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2013 seminar for foreign language institute instructors
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ytide



Joined: 26 Jul 2009

PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 7:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

wooden nickels wrote:
I have had 2 -3 Native English Teachers employed at my school for more than 6 years. I have never asked them to attend one of these events and they have never attended one of these events to my knowledge. My wife and I attended one of these events several years back. We vowed, unless it should become a legally enforceable issue to attend, that we would never attend another of the meetings. Not a single person mentioned above has been fired, fined, imprisoned, put in front of the firing squad, forced to walk the plank, or felt the curse of voodoo pins piercing their bodies to my knowledge.

Is your hagwon a part of the Hagwon Association (한국학원총연합회)?
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ytide



Joined: 26 Jul 2009

PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 8:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here are digital-photos of the original documents I got from my manager. It took persistence to gain the right to look at these, at least for me. (Originally, our boss had concealed everything from us, and rewritten the info in an even-more-cryptic memo --- Why do there always have to be so many secrets in this place?, I always think at work).

English Flyer for the June 2013 Anyang Training, Side A
http://oi39.tinypic.com/2j1q0dh.jpg

English FLyer for the June 2013 Anyang Training, Side B
http://oi44.tinypic.com/oubc5e.jpg

Korean Original Document for the Event, from the Hagwon Association
http://oi39.tinypic.com/14r6hg.jpg

I tried to find the English flyer online, and came up with this -- It has many of the same words, but says "Saturday, June 29, 2013 9:00am ~ 1:00pm" whereas the one in my possession says 9:30 AM ~ 12:30 PM...


M-Tea wrote:
the local education office has been told by someone(??) that they may(??) receive a list of names of people who do not attend the meeting. In addition, they haven't received any orders from the higher office(gyeonggi provincal office of education) in regards to any of it.

On the English flyer, Side-B:
"Notice: Please be sure to register when you arrive at the seminar."

The English is bad throughout the flyer. However, one way to read this is that they don't have any kind of list of names, and don't know who to expect. If it were a required event for all E-2-visa-holders, they'd have a list of names. What they do have a list of, I suppose, is hagwons. Each hagwon needs to be represented...


Last edited by ytide on Thu Jun 27, 2013 8:17 am; edited 1 time in total
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wooden nickels



Joined: 23 May 2010

PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 8:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ytide wrote:
wooden nickels wrote:
I have had 2 -3 Native English Teachers employed at my school for more than 6 years. I have never asked them to attend one of these events and they have never attended one of these events to my knowledge. My wife and I attended one of these events several years back. We vowed, unless it should become a legally enforceable issue to attend, that we would never attend another of the meetings. Not a single person mentioned above has been fired, fined, imprisoned, put in front of the firing squad, forced to walk the plank, or felt the curse of voodoo pins piercing their bodies to my knowledge.

Is your hagwon a part of the Hagwon Association (한국학원총연합회)?


No longer a member~
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Zyzyfer



Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: who, what, where, when, why, how?

PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 5:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This thing does not impact me so I haven't been sticking my nose in the thread, but I have been following along and chuckling at the typical lack of organization whatsoever. But I wanted to comment relatively briefly on one bit.

ytide wrote:
Thanks for the reply, CentralCali. What I increasingly see is that I am a "commodity" in this -- they want me there for the hagwon's own benefit, to avoid a penalty imposed by the Hagwon Association. Another campus owned by the same person is sending only one foreign-teacher of seven employed! They just want each campus represented by a "warm body".
____________________________________________
I am off the following workweek, Monday through Friday. Saturday is the first day of my vacation (the first full week off, in fact, that I will have had since starting here over a year and a half ago). They are cutting into my first day of vacation with this training. I'll be out of work at 10 PM Friday, and am slated to have to wake up at 7 AM to go to this "training" for half the day. Still, I'd go, I would (even if were a "Hagwon Association scam") if they'd just pay me for my time, and if they'd treat me with some basic dignity, rather than using these crude/ridiculous threats of firing and so on.


Now this is just my personal attitude to such matters and I by no means am trying to suggest others emulate me. But I generally would not run to the contract to find clauses to back up being paid for my time. It is certainly a good idea. However, I think that a decent boss would, especially when only choosing one person as a representative for the campus as a whole, feel naturally inclined to somehow repay said representative, whether it be a free meal, reduced work hours to balance things out, a gift certificate for the department store, hell, anything of value, for being put out like this. And if a boss just doesn't get that concept, I would lose significant faith in him or her, and respond accordingly.

But based on your two posts going into detail about what your boss was saying to you, I'd say there are deeper problems there. Your boss sounds confrontational and antagonistic, ytide. Keep an eye out for further problems down the road.
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Chia Pet



Joined: 23 Jun 2013

PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm sorry I didn't post this last night. I was exhausted.

Here's a link to the video that shows I was actually at the GPOE. It doesn't show anything except me holding up the letter at the front gate of the GPOE. The officer I talked to didn't want to be interviewed on camera, which is understandable.

http://youtu.be/T8c2Dd0Wp-0

I felt better last night knowing this meeting is not just a scam by the hagwon association. But now I'm upset again, because why is the government enlisting the hagwon association to help administer the meeting? In a way the government is empowering the hagwon association. I find that disturbing.

wooden nickels wrote:
ytide wrote:
wooden nickels wrote:
I have had 2 -3 Native English Teachers employed at my school for more than 6 years. I have never asked them to attend one of these events and they have never attended one of these events to my knowledge. My wife and I attended one of these events several years back. We vowed, unless it should become a legally enforceable issue to attend, that we would never attend another of the meetings. Not a single person mentioned above has been fired, fined, imprisoned, put in front of the firing squad, forced to walk the plank, or felt the curse of voodoo pins piercing their bodies to my knowledge.

Is your hagwon a part of the Hagwon Association (한국학원총연합회)?


No longer a member~


Are you and your wife hagwon owners? If you're owners but not members of the hagwon association, did you/your teachers get the letter about the meeting?
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Gnawbert



Joined: 23 Oct 2007
Location: The Internet

PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 8:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you so much for posting and doing all the investigation Chia Pet. That's really awesome of you!

I'm still abstaining, more for personal reasons. My Saturdays are sacred, I don't feel like empowering the Hagwon association, and quite frankly I just don't think there's a thing they can do to punish me otherwise. However, I could be wrong. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Thanks again.

Chia Pet wrote:
I'm sorry I didn't post this last night. I was exhausted.

Here's a link to the video that shows I was actually at the GPOE. It doesn't show anything except me holding up the letter at the front gate of the GPOE. The officer I talked to didn't want to be interviewed on camera, which is understandable.

http://youtu.be/T8c2Dd0Wp-0

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ytide



Joined: 26 Jul 2009

PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 8:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chia Pet wrote:
I felt better last night knowing this meeting is not just a scam by the hagwon association. But now I'm upset again, because why is the government enlisting the hagwon association to help administer the meeting? In a way the government is empowering the hagwon association. I find that disturbing.

It is a gray area. Article 13 says the Hagwon Association is allowed to administer these things, but only if called on to do so by the Education Minister. This is my understanding. I've not seen anyone claim the Education Minister is involved. The representative you talked to is interpreting that in favor of the Hagwon Association (fair enough). He interprets it to mean the Association has the leeway to call this training of their own volition.

However, there seems to be no provision for any legal punishment against any E-2-holding hagwon teacher who does not show up. There is a punishment levied against the hagwon, which I presume to be imposed by the Hagwon Association in the form of a higher fee next year (my supervisor claimed the government imposes a fine, but this is illogical -- why would the government punish the hagwon and not the E-2-holder?).


Chia Pet wrote:
Are you and your wife hagwon owners? If you're owners but not members of the hagwon association, did you/your teachers get the letter about the meeting?

As I wrote above, the people I work for control several 'campuses', one of which now has six or seven E-2 teachers. They are sending exactly one of them to this training. This means to me that it has nothing to do with "E-2 teachers", but has to do with hagwons being represented by an E-2 teacher, which means that the true authority here is the Hagwon Association, not the government.

I agree with you, Chia Pet, that it is not a "scam", but it is certainly still suspicious and misleading. Why did they falsely use the name "Gyeonggi Office of Education" on the flyer?
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nicwr2002



Joined: 17 Aug 2011

PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ytide wrote:

She said that it is not ridiculous: "Have you followed the Korean news recently?"




Has she seen the news lately about Korean sexual predators? I can name three that are fairly recent. To start how about the Naju incident involving that little girl, the middle school teacher who showed off his wang, and the recent pedophile Korean teacher.
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hogwonguy1979



Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Location: the racoon den

PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 10:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

wondering if there are any univ teachers in Gyeonggi-do on E2's who got the notice?
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M-Tea



Joined: 11 Oct 2008

PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 4:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chia Pet wrote:
I'm sorry I didn't post this last night. I was exhausted.

Here's a link to the video that shows I was actually at the GPOE. It doesn't show anything except me holding up the letter at the front gate of the GPOE. The officer I talked to didn't want to be interviewed on camera, which is understandable.

http://youtu.be/T8c2Dd0Wp-0

I felt better last night knowing this meeting is not just a scam by the hagwon association. But now I'm upset again, because why is the government enlisting the hagwon association to help administer the meeting? In a way the government is empowering the hagwon association. I find that disturbing.

wooden nickels wrote:
ytide wrote:
wooden nickels wrote:
I have had 2 -3 Native English Teachers employed at my school for more than 6 years. I have never asked them to attend one of these events and they have never attended one of these events to my knowledge. My wife and I attended one of these events several years back. We vowed, unless it should become a legally enforceable issue to attend, that we would never attend another of the meetings. Not a single person mentioned above has been fired, fined, imprisoned, put in front of the firing squad, forced to walk the plank, or felt the curse of voodoo pins piercing their bodies to my knowledge.

Is your hagwon a part of the Hagwon Association (한국학원총연합회)?


No longer a member~


Are you and your wife hagwon owners? If you're owners but not members of the hagwon association, did you/your teachers get the letter about the meeting?


I was wondering the same thing. Were non-hagwon association affiliated academies told to have their teachers go?

I have heard that there were hagwon association meetings for Korean teachers and that representatives were sent. Also, that association member academies had to pay to register their teachers with the association, including their foreign teachers.

It's pretty sick how much these people work to squeeze out a few extra won. I wish they would put some of that effort into their academies.
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CentralCali



Joined: 17 May 2007

PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 4:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

M-Tea wrote:
I was wondering the same thing. Were non-hagwon association affiliated academies told to have their teachers go?


This might be a silly question, but here goes anyway: Are there any hagweons that aren't affiliated with a hagweon association?

Quote:
I have heard that there were hagwon association meetings for Korean teachers and that representatives were sent. Also, that association member academies had to pay to register their teachers with the association, including their foreign teachers.


Heard and seen are two different things. I don't believe anything I hear in hagweonland unless and until I see some documentation substatiating it.

Quote:
It's pretty sick how much these people work to squeeze out a few extra won. I wish they would put some of that effort into their academies.


NO KIDDING! The lying, thieving, cheating, worthless hagweon boss I had in 2005 spent far more money trying not to pay the three foreigners the money she owed us than the amount she actually owed us.

But why should they spend any money or effort in improving their business model? All they have to do when things go south is to blame the foreigner!


Last edited by CentralCali on Fri Jun 28, 2013 7:34 am; edited 1 time in total
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EZE



Joined: 05 May 2012

PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 4:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If the meeting is about foreign teachers committing sex crimes with Korean women, I hope someone attending the meeting stands up and says something like:

"The Hagwon Association is talking out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to foreign male teachers having sex with Korean women. Hagwon owners are often taking foreign male teachers to houses of prostitution to have illegal sex with Korean women. Recently, a foreign male teacher was even blackmailed out of his severance because a hagwon owner took his male teachers to an anma for rimjobs and when the teacher requested his severance pay at the end of his contract, the hagwon owner told him he had CCTV footage of the teacher entering the anma. Obviously, the vast majority of sex crimes committed by foreign male teachers with Korean women are encouraged and financed by hagwon owners. If you want these crimes to stop occurring, stop pressuring your foreign male teachers to go to houses of prostitution to have illegal sex with Korean women."
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wooden nickels



Joined: 23 May 2010

PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 6:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chia Pet wrote:
I'm sorry I didn't post this last night. I was exhausted.

Here's a link to the video that shows I was actually at the GPOE. It doesn't show anything except me holding up the letter at the front gate of the GPOE. The officer I talked to didn't want to be interviewed on camera, which is understandable.

http://youtu.be/T8c2Dd0Wp-0

I felt better last night knowing this meeting is not just a scam by the hagwon association. But now I'm upset again, because why is the government enlisting the hagwon association to help administer the meeting? In a way the government is empowering the hagwon association. I find that disturbing.

wooden nickels wrote:
ytide wrote:
wooden nickels wrote:
I have had 2 -3 Native English Teachers employed at my school for more than 6 years. I have never asked them to attend one of these events and they have never attended one of these events to my knowledge. My wife and I attended one of these events several years back. We vowed, unless it should become a legally enforceable issue to attend, that we would never attend another of the meetings. Not a single person mentioned above has been fired, fined, imprisoned, put in front of the firing squad, forced to walk the plank, or felt the curse of voodoo pins piercing their bodies to my knowledge.

Is your hagwon a part of the Hagwon Association (한국학원총연합회)?


No longer a member~


Are you and your wife hagwon owners? If you're owners but not members of the hagwon association, did you/your teachers get the letter about the meeting?


It's better if I don't give out enough information to cause myself problems. Never know, a Sherlock might be out there trying to calculate who I am.

Unless something has happened very recently that I'm unaware of, none of the foreign teachers are under any legal obligation to go.

The hagwon association might threaten to fine or cut one of the members. SO! It's not like they are some kind of great appointed authority by the United Nations. Nothing more than a club!
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alongway



Joined: 02 Jan 2012

PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This should be over now right? Why has there been no update?
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M-Tea



Joined: 11 Oct 2008

PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 4:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not going to organize this so it's going to be fairly ugly. Was really tired so I'm probably going to miss a lot.
______________________________________________

1. Arrived, paid 10,000 won(that I got from my boss) and got my paper stamped.

2. Waited around in the auditorium until it started. They played classical music in a lame attempt to promote calm.

3. Show starts, Korean dude who had studied in some English-speaking country for a while was the main speaker. English good but not perfect.

4. Had everyone stand up as they played the Korean national anthem. Cancelled it before the end because nobody wanted to listen to it.

5. Distributed raffle tickets. The bribe portion. Random distribution was held after some of the later events. Also some speeches. Or was that later? Basically people wrote letters and had them read or stood in front of us and told us to have a good time. Which was responded to by applause by some and swearing by others. Of note was the head of the Gyeonggi Office of Education, name seemed to be the one I had noticed on the website before. ___ ___ Kim?

6. We were then subjected to tour videos. They showed us some famous places in Korea. Unfortunately, they all had the same annoying opening track and the computer they were using was overloaded so as they went through more and more videos they started to stutter more and more. Was rather sad.

7. Next was the drummers, I believe. Osan drumming group. Not a very high skill group but reasonable to listen to up until the point where they started mixing with extremely high volume techno/trance? Totally painful on the ears. Mostly seemed like an attempt to wake us up/keep us awake.

8. After that we listened to the two immigration girls. Their English was okay but all they told us was crap we already knew. For example, you need an ARC and a criminal background check. Also, it was mostly for E-2 visa holders. Judging by the response to the questions that followed, they really didn't know much about anything else. This section also contained numerous reminders/threats about being fined/penalized for not doing various things. As an F4 visa holder, it took most of my effort just to stay awake.

9. My mind was pretty numb at this point, don't remember things too clearly. They had two foreigners explain some stuff to us. The first speakers, Mario, explained to us how great the academies are for bringing us to Korea and how generous they were to provide us with so many things. If I had been more awake, heckling would have been unavoidable. The second speaker, Matt? He was a decent speaker but I didn't like his presentation much. It was pretty clear he had been teacher rather special classes and was pretty out of touch with what the average foreigner deals with. That being said, I will say he did the best job out of all the speakers.

10. It gets really blurry after that. There was the professor from Kyeongju. He is also part of the hiking association.. so what? Anyway, his presentation was horrible. The only part that got anyone listening or caring was when he repeatedly told people to spread their lips. Some of the girls behind me thought he said "spread your legs" and well, a bunch of other less than kosher things. In any case, it sounded more like he was teaching everyone how to give proper head. I don't think he figured that out though.

11. It gets pretty blank after that. I was just glad to get out and go. Didn't miss anything useful, that's for sure.

(Two big typos fixed, ignored the rest.)
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