Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Zyzyfer]

[ajuma]

Two of my hagwons were GREAT!!! My first one: I had no idea what I was doing, but they had no idea what I SHOULD be doing, so it worked out great!! I learned a lot (more than the kids, I hate to admit!) but my director was fair and honest (and I LIVED with him and his wife!!!)

My third one was also great. It was just after the IMF crisis and finding teachers was difficult. I worked a lot of overtime and my director (whom I also lived with for 4 months) not only paid me overtime, but a W300,000 a month bonus...even AFTER a new teacher was hired! She also often bought my dinner (some days, I taught from 10-8 with no break.) She also let me take a couple of days vacation DURING REGULAR CLASS TIME when my friend was leaving Korea and we wanted to take a trip together. I worked hard for her, and she treated me right. The kids I taught were FANTASTIC and we ALL cried when I left.

My second was a TOTALLY different story. This guy was a crook. (I think he was into gambling as the police (the REAL police with guns, not the kid police on the street) came to the hagwon one day.) He'd take money from our pay to pay the utility bills, and we'd go home to no lights, no TV, no gas!!! And pay was NEVER on time! I started the policy "If you don't pay me, I don't teach!" And finally did a runner. Fortunatly, I knew that it was HIM and not KOREA that was the problem.

I'm still here, and loving it!!!

[eamo]

[paul]

I now work at YBM-Sisa in Chongno which is an excellent school, but when I first got here....

I blindly signed a contract back in Canada to teach at a new kids hawgwon (never do that), and off I went.

When I arrived all was good and they put me up in a great hotel for a few days. Then they pressured me to find a place, and it turned out less than average.

When I and the other western teacher started, there were no books, no curriculum, no sylabus, but we were well trained from the TESOL school in Canada and in hindsight, creating our own lesson plans was much better than what came later

Soon the 8 or 9 Korean teachers began to resent us. It was very obvious. Then the director started splitting hairs about our lesson plans, and asking us to submit full monthly plans, which created a lot of useless paper work.

Then the books came in one day, and suddendly we had to teach their way on an hour's notice with the crappiest books I have ever laid eyes on.

Then for some reason, fabricated complaints about both of us started piling up one day. (the other teacher was extremely good with kids, so this mystified both of us).

With all the crap going on and teachers talking behind our backs about these so called "complaints", I decided enough was enough because none of it was true anyway and I confronted this stuck-up beauty queen "teacher" whom everyone knew was screwing the boss, and I asked her to please stop talking behind our backs because it makes for a very bad work environment and that we had nothing to hide.

She of course turned 10 shades of red. Well. big mistake! Like I said, she was screwing the boss. Soon I had a lenghty letter in my little box, telling me of all these imaginary infractions. They weren't accusing me, mind you, they were TELLING me that I had done these things without even asking me if they were true!

I didn't really care at that point because we had both put in our 30-day notices after only 2 months. The other teacher had started getting the same kind of treatment. And of course this hawkwon couldn't hire anybody to work there. but for some reason they were being absolutely ruthless with us.

It's really strange how quickly things went from good to bad as this place. As other teachers were coming in, we told them not to expect much without actually revealing the crap we went through. But because I am still indirectly hooked up with this crappy hawgwon, (I know people who work for the sister school), I know that they hired two sets of three teachers after we left and almost all the teachers either did midnight runs after less than three months or just quit and went somewhere else.

The whole thing is very strange because this place seems to intentionally treat the teachers like crap after two months of good treatment. Anyway, the school is Oe Dae Childrens's Hawgwon in Daechi-dong. If you go there, beware!

[igotthisguitar]