 WORKING hours a week depending on how much I rush my "lesson plans", which are just a bunch of nonsense. I only teach 15 hours. I only ever see my KET, who I get along with just fine. No principals, no other teachers. The kids, for the most part, are all very nice and sweet, but that might just be my school. It's great having a KET in the room with my because they put the fear of god into the students when needed. I never see or hear from my company boss or parents.

Aside from that, it's basically straight out the book and just being nice to the kids. There are some great students and there are some really bad ones, but most are in the middle and it's fine. The only drawback is that I don't get housing, but on the other hand, I can never be evicted in case things with my company go awry, so there's some security in having a "home base" of sorts. However, I'll gladly take a 2.2million job with no housing that only has 20 hours or work per week. I'm not in Korea to work 40+ hours at a hagwon (been there, done that) and I value my free time more than the money I could make be having a housing that is paid for by a school. I also have a scaled pay position, so if we have more that 60 students, I get another 200,000 per month, so it all works out.