Korean Job Discussion Forums

[giantyogurt]

I'm wondering if anyone has worked long enough for big name hagwons (like Pagoda, Si-sa in Jongro area or any other large profit generating) to know how the business is run. For example, how much revenue they actually generate on monthly basis and how they maintain their cash flow, what are the costs beside paying the employees, and so on and so forth. The reason behind this inquiry is that, recently, a close neighbor of mine who runs a mid-sized real estate business in Korea asked me about opening up a language school in a few years to come. So, I did brief research on the current English education in Korea and found out nearly 9 trillion won (US$ 7.5 billion) was spent on English learning both publicly and privately in 2000. I was totally blown away. What was more surprising, was that nearly 65% of the students who responded to a survey showed they were not satisfied with the public English education and over 60% of university students go to private language schools as the result, not to mention those some 11 thousand (1999) who could afford to take a term or two in English spoken countries. And worse yet, they are 'still' not satisfied with their achievement for various reasons: no real opportunity to interact with the locals (not being allowed to be employed, their activities are restricted to classroom environment), loss of learning momentum & environment after they come back to Korea, etc.

So, what I thought was important was that, instead of putting massive amount of money into bogus education that only yields nothing but more complaint, the Korean government should allow sound establishment of language schools that are operated by some individuals or organizations who come from English spoken countries with serious knowledge and experience with the ESL business. In other words, hagwons with their owners who only think of the business as a cash cow must be eliminated through 'healthy' competition. This means a real language school must be fostered to get rid of all the spurious private English hagwons.

Question is, what does a real language school need to keep the competitive edge against those long established big name franchises? This is very important because, unless there are strong merits sensible by both instructors and students, it is hard to survive in the already saturated market. I asked this question to you people in the previous post and so far it seems to be collecting valuable information.

Despite having been a part time English instructor at a local hagwon for only a short period time, I was still able to point out a few problems that are resident in small to mid sized PLSs. First, ideally and eventually, you need to seperate the ownership and the operation of the business. The owner , in my opinion, needs only care about the overall maintenance and safety of the language school (clean washroom, airconditioning, heating, fire and theft protection, to name a few). And the operation person, or CEO if you will, does all the 'intelligent' work: designing a curriculum, training the instructors, organizing meetings that ARE productive, listening to suggestions and rewarding the employees!

Secondly, language schools have to have good partnerships. They have to provide students with access to take the next step and get out to the real world. Help them prepare to study abroad and take courses at accredited colleges. Let them continue from what they have learned when they come back. English being my second language, I know how easy it is to lose the hard-earned language skills by not using it. Continuous and progressive exposure to the English spoken environment is the key. Thus, I think it is essential to setup solid partnership with primary/secondary/post secandary education institutes in English spoken countries.

Lastly, there's gotta be more than a textbook to teach English. I mean, there are so many assisting tools are out there to help learn the language. Education softwares, the Internet, video tapes, DVD, TV, you name it. I was so disappointed at the hagwon when the only assistance materials available were the textbooks and the ghetto blaster. I personally own a large collection of digital recording of lots of different cable channels. They include YTV(kids channel), Teletoon(again, lots of animation), OLN(outdoor life network, my favotite), Discovery, Access(education), PBS, TLC, SpeedVIsion(lots of motor racing, Formula One is da best!) and so on. I originally started recording the Formula One races and some of the other shows. Then I sent some of the files to a friend of mine who teaches English in Korea and she said all the kids loved the video clips while they were watching them in class. She even told me some of the boys got so addicted to the eardrum ripping sound of the F1 cars that they were constantly asking for more F1 videos! Who knows, I could inspire them so much that they might even want to be the first F1 driver from Korea!
I'm sorry I got sidetracked a bit, but my point is, you gotta utilize all the materials available to create fun, productive learning environment.

I have so many other ideas but then I'll make your eyes sore by the time you finish my post. Anyways, I'd like to ask you guys to think about what I've said and post your thoughts. It will really help my neighbor understand what are the things to consider before opening an English language school. Thanks for your reading.



p.s. by the way, please don't forget the question I asked in the very beginning, if you think you have the answer for. THanks guys

[weatherman]

I think the biggest problem here is the Korean mindset of not opening up their market to non-Koreans. Another big problem for the local institutions is that if the market for educational institutions was opened up and foreign educational services took up a niche market, the effect on the whole market would cause a lot of poorly run domestic institutions and smaller ones out. I don't have any problem with this. Having foreign owned and managed institutions would increase the quality of all institutions in the long run. I believe professional run, foreign owned would invest in experienced teachers and in multi media educational systems. The differences would be slow to reach the larger public, but once world hit the streets and water cooler banter, I think these new institutions would cause a significant market share to be taken away from the old style institutions. It would be innovate or close up, and to innovate, the locally owned Korean institutions would have to hire more experienced teachers which costs more money and invest in better over all facilities which again costs money. Koreans really hate paying us a good living, and to pay a teacher more would really bother them. But in the end it would come down to control, for I would envision the teachers having some say and input about the curriculum, scheduling, and material investments, and as how I know Koreans, no Korean owner would ever be so enlightened to do this. Korean owners want their profits, and the hell with building a better educational institution, meaning there is very little reinvestment in most operations here in Korea.

[TheUrbanMyth]

I would say the biggest problem is inexperienced and unqualified teachers. That said, greedy hakwon owners are a close second. If those two problems were fixed, then the hakwon system could work.