Korean Job Discussion Forums

[trigger123]

i set up the poll on the GEPIK teachers forum over at yahoo. now i don't pretend that the results are scientifically accurate or totally representative of the opinions of the entire GEPIK teaching community, but they do serve as an insight into what has been going on.
goingbackorelse - read up on the prgramme at the websites suggested, although i'm not sure you can view the yahoo group if you're not a member (and cos you're not a GEPIK teacher yet then maybe you can't join? doodly?).
so in summary, these GEPIK jobs are mega mega easy. they can also be mega mega frustrating and difficult. so if you haven't been to korea before, i would say that they are a mirror of what its like to live in this country as a foreigner. if you want an easy job, a comfortable lifestyle, and some fun, i would do it. if you want intellectual stimulation, professionalism, a working culture that has logic and a strong education system to work for, don't.
good luck
(p.s. what would i do for a good bottle of white wine in nowheresville, korea...)

[Plume D'ella Plumeria]

I would have to agree with the previous post. In many ways, GEPIK is easy, with a capital E. Not an overly demanding teaching schedule, co-teachers (if you're lucky) to help out with translation and discipline, set texts (bad though they may be). However, the frustrations are numerous and ongoing. There's a lot of time-wasting that goes on. True, eight hour days are stipulated in the contract, but it can be frustrating when you're the only teacher in the building (as happened to many of us during the winter holidays) and you are forced to sit around doing nothing for several hours each day. Especially when you think of the thousand things you need to do and could be doing if you weren't stuck sitting around the school. I wouldn't mind it so much if they had something for us to do during those downtimes - workshops to attend, editing to do, empires to build...anything. Other areas of frustration are last minute changes which you are never informed of (this happens in the hakwons too, doesn't it?), records to be kept and paperwork to be filled out to keep the GEPIK beast sated, eleventh hour announcements of meetings, camps on top of camps and so much more. I doubt that I will return for another year unless there are some sea changes (that in itself being highly doubtful).

I would like to see the GEPIK teachers who are dissatisfied get organised, get vocal and lodge an official protest to GEPIK denouncing some of its more inane policies. I'm not talking about a group of five teachers. I'm talking about a group of twenty or more teachers, ideally. They might listen if one fifth of their teachers spoke with a unified voice. Then again, they might not. You can't know unless you try. If there is any interest, feel free to PM me. If there were enough people to make it worthwhile, I might be willing to take a proactive role.

All-in-all, I would have to say that GEPIK is not for the faint-hearted...