Korean Job Discussion Forums

[besosmom2]

I am needing help on choosing a position. Which aspect of your job is the most important? Location, wage, age groups, co teachers, amount of english speakers in school, and/or hours you will be working.

I am a first timer. I am wondering if it is more helpful to have more english teachers in the school, or if I will get burnt out by the strange hours, or that I will not care about any of it because I am being paid so handsomely.

My background: I am not the person that needs to be in the middle of the city, or even be in a large city for that matter. I currently work with elementary kids in the states.

Thanks for helping..

[YTMND]

[besosmom2]

I will be a first time teacher in another country.
I am wondering about hours because I am not used to working split shifts, but a good amount of people dislike them. I was wondering if maybe they help when working with kids, you know a little break in the day. But those would be strange hours for me.

Getting paid over 2000 dollars including rent is a good amount of money. Will it make that much of a difference to make 2200? Or would it be better to make 2000 and live in a great area and have great co teachers.

I have lived all over the West in the US. I have lived in very large cities, and very very small cities. I handle living in both fairly well, so I don't necessarily need to be in the largest city, nor the smallest town. Hopefully you can understand that.

I am asking these questions because I am going to be traveling across the world and I would like to get more information from people who hopefully have experience.

I thought it would be good to get a variety of answers from a variety of people. Now that you have had your fun cutting me down, I will get back to waiting for the real knowledgable teachers for answers. Good luck in your endeavors in life.

[SeoulNate]

If you are currently teaching at a public school in the US which has not cut their union, in all honesty, I would stay there unless you just want to take some time off and explore asia. If that is the case, welcome.

First and foremost, teaching here is not like teaching back home in either a public school or hakwon.

If you are certified as a teacher you can get jobs in a) international schools b) private (english only instruction) schools throughout the country. These would be most similar to what you are doing now, would make you more money overall and would put you in contact with other foreigners immediately. However, these jobs do not appear all the time and can be difficult to get out of season.

Both public school and hakwon jobs here are a total crap-shoot. IMO - hakwon is a safer bet as you can get recommendations from previous teachers as well as vet the school online. Just be diligent about doing the research, every horror story you see on the web is because someone didnt get enough background information before they jumped into the fire.

As far as the hours go, I would hold off and try and get something like 2-8, 2-10, 1-9 or something similar. The kindy jobs which offer hours from 9-7pm are slave labor IMO. In addition, the late night hours are good if you are looking to do exploring in Seoul since you have your mornings free to do as you please. Also, nearly everything that you need/want will be obtainable late at night since generally stores and shops are open until midnight or later. (In Seoul).

Good-luck!

PS - Ignore YTMN, he doesnt even live here anymore

[EZE]

My opinions after working at three different hagwons:

#1 Don't work at Wonderland.
#2 Make sure national health insurance is in the contract.
#3 Salary.
#4 Go for the most favorable airfare and don't pay upfront. Wonderland wanted me to pay for my airfare to Korea upfront, but I refused. They bought my ticket to Korea. When a co-worker and I pulled midnight runners, another co-worker who had only two days remaining on his contract still hadn't been reimbursed on his airfare to Korea when it should've been included in his first month's pay.
#5 Pension
#6 Location
#7 Age groups

The reputation of the hagwon is important too, but you may or may not be able to find out anything about many of them. If there's nothing online about them, that could be a good sign. The worst ones have a lot of notoriety on Dave's, blacklists, etc.

[besosmom2]

Thank you for giving a little more info.. Its overwhelming.

[Troglodyte]

[besosmom2]

I chose a job. On my own criteria. I chose the job that felt the best, with the lowest amount of actual in class teaching hours, in a city that was large enough to be fun, but small enough to not overwhelm. Also my choice involved the length of stay of the teachers that I was able to talk to. More than a year is a good sign. Middle of the road with pay. As much as money is a factor in me going, it is not the main reason for me.