Korean Job Discussion Forums

[narsty dog]

butterfly, homer et al . i take your point. it s not really polite for me to call others half baked graduates / drifters etc. " not polite" - but ask yourself really . is it not accurate? not for you personally, i didnt call you a loser personally, i dont know you. but thinking of the EFL teachers I met in Korea ( hundreds and hundreds) I'd say most of them were arts graduates from small towns who didnt really have either a good degree , nor direction. Living in Korea itself is directionless. Butterfly i take it from what you ve said youre teaching adults at some pagoda- ELS-Sisa type institute in Seoul . You're no doubt enjoying going for cups of coffee with birds everyday and the odd DVD bang, you live in a shared small 'apartment' with someone from Australia, Canada etc. or alone if you ve been there a few years , and you make a couple of million won. you have few holidays but as you LOVE korea so much right now that doesnt trouble you.
Fine. But where will you be in 5/ 10 years ? Get serious with a Korean lass and ?? Can you spend 10 years teaching Korean adults students 'will vs. going to' for that length of time ??? Or doing the 'let s talk about culture' thing. Gimme a break. And be married and enjoy doing the SAME job, with the students repeating the same stuff year after year ? If you can , then you'll be like the people I met and criticise on here. Each to their own.

You said , you re enjoying it right now . Short term short term.
I try not to personally attack people on here if you read what i say, it s 'general'. if my comments about the general type of teachers you meet in Korea are wrong , let me know.

I post like I do , because I love my partner. She 's a korean, and like lots of koreans wants to be based in Korea. But I DONT - becaue there are no decent jobs there , and even good university posts are insecure and boring anyways. I say what I want ; you say what you want . But why do people who describe themslves as 'positive' have to have witch hunt on anyone who dares 'complains' about the place or tell it like it is .

It s not about success or failure. Its about seeing your life in context of being tied to place through your wife/ husband etc. and thinking how does that place offer me 'a foreigner' a real living for x number of years into the future. You'll get there.

[cheem]

[rapier]

Narsty has touched an interesting point- just how sustainable is life as an ESL teacher in Korea? Probably about as sustainable as any other job I reckon. After all, people in the west manage to do the same monotonous jobs for years and years. Its a means to an end. You get your enjoyment of life from your friends and family, etc. If you're in korea that long term, you're bound to rise to the top of your profession eventually. If you ultimately become fluent in korean, there have to be good job opportunities with multinational companies.

[weatherman]

[Butterfly]

[indiercj]

Cheem, i could not have said it better.

[narsty dog]

indiercj :

as a partisan korean , you see this board in terms of 'foreigners' against your home country ; nothing wrong with that . It s exactly what any foreigner in korea experiences every day. Korea's all right at the Butterfly level, ie he s lucky enough to own a house in another country, good for him . Bill Gates is rich too. HE s not committed to Korea , nor any place. TEFL 's full of people like that. teach here , move on . Dont learn the language, havent got time , make their money , move on. Good for them . But that has nothing to do with me. This is the general discussion forum about living in S.Korea.


Butterfly ; Oh my Gawshhhhh, not the DELTA...... that 'eight week' training period , that makes you a real teacher ??? My dad trained 5 years to be an electrician and he DID make more money than you or your ilk ever will. Im so 'financially secure '.......LOL. Man , how old are you , and you've never even held a DOS position. Come on , 10 years plus teaching Headway's seems to have addled your brain, old chap.
You ve got a house in Brighton - exactly. How long you planning to stay in Korea??? Can you even make a sentence in Korean ?
I do KNOW a lot more about a Korean people than you , and I m sure of it .


Weatherman : correct and to the point as usual. Weatherman is a perfect example to rapier 's optimistic ( but misguided ) comments. If you are fluent in Korean , unlike japan , there arent lots of 'great jobs' out there waiting to be snapped up mysteriously - unless you get on TV, whatever, and like being a performing monkey.
University jobs usually entail having to re-apply for your precious post year after year and even if they do offer OK holidays , you still have to take out your pension, you have no real chance of promotion, you have no say in any real decision making , you are basically like the hagowns, the white face with the Masters, ( or without it seems these days ) to show the ministry of education, advertise, whatever.

Rapier: you dont like the record ?? Well , thats the result of banging it against a brick wall for years on end - it gets stuck. Like the main discourses in Korean - OLD ALREADY after the first week.

[narsty dog]

Sorry, the last 'you dont like the record " comment went out to CHEEM , not rapier.

[Homer]

Thats a very good question from the N-dog.
How sustainable is ESL as a career in Korea?

It depends on how you approach it. We have a 10 year plan. We are saving about 25 000 dollars canadian per annum while in Korea. We have been investing and using this capital for 3 years now. Last year, we bought a house in Canada that we are renting out to some friends. This house is basically paying for itself.
I do not plan to just teach either. You can do other things if you make the effort to learn Korean. This opens up doors. My wife also works and earns a good living.
As for being tied down to a location because of your wife I have to disagree with this N-dog. I chose to remain here because I like it in Korea and we have a good life here. Also, if one makes the choice to marry a Korean woman they have to consider the possibily and even enquire about it, that this woman may not want to leave her home country. Just because you decided to come here as a teacher does not mean she will be ready to leave. If a person accepts this than its a choice.
The key to long term success in Korea is planning and looking outside your profession at other options or even looking at the better opportunities inside the teaching community. This can be a University position, proof-reading, editing. There are many possibilities.
After 10 years, we will decide what to do. By the the house will be mostly paid for.
While in Korea we enjoy a nice lifestyle and get to travel for a month once per year. We have a nice appartment here and our family life is great. I mean I got lucky because my wife's family are like my own and they accepted me right away. We take trips with our 3 nieces.
As for the teaching here, well its pretty much like anywhere else. Teaching is repeating. That applies to most subjects. The students change but the class material remains the same. Its up to the teacher to keep it fresh by putting effort into tweaking his or her class.
This is true of any teaching job anywhere.
My brother is a teacher back in Canada. He teaches elementary school and he is confronted by the a very similar set of problems/challenges ESL teachers are.
Being a teacher is then about teaching the same thing over and over and getting better at it. So perhaps its not the ESL thing thats all that bad for you N-Dog, but teaching as a profession. Teaching in University would be an exception to this as their is research involved. also and of course, the level of your students is different.
As for how do I see myself or me and my wife in 10 years I see us being basically financially secure with a few interesting options in front of us. This is what the ESL career is and seems to be providing for me.
But it remains what it is: teaching.

[Butterfly]

[narsty dog]

i m insecure ? so what . i d take that as a complement . prefer it to being smug- see your posts and homers for that . i see that old adage intelligence doesnt go with money either. have a nice day

[narsty dog]

homer , i m not a teacher.
you have a 10 year plan ? i see you re slightly more adavnced than north korea then.

[narsty dog]

sorry homer didnt mean to be so harsh...i m sure youre a decent guy. good luck .

i m only narsty online .....really.

[Medic]

One of the things I like about korea is the way old harabogies and hymonies can line up at the subway stations, and get free tickets from the guy or gal in the booth. They demand them in fact. I don't know if they get their tickets, because the person in the booth is intimidated by the crowd in the line or what. Whatever it is though it's one of the few versions of confucian fileal piety that doesn't put me off.

[Dan]

Cool things:
1.videos are like a buck each
2.comic books are even cheaper, but u have to be able to read korean ^^
3.alcohol, and more importantly, alcohol side orders are hella cheap if you find the right places
4.night clubs are like down the street from where you live
5.in fact, everything you really need is down the street from where you live
6.some students are the sweetest you'll meet, even as some are the the biggest pain in the ass you'll ever meet
7.when you meet another english speaker, its a pleasant surprise
8.ur students look up to you in an almost reverant way (if u can teach worth a damn)
9.public transportation is great and many signs are in english
10.ubiquitous and cheap computer access.

and theres more but i have to go eat lunch