Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ohfamous]

As a previous CDI casualty, I feel the need to warn people who are considering working for them. Don't get me wrong, my experience wasn't all that bad, but they've gotten much worse since I left. Some of the new developments in the past couple months:

- internet access has been removed from classroom computers. only intranet is available. sux b/c no more easy access to supplementary material.

- new clause in the contract. if you quit before your 1-year contract is over, you are prohibited to work at any hagwon within a 6-mile radius of any CDI school. that pretty much covers all of gangnam, bundang, and other areas in seoul and gyeonggi-do! it's similar to contracts i've signed in the states, where i'm not allowed to work at a company in the same industry for a year, lest i give away trade secrets to my new employer. these clauses might not be all that common, but they do exist and are completely legal. for hagwons though, it's quite unheard of. hello, we're english teachers for hagwons in korea, not professional researchers of nanotechnology.

- overall tightening of the reigns and less flexibility (not that there was much to begin with) in regard to lessons, vacation, sickness(!), or anything outside their concrete policies.

- continuous weekly changes to the curriculum and how to teach it. (even more often than before, if that's even possible)

- qualifications for the job have changed. more non-gyopos are being hired and you only have to have graduated from the top 100 schools in NA instead of the top 10. but this top 10 thing wasn't really enforced except during the early days of CDI. this might be good news for caucasians and other ethnicities, but the email system is in korean and almost none of the staff can speak english.

The reason behind these changes is that they're rapidly expanding and hiring teachers by the dozen but are still trying to keep a centralized system within the branch schools (their franchise schools are a different story). While it does serve to keep a single standard of quality and teaching/business format for each branch, this centralized model unavoidably creates a lot of bureacracy, confusion, and stress. Ultimately, it leads to inefficiency and teacher dissatisfaction, which leads to the high turnover rate they're experiencing now.

But they continue to spread like a disease throughout Seoul and even out to Gyeonggi-do, so they're doing something right. I had no doubt that they'd succeed with their business model, but with the recent developments, I'm thinking that soon enough their quality will drop even more as they build their evil empire. Well, say hello to the new Microsoft of Hagwons. We'll see how they do.

As an addendum, the pay has remained the same. The average teacher truly does make around 3.4 million/month. So if you want, you can bust your butt, put up with the "system", and be treated like a robot teacher for the money, but I wouldn't. I'm so glad I left.

link to old thread about working at CDI: http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=32128&highlight=cdi

[nrvs]

Your post echoes what my girlfriend has been saying to me for the past couple weeks. She's ready to jump ship as well.

They've got her working at three of the main branches. The location changes by the day, and one of them is a real trek from her apartment. She has weekly staff meetings at each branch...at 10pm AFTER class! However, the part that irritates her most is the idiotic nagging of the people who review the CCTV recordings all day long. Today, she's got two separate meetings to "fix some mistakes" in her teaching. The place is stressing her out, but the money is good. She's not sure she'll make that much at another school.

It's funny that we were both talking up CDI in January, but now we're singing a different tune.

I'd like to clarify that all of these new CDI schools are simply franchises. CDI sells the name to hagwon entrepreneurs and they operate independently. The four main schools remain the "real" CDI; are the others destined to become the new Wonderland of Korea?

[nrvs]

[Voyeur]

Minimum pay is down to 25,000 / hr from 30 but 27k can be had if you interview well.

Standard hours are 30/week of which you really do work say 28.5 (10 minutes / 180 teaching minutes of break).

A month that works out to about 128 hours of paid teaching and 120 actual teaching hours.

So you'd be looking at about 3.45 Million / Month for 120 actual teaching hours.

Compare that to say a fairly standard 2.2 Million Won + free apartment and ~1.2 Million in Airfare (or cash equivalent) and it gets closer. By "standard" I mean that even with CDI's new lower hiring pay and standards generally anyone getting hired by them is veteran in ESL enough or their resume has enough juice to get 2.2-2.4 from a normal Academy. So assuming 500k rent that 2.2 offer becomes about 2.8 / month with airfare thrown in. BUT standard teaching hours seems to be more like 120-130 classes a month where you only teach 50 minutes so closer to say 105 teaching hours.

But then it comes down to intangibles. Many schools are demanding 8 hour days by the clock even if it doesnt actually take that much time to prep. So much of the time saved by having less prep at a nother school could still be wasted by being forced to be there twiddling your thumbs. CDI has no enforced prep period at school adding flexibility especially if you want privates. Even if they don't have enforced prep a lot of the hours you save a wek come in the form of more breaks between classes - essentially wasted time you can't deploy elsewhere financially speaking (though they of course have anti-stress value).

Of course one more factor in the time-equation is that working at two campuses/franchises or more and having to get your own place t will be harder to live as close to work on average as in an academy. WIth large block shifts travel time is less of an issue but you probably will waste more time on the subqay at CDI than at another Hogwon. Then again if you are trying to use private sto supplement to match CDI's salary then you will likely get a lot of travel time / hr with them. Again, lots of variables here.

CDI also offers teachers the oipportunity to supplement income legally by helping to mark papers for overloaded writing class teachers sometimes to the tune of 600k a month for about 6hrs a week of extra written work once you are a fast marker or so I have heard. They have lots of other easy to schedule ways to leaglly supplement your income.

CDI instrcutors will actually get raoises reliably and consistently even before a year is out iof they are good - maybe not big- but at least something. OTH for some prep can take 20 hours a week extra which could be spent teaching privates if you were at another Hogwon - assuming that they were not one of many now requiring you to be at work 8 hours a day.

All in all, purely financially (not factoring in intangibles) CDI is stiull clearly one of the better dependable deals buit exactly how it ranks is hard to say. A lot depends exactly on how fast you can prep to their standards and if you are willing to just prep enough to get by and paid or if you want to chase promotion.

Of course dream schedules of all 40-k/hr privates to adults trumps all but are super rare and hard to sustain.

[T-dot]

CdI constantly hires.
if you want money, then its a good gig. If you acyually want some freedom to teach, look elsewhere.

avg starting wage is about 2.5, i dont know know too many teachers pulling in more than that to start. that 2.5 doesnt include housing, that you pay out of your own salary.

[hari seldon]

It doesn't sound very lucrative after you factor in rent and flight expenses. Also, there's enough stress living in a strange society. Why anyone would want to deal with this level of job stress puzzles me.

[Voyeur]

As my figures showed, you are still looking at effectively a 2.9ish / Month salary when you take out airfare/housing (esp. for Candians the 4.5% pension bonus and the severance for everyone else are all calculated on your full salary).

Not too many places offer 2.9 with tight block shifts and convenient + legal ways to supplement even that. Not saying its the best deal ever - there is always somewhere more lucrative. But purely financially it does have an edge on most. Whether that edge is big enough to justify the other elements of working at CDI (and for some these elements are actually positives) is up to you.

Personally, though I never thought I would care, I really like KNOWING that I am actually teaching and teaching well. 90% of esl teachers or more teach like crap - not their fault. But IMO that is true. When most say they want "more freedom to do their own style of teaching " they really mean that they don't want to work that hard or prepare very much or train enough to teach on even a low-level professional basis. Again, not directed at anyone specifically.

[eamo]

I backed out of signing for CDI for a few reasons..

They told me I would be working at at least two different locations. Perhaps Junggye-dong (Very north-east Seoul) one day then Bundang the next day. I imagined I would be on the subway a lot!!!


Classes usually finish at 10pm. There is a possibility of a meeting then being called. That could mean leaving Junggye at say, 10:45, getting on the subway for 45 minutes, then getting home at some time approaching midnight......I couldn't accept that. I need have a few hours downtime before I go to bed.


CDI teach 365 days per year. They never close. This could mean working weekends and public holidays. Of course, you will still only work 5 days each week, but it would be crap if all your friends had organized something fun for a weekend and/or holiday but you have to work.


They were very honest with me in the interview process and told me of the downsides frankly.

[Voyeur]

All true.

However, generally you can limit yourself to two branhes/franchises now that are fairly close. Seems like most have. Also, you generally can lmit yourself to two types of classes which dramatically reduces prep. If /when you get asked to train for more you can I believe negotiate and insist on extra pay iof you teach more than two tyoes of classes. Supplementary training in the baisc two classes you are trained for is mandatory but I think you can definitely negotiate if they try to train you for more classes to get you to then teach more than 2 types. Often your third type might be an advanced class giving you more money inherently for that class. Oher deals that are commonly made now are to teach only at one location in return for teaching 4 or so types of classes. If you want the xtra prep to save the travel time I have seen that deal made too. And for some, who are good at it and vets, prep is no longer a hugely onerous task.

Weirdly, talking to vets, the expansion and extra branches has improved flexibility some in these regards.

If you teach weekends it will likely be one day for 3 hours. ANd you will get 3 hours off another day. And it won't be last minute notice - you will know ahead of time for your whole term.

Of course sometimes you get the whole weekend day teaching or they might send you to a far away branch during the next semester. Nothing is guaranteed. OTH since things change every 3 months likely you wint suffer any kind of heinous scheduling for more than 3 months.

Definitely there is room within the contract for you to get screwed over. But on the whole I have heard very few cases of this and of those I have heard that got crap schedules most said the office was very accomodating in making up for it the next term. As well, as you get better and more experienced your scheduling does generally improve.

That being said, for sure, you could get screwed. But then again, its also true that even when your contract doesnt allow for it most Hogwans can still find ways to screw a lot of people.

There is no question that regimentation is going up at CDI in order to make up for the rapid expansion. Teaching quality is going down for sure. But how could it not when you expand like taht. There goal was to revolutuionize ESL in Korea and get rich. Not to be the very best boutique institution. SO they are subject to the laws of large numbers like everyone. There is also a lot of crap politics and other things endemic to larger companies of course. But in someways the more intricate but predicatable corporate ploitics is preferable to the much simpler but volatile polictics in a smaller Hogwan.

There definitely does seem to be a rush to cash out for the owners by going IPO. To be a successful IPO they have to show growth in revenue and profit. WIth Hogwan tuitions capped that means they need to expand volume and lower costs while making more money as book peddlers and through other secondary revenue streams. I imagine there will be continuing downard pressure on AVERAGE salaries. At the same time there will be INCREASED need for specialty positions such as trainers, head teachers, R&D assistants and supplemental markers. The average teacher may do worse than before but if you choose tor eally play their game and excel MAYBE there will be even more opportunities for those with a 1-3 year or more time horizon. Time will tell. I don't have all the answers and certainly do see the danger sings - and opportunities.

Frankly, I'm pretty new and somedays I wonder if this was a bad time to join CDI. Others I think, well, maybe there were better times to join CDI but past is past - how does it still compare to the field. And it seems pretty good still. And other days I think that given that I am one of the raraer caucasioans here, confident that I am top 10% in natural abilities, and willing to work hard plus have a 2yer + time horizon this may be a GOOD time to join CDI and that in a year I wioll definitely be doing better than almost any alternative and make up for the first year (if there is much to make up for) in my 2nd and 3rd years.

But its all informed specualtion. Happy to have someone to speculate and earn from though. Especially such balanced and level headed people who can objectively assess all sides of an issue. Thanks.

[alicat_blue]

Are you sure you're not a representative for CDI or whatever they're called, Voyeur? Also, do they actually monitor the teachers via videotape or did I misuderstand that part of the post. If they do record the classes, that seems pretty screwy to me and I would probably leave the school based on that alone.

[Son Deureo!]

Voyeur has been around for a while, he's legit.

[Voyeur]

I'm just a new teacher at CDI - very new. And I certainly know that I don't know everything about it. I'm also aware that it usually takes awhile to find the dirty stuff companies have swept under the carpet.

But if you re-read my posts I think you will see that I have said some things about CDI - even good things - in a way no rep would EVER admit too such as saying that teaching quality has and will continue to go down hill. This current crop of ~40 teachers that were intensively trained at the last minute before this term (June-Aug) is by far the worst and least qualified and least trained group of teachers EVER to teach at CDI according to most vet instructors I have talked to. And I'm one of that group so I saw it with my own eyes. I'm doing okay but I have been teaching in Korea almost 2 years now. Many of these guys are fresh off the boat. Many would never have been hired even 8 months ago - maybe even MOST.

However, one has to ask what that really means to you the individual. CDI has deep enough pockets that they will be able to pay you for the year of your contract even if this crop of teachers buries their rep and their big expansion push implodes. And the teachers are still better and more qualified than most Hogwon teachers I have met. But they are teaching a program that is pretty hard and will expose and exacerbate their inadequacies. Regula Hogwan curriculums cusion them from their deficiencies. So this could get ugly. If the expansion push goes SOuth then definitely trying to get raises and promotions - a big selling point of CDI - won't happen easily or at all.

Anyways, just trying to look fairly at all sides as I figure out exactly what I have done and if the grass really is greener.

[T-dot]

Voyeur, your starting is a little more than 3 mill.? Most new CDI teachers I know of start at 2.5.

I went through their training and I know the level of some of the teachers that get hired. Some of these "CDI quality " teachers had englsih speaking levels worse than some of my adult students now.

Alicat: Yes, they monitor every second of your class. It is "suppose to protect you as a teacher" rather than a tool for supervision.

[jajdude]

[T-dot]