Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pkang0202]

[lemak]

That sitting around for hours on end with your thumb up your ass is just as bad. When I say teaching hours I actually mean work hours, since I never was required to stick around for more than 5 mins after my last class and prep time *before* class was up to the individual.
In my experience 8 hours a day at work in the ESL Korean world wasn't usual. Not to say it doesn't happen, but 8 hours a day vs 6 hours a day works out to be an extra day or two of teaching each week. Screw doing that for 2 mil a month.

[saram_]

I talked with a recruiter today who won't pay more than 60,000 won for two hours teaching kindergarten!
I think it's kind of ridiculous really--
He said that teachers are happy to take 50k for two hours work.. (prob not true)
He can do and say this because more and more teachers are here now and are willing to settle for less pay..

The market is completely saturated!

ESL teachers pay has dropped a lot in the past 5 years.
Korea is getting more expensive and our pay is decreasing!
It's not a teachers market anymore but rather a recruiters.
They can choose lower pay and teachers here have little choice but to accept!

[jfromtheway]

I'm going to go a bit off topic here since the working conditions in this country often make me sick. But the 9-7 jobs were a non-starter when I was applying from the US. Even though those obviously weren't all teaching hours, being required to stay at a hagwon for such a prolonged period of time was pretty offsetting to me. I also thought I was a night person until I spent a few months working the 2-10 shift when I first arrived, which was too dreadful to even entertain the notion of staying there for an entire year. I was teaching six straight 50-55 minute classes MWF, and five straight 50-55 minute classes TTh, with 5-8 minute breaks in between them. It was a nightmare, as it was micromanaged, soul crushing insanity. And by the time I got home and ate, it was already around 11 pm. Then what?

Suffice it to say, comparing that with the job I got after getting the hell out of that circus monkey show, is like night and day. These days, I roll out of bed between 9:30-10:30, recharge the bank eye-boning Gangnam hotties from my window seat on the bus for 30-45 minutes, show up at the school, get greeted like the Barney-esq rock star weigookin figure I am from kids the second I walk in the gates, take a nap on the couch in my room for an hour, do some reading/writing/GRE prep, then hang out with some kids for three and a half to four hours, only two of which I wind up actually "teaching". Home around six, plenty of time to do whatever the hell I please.

Even though I'm not really a morning person myself, having my evenings free, as was stated by Northway, is a great benefit to have. I took a 200k/mo pay cut with my present job but I generally save almost the same amount as I did before. I'll live with that though, as my peace of mind was instantly revitalized.

I guess the point of my personalized drivel, is that NO ONE should take these jobs unless they enjoy working more than they have to, or if they have a legitimate reason for enjoying the particular job itself. Personally, I didn't come here to work my ass off, and I was lucky to find a job that generally requires almost nothing of me. I even turned down a university position and I've only been here 3/4 of a year. But I hustled hard when I quit my hagwon job. It sounds corny, but I think if you have a good attitude, beef up a three page resume with semi BS, pimp hustle yourself, and make as many connections as you can, you can find a good job fairly easily. Despite what many of the naysayers here might conclude.

[Weigookin74]

[s.tickbeat]

I still think the 2 - 10 hagwons are just as much as the 9 - 7 hagwons, the only difference being that the former doesn't have prep included and the latter pays less. Teaching any more than 8 classes in a day is brutal. Teaching (actually teaching, not just being a warm body in a classroom) is exhausting and thankless. Last year I was working at an after-school program from 1:00 to 6:30 ; 30 minutes prep a day and 10-minute breaks between classes. The pay was fairly low at 2.1, but my partner was working grueling 8-hour days at a hagwon from 2 to 10, writing textbooks, making curriculum, marking things, writing reports, . . being a *real* teacher. His weekends were always eaten up, his evenings were never free, his mornings were spent recovering from the work he'd done the night before. A 2-10 job is not necessarily better than a 9-6 job.

This year we lucked out and are working pleasant, no-prep 6-hour days, teaching between 6 and 3 classes per day at 2.3, from 1:30 to 7:30 or 8:00.

[Who's Your Daddy?]

[ForeverWanderlust]

screw the 2-10's too.

get a 2-8

I wouldnt work anything more than 6 classes a day

[wallythewhale]

Maybe they just need a job at the moment? I'm sure out of the 20,000+ NSETs, there's a few who desperately need a job.

[sallymonster]

[PRagic]

Not just English teachers, either. For some time now I've been curious about the same thing regarding doctorate holding foreign profs in Korea, too.

Seriously, I've seen people with great qualifications accept jobs that paid WAY under market, required WAY more contact ours, and offered WAY fewer incentives. Why? Some may have just jumped at the first position that came their way. Some may have less than suitable knowledge of the local job market. But I've known people who have stayed in these crap positions. Always wondered about that.

To each their own? Maybe, but it makes it tough to make the case that pay and conditions should improve across the board. University A offering so-so pay and conditions can always simply say, 'Sure, but look at how good we are compared to (crap) university B.'

[transmogrifier]

Many of my old Korean students who have since joined the workforce started on unbelievably shit conditions and they sucked it up (for them it was basically that or unemployment, because the great majority of available positions were similarly shit)

Now, quite a few of them have been promoted and are making a decent amount, and they see the first few years as a sacrifice in order to get a secure, well-paid job to support their families.

The trouble is, hogwan employers have a similar mentality (beginning worker = crap contract conditions) but also count on the fact that (a) few native speakers are in for the long haul so won't hang around expecting a better contract each year, and (b) they can simply not rehire whenever they feel like it in order to avoid better contract conditions.

So it means we are doubly screwed by the system, simply because of the nature of our workforce. So many new teachers are available that there is no incentive to retain teachers who are good at their job.

[Joe Boxer]

[thunderbird]

cuz there stupid. I havnt worked thirty hours a week since i came here ... well one week but that was different. find the rite boss and its all smooth sailing

[northway]