Korean Job Discussion Forums

[robertmanicni]

I'd be reallly grateful for anyone's advice on this:

I've got an MA in English Language Teaching and years of experience, and I'm considering coming to Korea to teach. At first, I felt quite enthusiastic about this, as there seem to be so many jobs available, but since looking into it further and finding that most schools seem to give jobs to people with no experience or qualifications I'm starting to wonder. I've also seen a lot of stories here about employers treating teachers badly, reneging on contracts, universities firing people after three years, etc.

Are there jobs in Korea that recognise experience and qualifications with better pay and conditions? Or, is everyone treated badly?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Rob.

[wylies99]

Some will tell you that they found a great job so everyone should come over right away and sign with anything calling itself a school. Don't do it.


It can be very bad, here.


My advice- do EVERYTHING you can to find a job in the US or Canada, BEFORE you even consider Korea.

[PRagic]

Don't waste your time with insitutes or public schools. You definitely should go right for a university position. There are a few advertised now. Yes, many do give you the boot after 3 years, but by then you'll have even more experience and shouldn't have a problem transitioning to a new job. Some smaller, private universities don't have term limits.

[Hotpants]

As with anywhere, you will inevitably find more accounts of the bad experiences than the good ones. There ARE good jobs here, but not many relative to the 'bad' ones. (However, you have to be careful how you define 'bad' - for me it means a job with a psychotic boss or one that only offers you 10 days of vacation per year - about 80% of schools) With an MA in teaching English, I agree that you should ONLY consider working for a university, but there are only a few universities here that offer what you could expect of an MA qualified position.

If you are really serious about teaching with highbrow qualifications, I would recommend you consider other countries first. Some of the surrounding Asian countries offer much better packages and sometimes more motivated students.

[robertmanicni]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Doesn't it seem ironic that the only jobs that require experience and qualifications in Korea (university jobs) seem to pay less than ones that don't? I've been offered 3.5 million Won by one of the big well-known academies, but of course, as Hotpants says, the contract only gives 10 days holiday (compared with the months you get in a university), along with a host of other dodgy conditions.