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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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 Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 3:29 am Post subject: |
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| ttompatz wrote: |
And slightly off-topic but along a similar vein....
EFL IS a growth industry.
In the 80's and 90's the place to be was Japan. Wages were high, jobs were plentiful, work was easy and people got on airplanes.
AFTER the flu in 97/98 things changed. Japan stagnated and Korea started their growth spurt. From about 2000 onward Korea was the best bang for your buck in EFL. Lots of jobs, money was good, living was easy.
Move forward another decade and things move around.
China is now in its ascendency. Jobs are plentiful. Money is not bad (and getting better). The days of not finding work at more than 3000rmb are long gone and remuneration packages in the 6-15k rmb + benefits are easier to find.
Thailand has also matured as an EFL market with jobs in the 40k range being pretty common for those willing to look for them; up from 6000 thb a scant decade ago.
Has the market for EFL teachers in Korea reached its peak? I would say yes.
It has gone from a peak of about 30,000 teachers in 2008 to about 22,000 E2s now but that is still a long way up from the 6000 E2s back in 2002.
Is there still a demand? I would also say yes.
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I completely agree. |
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luckylady
Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Location: u.s. of occupied territories
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| Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 6:22 pm Post subject: |
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| The Internationalist wrote: |
I cant work the 9am - 6pm kindy / elem gigs so that cuts out alot of jobs.
I am also alittle picky about how many hours I want to work. Preferably less than 8 hours.
Also wont work job that pays 2mil
I did re do my resume and made a cover letter recently.
But yea I am making it pretty difficult with my guidelines. But still I had a much easier time last year when I ONLY was looking for Busan.
Yukoner, what recruiter(s) did you used that got you the job and the most interviews? |
I've said it before - when applying, always include photos of yourself with students; several photos are good, not just the one "professional" shot that can be (mis)interpreted so many ways. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 6:13 am Post subject: |
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| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
| viciousdinosaur wrote: |
1) Enrollment is down across the country (low-birth rate) School's are not expanding, they are shrinking. They are not opening, they're closing.
2) Wages are stagnant. There isn't the extra cash to throw around anymore.
3) Public schools are cutting back in a big way.
4) A lot of parents are fed up with hagwons and hire tutors instead or send them to the local community centre.
5) A bunch of the teachers who were here during the boom are trying to find another position
6) 8% (really 25%) unemployment in most of the developed world
These are the reasons you are having trouble fining the job you think you deserve.
Did anyone think this would last forever? That anyone with a degree could come to Korea and make lots of money. The market is already at a point where the lack of a teaching degree or experience makes it very difficult to operate here and that will only increase in the future. Fortunately for you there are plenty alternatives, and their names are China and Vietnam |
1- 3 are pretty accurate points.
4 remains to be seen
[snip] |
Regarding point 4, SO MANY hagwons have been losing students and going under lately. What in the heck is causing this?
I remember when the public school cuts took place, there was speculation this would help the hagwon industry, and lead to more jobs for foreigners there. Instead, that hope didn't materialize, and jobs for foreigners are being cut. What in the Sam Hill is going on?
Maybe parents are teaching their kids English themselves now? Or there are community centers that do this? I heard the number Filipinos in Korea is way up; many of them teach English as private tutors. Also, Korea parents can buy Skype lessons for their kids taught by a Filipino living in the Philippines. Did you hear Ban Ki Moon wrote a book (now popular in Korea) in which he said he taught English to himself (without going to a hagwon)? And did you know a group made and distributed mass amounts of flyers saying hagwons to learn English aren't the best use of one's money?
These are some possible contributing factors. Maybe there are other ones. What do you guys think/know about this? |
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misher
Joined: 14 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 1:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Did you hear Ban Ki Moon wrote a book (now popular in Korea) in which he said he taught English to himself (without going to a hagwon)? And did you know a group made and distributed mass amounts of flyers saying hagwons to learn English aren't the best use of one's money? |
Maybe because there is some truth to the above? I have no idea what the future holds, but I don't think it is crazy to say that hourly rates and salaries for conversation teachers (that is pretty much all what NETS are allowed to do with a smidgin of test prep for the same rates..yes University EFL teachers or MA TESOL holder "professors" are in the same boat) aren't going any higher and if anything, they will go down.
Is this because of a flooded market? It is probably part of it but I think a lot of it is due to the fact that many Koreans aren't seeing any value added by paying 75,000 an hour to yak in English to a native speaker. I know not all private lessons are simple conversations and free-talking. Some have structure and clear goals but I would think most people do privates because other than traveling, it is easy money and lacks any kind of prep.
It think the worst situation is teenagers because their parents have no clue if they are actually making improvements or not yet still fork over their hard earned Won. I'm probably speaking for myself but with my adult students, there were a few occasions where I felt like a slimy snake oil salesman. The students in question were high beginner at best and wanted to meet me 2-3x a week for 1 hour each to "improve their communication skills." I wanted to tell them that with only 2-3 hours of input a week they will not improve unless they take considerable time outside of our class hours to study on their own. They however have families and work full-time jobs with no opportunity for exposure to the target language. Did I tell them the futility of the situation? No, I gladly said I can help them improve and took the 75,000 an hour.
One of the students eventually woke up to the situation and cancelled lessons after a few months. If many Koreans in his situation are doing the same then yeah, I could see the demand for conversation partners/teachers going down. There will still be work, but it won't fetch a great wage IMO. |
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Dodge7
Joined: 21 Oct 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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| misher wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Did you hear Ban Ki Moon wrote a book (now popular in Korea) in which he said he taught English to himself (without going to a hagwon)? And did you know a group made and distributed mass amounts of flyers saying hagwons to learn English aren't the best use of one's money? |
Maybe because there is some truth to the above? I have no idea what the future holds, but I don't think it is crazy to say that hourly rates and salaries for conversation teachers (that is pretty much all what NETS are allowed to do with a smidgin of test prep for the same rates..yes University EFL teachers or MA TESOL holder "professors" are in the same boat) aren't going any higher and if anything, they will go down.
Is this because of a flooded market? It is probably part of it but I think a lot of it is due to the fact that many Koreans aren't seeing any value added by paying 75,000 an hour to yak in English to a native speaker. I know not all private lessons are simple conversations and free-talking. Some have structure and clear goals but I would think most people do privates because other than traveling, it is easy money and lacks any kind of prep.
It think the worst situation is teenagers because their parents have no clue if they are actually making improvements or not yet still fork over their hard earned Won. I'm probably speaking for myself but with my adult students, there were a few occasions where I felt like a slimy snake oil salesman. The students in question were high beginner at best and wanted to meet me 2-3x a week for 1 hour each to "improve their communication skills." I wanted to tell them that with only 2-3 hours of input a week they will not improve unless they take considerable time outside of our class hours to study on their own. They however have families and work full-time jobs with no opportunity for exposure to the target language. Did I tell them the futility of the situation? No, I gladly said I can help them improve and took the 75,000 an hour.
One of the students eventually woke up to the situation and cancelled lessons after a few months. If many Koreans in his situation are doing the same then yeah, I could see the demand for conversation partners/teachers going down. There will still be work, but it won't fetch a great wage IMO. |
The reason you felt like a "slimy snake oil salesman" was because you WERE a slimy snake oil salesman. You or anybody in this country is NOT worth 75k won to talk. I don't care if you have licenses or degrees or any other type of certificate--you are not worth that much money an hour. You aren't even worth 50k. And people who charge that rate ARE slimy. I think 35-40K won should be tops. Ok, I take that back--50k if you are traveling a far distance away from where you live (20-30min. or more on bus/subway). |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:32 pm Post subject: |
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| The reason you felt like a "slimy snake oil salesman" was because you WERE a slimy snake oil salesman. You or anybody in this country is NOT worth 75k won to talk. I don't care if you have licenses or degrees or any other type of certificate--you are not worth that much money an hour. You aren't even worth 50k. And people who charge that rate ARE slimy. I think 35-40K won should be tops. Ok, I take that back--50k if you are traveling a far distance away from where you live (20-30min. or more on bus/subway). |
We are all travelling a very far distance from where we live to be in Korea and that makes a difference to our value. Though less and less as more Westerners come over here. The equivalent of 50k is around the going rate for private 1 to 1 tutors in my country so I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for that if you're qualified. I agree if you're the kind of teacher who shows up and asks the student what they want to talk about today then you're overcharging. The real snake oil salesmen IMO are the Koreans making millions of dollars selling those online exam tutorials on the internet or in classes with hundreds of students. |
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braindrops
Joined: 13 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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hi edward,
could you expand on the comment about the korean snake oil salesmen? what is snake oil slingerish about them? im just curious. i went to the bookstore, kyobo i think it was, and there is an entire section devoted to english exam questions. the books are often quite thorough. are the online classes and materials not of similar comprehensiveness? or does the quality of teaching diminish online whether you teach one or ten or fifty students? i can definitely see that point in a b&m classroom. if you could clarify your position, that would be just super. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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| or does the quality of teaching diminish online whether you teach one or ten or fifty students? |
IMO, The quality of teaching diminishes the more students you have and the more distanced you are from them so yes in both cases. I think proper teaching is based on human interaction and proper language learning is based on communication. I really don't get how one 'super teacher' can be so much more effective than another teacher in explaining online how to answer multiple choice type grammar questions in a TOEFL exam. Surely the knowledge is already out there, it's not a secret you're paying to have revealed. The only thing I can think of is you are paying for the charisma of the 'super teacher' kind of like a guru. You could get 1000 people to pay a quid say, have an online cooking lesson from someone like Jamie Oliver but it's not really proper teaching is it? More like showbiz. The difference is the English students need to pass a real exam |
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Swampfox10mm
Joined: 24 Mar 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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I've got a lead on a job in my old girls high school in Bundang for March. They are hammering out the pay range, but it's looking like low 2's, depending on your qualifications. 9 to 5 schedule with appx 18 hours teaching per week.
An MA related to English Education or TESL certification (TESL must be non-online -- such as CELTA, Trinity, or Sookmyung -- per my suggestion) will earn you a bit more. Extra cash can be made with legal privates/small groups taught at school and arranged by the boss.
Very nice school to work for. They are very conservative, though, and traditional. They like clean-cut types. They will be advertising soon. They will be happy with either an F-visa or E-visa. I told them they should do at least a local background check on any F-applicant, as well. |
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misher
Joined: 14 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 9:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| The reason you felt like a "slimy snake oil salesman" was because you WERE a slimy snake oil salesman. You or anybody in this country is NOT worth 75k won to talk. I don't care if you have licenses or degrees or any other type of certificate--you are not worth that much money an hour. You aren't even worth 50k. And people who charge that rate ARE slimy. I think 35-40K won should be tops. Ok, I take that back--50k if you are traveling a far distance away from where you live (20-30min. or more on bus/subway). |
Woah now,
I whole heartedly agree with you about this. I would say 30k is being generous unless there is prep and travel involved.
I'm not defending my actions but I had a financial target to meet by the end of the year and that was it. Furthermore, the students that I took on were my students at an adult hagwon and wanted extra tutoring. The going rate there was over 100k an hour for a private lesson and they paid the teacher not even half of it. The students I took on thought they were getting a deal because I went to their place and I brought materials. I still felt that 75k an hour was ridiculous for what I was actually doing and it was.
These kinds of wages that are now finally coming back to earth have just created a level of entitlement among NETs over the past 10-15 years in my opinion. Whever I see a "They are offering only 2.0 for 30 hours of teaching a week!? Whose taking these jobs!?" I absolutely cringe. That is good pay for a job considering it requires little to no responsibility or complex skill set IMO. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 10:34 pm Post subject: |
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| I'll have to disagree with you Misher. Teaching (well) is not an unskilled job. It is in fact a very difficult one. Most ESL jobs in Korea are teaching kids, and many of those kids don't want to learn English, and are there (at the hagwon) because their parents forced them to go. Engaging them and controlling their behavior takes talent and skill. Misher, the more you make statements like the above on a public message board, the more wages will drop for us all. Do you want that to happen? |
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happiness
Joined: 04 Sep 2010
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 3:33 am Post subject: |
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| World Traveler wrote: |
| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
| viciousdinosaur wrote: |
1) Enrollment is down across the country (low-birth rate) School's are not expanding, they are shrinking. They are not opening, they're closing.
2) Wages are stagnant. There isn't the extra cash to throw around anymore.
3) Public schools are cutting back in a big way.
4) A lot of parents are fed up with hagwons and hire tutors instead or send them to the local community centre.
5) A bunch of the teachers who were here during the boom are trying to find another position
6) 8% (really 25%) unemployment in most of the developed world
These are the reasons you are having trouble fining the job you think you deserve.
Did anyone think this would last forever? That anyone with a degree could come to Korea and make lots of money. The market is already at a point where the lack of a teaching degree or experience makes it very difficult to operate here and that will only increase in the future. Fortunately for you there are plenty alternatives, and their names are China and Vietnam |
1- 3 are pretty accurate points.
4 remains to be seen
[snip] |
Regarding point 4, SO MANY hagwons have been losing students and going under lately. What in the heck is causing this?
I remember when the public school cuts took place, there was speculation this would help the hagwon industry, and lead to more jobs for foreigners there. Instead, that hope didn't materialize, and jobs for foreigners are being cut. What in the Sam Hill is going on?
Maybe parents are teaching their kids English themselves now? Or there are community centers that do this? I heard the number Filipinos in Korea is way up; many of them teach English as private tutors. Also, Korea parents can buy Skype lessons for their kids taught by a Filipino living in the Philippines. Did you hear Ban Ki Moon wrote a book (now popular in Korea) in which he said he taught English to himself (without going to a hagwon)? And did you know a group made and distributed mass amounts of flyers saying hagwons to learn English aren't the best use of one's money?
These are some possible contributing factors. Maybe there are other ones. What do you guys think/know about this? |
so many hagwons, because theyre too many hagwons! is there really a big difference between them? for the big chains, parents want more results, so I heard JungChul, etc have uber-testing. The smaller ones are probably looked on as babysitting or better than nothing. The one thing you WONT have is parents letting their kids sit around playing those damn cellphone games, theyll ship them off to hagwons, because it fixes THEIR problems/lack of free time.
Kids will always study here, they have no choice...even now, they dont study on sat, they still take classes and such. Moms and dads will nag the kids all the way to the SUNEUNG test. Thats Korea, no?
also, just because theres positions for foreigners, doesnt mean theyll get filled. I think most recent graduates wouldnt even consider going overseas. Its a big undertaking to come over here. ALSO, aIve heard as up to 50% of those who come here, dont finish their contracts/do a runner/just go home. Its not everyones cup of tea to live overseas.
And the K-teacher turnover rate is really high, Ive heard... |
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misher
Joined: 14 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:22 am Post subject: |
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| I'll have to disagree with you Misher. Teaching (well) is not an unskilled job. It is in fact a very difficult one. Most ESL jobs in Korea are teaching kids, and many of those kids don't want to learn English, and are there (at the hagwon) because their parents forced them to go. Engaging them and controlling their behavior takes talent and skill. Misher, the more you make statements like the above on a public message board, the more wages will drop for us all. Do you want that to happen? |
Hmm I apologize if I came across a bit harshly. Teaching is definitely not an UNskilled job so I would agree with you there. However, teaching EFL in Korea IMO does not involve a complex skill set and responsibility like many jobs back home that would pay $25/hr plus.
I think that is why so many people fall into EFL in Asia. The barrier to entry is quite low because of this perception that skin colour and nationality = teaching skill. I'm not hacking westerners for coming over here and taking advantage of this misperception. Heck I was on of them.
At the end of the day, if the kids don't learn the teacher can abscond from the situation saying its up to the kids to study outside of class time. Getting fired here for being a crappy teacher is really tough because the bar is set so low.
Teaching adults is often easier. If the adult complains and says they aren't improving the teacher just has to say to practice more outside of class and that its all on the student in the end. I'm not saying I did this, but a lot of my colleagues did
From what I've seen, teachers here aren't really held accountable for anything which is why a NET can get fired one day and pick up another job pretty quickly just like those $10-14 hr jobs back home.
I know that some NETs take their jobs very seriously, break their backs for the kids, are given a lot of responsibility (curriculum development, complete class autonomy etc) but I think those are in the small minority. Most here are human tape recorders, or simply rinse and repeat a set curriculum in a hagwon. They follow the script and they are paid accordingly to what that is worth.
| Quote: |
| Misher, the more you make statements like the above on a public message board, the more wages will drop for us all. Do you want that to happen? |
I think market forces and Koreans' attitude toward value will drive down salaries. It is already happening whether or not some nobody like me calls a spade a spade on an internet forum IMO.
Actually I think if the number of E2s dropped to a fraction of what they are now because of a massive exodus, I don't think hagwon teachers would be suddenly making middle east type salaries. Koreans would simply hire more NNETs such as Filipinos. I know quite a few that are teaching English in large chain hagwons now actually. This would be unheard of 10-15 years ago.
Last edited by misher on Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:45 am; edited 1 time in total |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:38 am Post subject: |
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It's not just "teaching" that NET's are paid for;
just to add to what you've already surmised.
Koreans are paying to have their kids interact with native speakers because
they know that many Korean teachers often are terrible at pronunciation
and or speaking English.
How much of that interaction can be classed as teaching is debatable, but
they are paying for practice with real native speakers, not necessarily
teaching.
KT's may often be whizzes at grammar, but try to talk to them in English and they can barely string a sentence together.
If Koreans didn't pay what they pay, many NET's would simply leave.
They may hire more filipinos and Pakistanis, but by and large they seem to want a white face talking to their kids. |
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misher
Joined: 14 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:48 am Post subject: |
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| They may hire more filipinos and Pakistanis, but by and large they seem to want a white face talking to their kids. |
That's true but a middle class Korean will eventually draw the line when they see their little one not improving. |
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