Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cabeza]

[edwardcatflap]

Actually a lot of Koreans I talk to are surprisingly ignorant about car brands besides their own and BMW/'BENZ'. I played a lot of Top Trumps as kid so I know all about Italian sports cars but they often don't know what I'm talking about when I mention 'Ferrari' And that's with guys and pronouncing it in the Korean way too. Don't know anything about the grading of American cars except the Cadillac is like the Rolls Royce equivalent. Is that right?

[TheUrbanMyth]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Steelrails]

[cabeza]

[Steelrails]

[ippy]

Nah, they couldnt im afraid. Im looking at that, and i havent a clue either. Id be literally throwing darts at a dartboard.

[ippy]

But on the actual point, hell no i wouldnt grass anyone up for it. The impact of wages in korea being at a standstill is not the influence of fly by night teachers driving down our good wages. Were it the case you might want to explain the continual erosion of rights over in Japan in public school teaching.

Ive been teaching in Japan through the heady days of the JET programme (well, since 2005), and watched as more and more JET positions are swallowed up by dispatch companies and how the fierce bidding wars for contracts at boards of eds have seen first the collapse of wages to 250,000, then the loss of benefits with 'part time' teaching contracts, then the move to pro rata contracts, and most recently of all, in the last couple of years, the incredibly worrying move to daily/hourly rates.

Now i know some of you LOVE hourly rates because they actually yield a tonne of cash and dont keep you committed to being in the school outside of when they need you, but these dont really work for people looking for a job from outside the country. So you end up with the abandonment in many ways of the need to attract people here. Theyre already here, they dont need to have a kiss off to relocate. They dont need to have a wage that not only sustains their position but also encourages them to get the hell out when theyve finished their stint. This isnt supply and demand, its a change in the focus of the industry and in many ways a grandfathering process. When i first started applying for jobs in japan, there were tonnes of ways in. Now there are very few, and they almost all offer very bad contracts as the price of entry.

The more of you looking to stay in the country or switch contracts, the less likely youll soon find, that people will be willing to hook you up with your airfare to and from Korea. I believe this is already happening in fact. Indeed in my most recent job search i was screwed over several times by the "we talked to the head teacher, but they were insistent on someone already inside the country". Now, amazingly, im not as bitter as i sound, i swear, but it is reminiscent of my experience in Japan. So its a change that is clearly happening in the market and in the pool from which potential employers are looking for you guys. The more of you looking to stay, the more likely it is that certain perks will be gone in the next few years (but on the flip, the greater demand from the industry for a flexible visa process like you have in Japan - ie. you get a set time, you own it, you move where the work is).

This doesnt even get to the social, cultural and economic factors that are encouraging graduates to come to asia in the first place and sit out the recession or pay off their loans. Again, as more people come to korea, theres more chance that theyre going to talk to someone and blow their mind that korea is actually a pretty sweet place to live for a couple of years getting a nice salary instead of fighting tooth and nail to score a crap checkout job in a supermarket just to get by. Japan had that for decades, and now korea is on the receiving end (because japan is in many ways a closed shop).

Its all interesting under the surface features helping to keep wages and conditions low. In fact, if Japan does turn out to simply be the logical future of how an ESL industry moves to maturity and not just some crazy outlier, then it might be moving inexorably towards poorer conditions and worse (or more flexible) salaries.

And that word, flexible, is really where everything is moving. Its the logical step, and if youre still in korea, you need to get ready for it, or you need to be ahead of the curve...

which brings me to... qualified???

The qualification for teaching English is a degree in any subject at all and 13 years education in an English speaking school. I accept this is a 'qualification', but it hardly inspires confidence in its relevancy. I wouldnt want my kids taught by someone purely because they had a degree and an interest to get away from their country for whatever (even benevolent) reason. So lets not muddle up in the insinuations. Qualification here means very little. Almost every teacher out there could be replaced by a second language learned from Sweden, russia, norway with a TEFL and the schools (and the parents) would be getting an amazingly good deal. Theyd not only have the complete understanding of English as a second language learner needs to understand it, but they would have a far greater appreciation of the struggles and complications that arise from learning English as a second language. Oh, and they would also have genuine motivation to teach the subject as well as numerous strategies to deal with these issues. But by some absolutely narrow minded conception of 'native speaker' we get the gig! hooray!

At entry level all jobs are crap. You want a good job you either show your worth and climb the ladder or you get direct teacher related training. Thats how you mark yourself out as relevant and useful. If youre just a dude with a degree, well done you, but dont be so quick to pat yourself on the back because youre 'qualified!' In this case it really only means youre qualified to jump the hoops set out by Korean immigration. It means nothing about your passion, ability, or skill as a teacher.

And on the final point about immigration in korea versus immigration at home...

Theres nothing to suggest that expats here are against immigration at home. Its a false dichotomy. Indeed the sample bias could very well be explained that since people over here have a world view that not only encourages them to move out of their closed environment, but also have direct lived experience of jumping through hoops and often a great deal of red tape for immigration, this may make them sympathetic (upon reflection) to the plight of their mexican counterparts also just trying to make a living. From my own experience in the gaijin bubble its very easy now to really understand how a diasporic community can not only exist, but thrive and how this can lead to tension with some over the top hostility aimed at them from a threatened host culture. Lots of words to suggest that it creates suspicion and prejudice which in turn releases all the powers and mechanisms of ones safety blanket culture within a culture, which creates greater threats and more resentment.

So statistically theres a fairly good chance that the people on this site (with at least a decent exposure to an outsiders standpoint) would be actually pro immigrant in the USA, as well as pro immigrant here. Its just that they would still be a minority to the general popular opinion on the matter.

Not to mention that the current vote anyway is 2/1 against helping out the illegal immigrant.

[tophatcat]

[Steelrails]

[edwardcatflap]

[transmogrifier]

[ontheway]

[Steelrails]