Korean Job Discussion Forums

[World Traveler]

Korean Foundation
I like this place. There are big classes, but the main teacher has assistants. The people there are nice. I like the KF books, too.

Seoul Global Center
IMO, terrible. These are classes sponsored by the Korean government. The classes are teacher centered. The teacher talks (completely in Korean) and the student listens. So boring (and I would say, ineffective). I took many classes again and again with different teachers to give it a chance, but kept being disappointed. Maybe the classes would be a good fit for others, but for me they were not.

Sookmyung (숙대)
It's been a while, so I don't know if my review would be up to date. How are these classes now? Some people have said they are good, and they are taught in English, which can be a plus for beginnners.

Onnuri Seobingo
Not bad, but I would say don't go unless you are a Christian. There is a lot of prayer there and stuff like that.

Yonsei
For how highly ranked the university is, I'm surprised how poor the teaching methodology is (for the lowest levels at least). It is too teacher centered and inefficient in my opinion. They teach Korean in the way Koreans are taught English (for a test).

Sogang
I think Sogang has some serious problems that need to be worked out, but it has some good and interesting points, too. It is very expensive to attend, but I guess if people want to get good, they have to make a sacrifice.

How about you? Where have you attended? Write your reviews below.

[cam83]

You've attended 6 Korean language courses? Can I ask, how many did you complete? and I assume you speak very good Korean by now (considering it probably takes a while living here to get through that many courses+a fair bit of money too I imagine) ? Any standout recommendations for a newbie?

[Deja]

It would be worth noting how far in advance you need to apply/register for classes at a specific university. E.g. that is the reason I could not pick SNU and Yonsei; I cannot plan classes 3 months in advance.

[coralreefer_1]

Daegu University - I found the classes good. They used the Seoul National University Program which is one that fits my style of learning well. I learned alot in the full year in the program there. I was fortunate enough to have a teacher in the 3rd and 4th semester who was able to speak Enough English to explain difficulties with understanding usage of grammar.

Daegu YMCA - I tried this course after studying at DU. (weekly Saturday sessions) They used the Sogang books. I didnt like the course because the class was about 2 hours long...but the first hour the teacher just basically went around the room asking the same questions every week to each student...questions such as "what did you do last week", or "did you drink last night"...etc etc. Half the class was spent listenign to other students struggle through these typical questions...then a break time of 15 minutes...which only left 45 minutes to actually get into the study material that we paid for and learn something.

Yeungnam University - Not much different that DU, but what stands out in my mind aside from the rather weak testing (course basically gives you all the answers to the testing, or otherwise cheats in regards to preparing you for a so-called test) is a male teacher I had who basically called me to the office, and processed to attempt to belittle me like a child because in his opinion I didn't act like an "Asian" in regards to a partner assignment. It should be noted this teacher was busy wining and dining the female students in the program and happily posting pics of dinners on his facebook page (pics that almost never included men..so in short, he was basically preying on the young, vulnerable female foreign students from China and Vietnam). The p[artner I had in the incident was one of the students he had often invited to dinner, and was a rather attractive young female...so I am of the opinion that I did nothing wrong...he just didn't like the way I said a particular thing to this one student I surely believe he was "targeting"

In short..university programs are either lacking (because they are high level universities that do not need to attract international students) or otherwise the program is skewed to pass foreign students through the program by ways of giving the easiest testing procedure possible to encourage international students to remain in the program and eventually enter the university as a regular student, which is the case of the majority of foreigners studying in university programs.

[Daniel1981]

I don't mean to be dismissive or simplistic but anyone who wants to learn Korean and doesn't sign up for 소회통합프로그램 has a lot of justification to do.

Free courses.

In-class and online (at home) available.

Teacher provided.

Textbooks provided.

Points towards Visa provided.

[Daniel1981]

Ah, the link is socinet.go.kr . Website has English support. Signin and click the american flag for English.

[Deja]

Wow... to learn Korean you need to know enough Korean to sign up?

[happiness]

get a book, sit in coffeeshop, ask question of staff now and then.
i did and i got rather good really fast, not one dime spent

most here are English teachers, why do we think the locals will understand how to teach us when they spend all the time with English themselves?

do it yourself, make mistakes, work it out.

I never studied, but I was friends with Jenna in KLIFF in front of Busan University.
Her ideas on teaching were very cool. The students I talked to said she was awesome and very focused on the student. She also speaks fluent English to explain things.

[cam83]

[Daniel1981]

[javis]

I made a post about some of my experiences with different programs here: http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?p=2864865#2864865

[wanderkind]

Is there much variation among universities with tuition costs?

I was looking into Yonsei since I'd heard good things, but 1.6million for 6 weeks was tough to swallow.

[furtakk]

In Seoul they are about the same. I think it's around 1.4+ for 1 term which is 3 months.

Sogang allows you to skip out on the writing class for a small discount, but it's still around 1.3~ with no writing (3 hours a day vs 4 hours).