Korean Job Discussion Forums

[edh]

I recently left my position at Seoul Women's University after fulfilling a one-year contract. Although my experience was not good, and although I do not recommend this school, I am not sure how the problems I experienced compare to the problems of other teachers at other universities. The school is not without merit and may be of some use and value to some teachers. Therefore, I will try to describe my experience as objectively as I can.

The university has an early-morning program called SWELL (Seoul Women's English Language Licensure) now sometimes called Language Education Center. I suppose the program is what people call a 'unigwon,' with the distinction that during the school year, only university students may enroll. (SWELL also has intensive winter and summer sessions, which is open to the general public including men and women. Regardless, it is mostly college-age students.) The idea of the program is that students should progress through seven semester levels, culminating in a final semester where you prove your ability and gain the English License by producing a scholarly research paper of approximately 40 pages. The program is taught a staff of western and Korean teachers, mostly western. The core classes are in the early morning, 7-9 AM, but other classes are arrayed through the afternoon and early evening.

I identified three serious drawbacks to the SWELL situation. One problem is the academic program itself. The second problem is contract violations and creative interpretation of contract, some of which are blatantly illegal. The final problem is the lack of respect afforded to the teachers by the administration, a relationship that often involves deceit and contempt.

The academic program has serious flaws. The program is divided into multi-levels, however there is no curriculum for the program whatsoever. There is no skill set to define each level, no measure against which to judge students' progress and to judge their readiness for advancement. There is no coordination between levels to insure that students are acquiring necessary and prerequisite skills for higher levels, nor is there coordination within levels to insure that students across the separate classes are studying the same skills. Although there are required textbooks for each class and level, these texts do not define skills. Besides, books can be used in many different ways; and often they are simply ignored by the teachers. (This is for good reason: In most cases, the books are quite outdated, and usually not very accurate or interesting. In fact, it was an open secret that these are simply remainders from past years, meant to save money by the administration.) The result is that teachers simply teach whatever they want, and the students advance through the levels with widely disparate skills and abilities. The problem becomes most apparent in the top-level classes, where you find students who can speak and write in paragraphs, sometimes spontaneously, sitting beside others who have substantial difficulty with grammar points, organization and pronunciation. Similarly, in level-placement interviews, the rubrics are interpreted by each teacher according to what he/she is accustomed to seeing in the levels they have taught, again resulting in students of widely different abilities being placed in the same level.

Most surprising to me was the administration�s awareness of the problem (many teachers have noted it) and their lack of inclination to address it. During the early weeks, I am sure that I annoyed a lot people, especially the faculty administrators, with my inquiries about the existence of a curriculum, something that I was sure must be there but was somehow invisible to me. But it finally became clear, through my investigation and the confidences of the fellow teachers, that there is in fact no plan. I never learned why, I only learned that I was rapidly becoming unpopular. So I stopped asking.

Students now graduate with this SWELL Licensure, but it is apparently meaningless. A 'license' implies that the issuing institution guarantees that the holder possesses a minimum of qualifications necessary for a task. This SWELL Licensure testifies to nothing.

Unfortunately, the administration�s lack of seriousness about their educational mission is also indicative of a lack of seriousness toward their teaching staff.

The administration and the teaching staff have a difficult relationship. The administration demonstrates a lack of respect for the teachers that often is purely contemptuous. Unfortunately, they seem uninterested in building and retaining a competent and professional teaching staff, and have even expressed verbally that they do not wish the foreign teachers to stay for more than two years. This attitude is demoralizing and leads to several material problems, involving both hours and money.

First, the administration has little regard for the employment agreement. (At one point, they expressed verbally that they do not feel bound by the terms of the contract. After all, a contract is only as strong as an individual�s willingness to defend it in court.) Overtime and extra classes are assigned without the teachers' consent. Through the regular semesters you can often find yourself working split shifts, resulting in 11-13 hours days, as a result of assigned overtime. During the summer and winter sessions, which last six weeks, teachers must work 25 unpaid hours, which comprises a 25% increase over their contracted interim hours. The extra 25 hours are not mentioned in the contract. They come later as a surprise. Approximately half those hours are participation at extracurricular functions, for which the teachers' participation is essential. The other half is directly teaching and student-guidance related. Furthermore, the extra hours are usually in the evening, effectively requiring teachers to stay on campus for 13-hour days.

The administration offers no explanation or justification whatsoever for why these extra interim-session hours should be unpaid. They do suggest that these hours are tied to the interim-session bonus, but that does not prove true in actuality (more about this below.) Concerning regular semester split shifts and assigned overtime, several teachers negotiated �no split shifts� or obligatory overtime in their negotiations with the administration prior to employment. These agreements were usually broken in the first semester, and the teachers quit after six months.

There have also been problems with salary, including monthly payments reduced without explanation. One instance was only resolved--and the money restored--after a direct appeal to the president of the university. (I recall vividly an early staff meeting when the administration told the assembled teachers that if they objected to mystery deductions in their payments, they should quit their jobs and leave the country.)

Some of these problems are the result of interpretation, although the interpretation borders on outright deception. For instance, concerning the negotiations on �no split shifts,� the administration simply responds cynically that it was never formalized in the contract. However other problems involve sheer illegality: obligatory overtime and uncompensated working hours, for instance, are illegal. Furthermore, the overtime pay rate is illegal. I learned this through consultation with a labor lawyer and the Korean Department of Labor. The Labor Dept. uses a complicated formula to determine proper overtime rates. According to those figures, SWU is paying approximately 3000 Won per hour below the legal limit. In fact, the overtime rate is actually lower than teachers� calculated regular hourly rate.

Also illegal, and particularly disconcerting to me, is the allocation of interim-session bonuses. The administration simply refuses to explain its formula or rationale for paying unequal bonus amounts to the teachers. The teachers begin the interim intensives with no idea what they must achieve in order to earn the full bonus, and they have no idea why teachers working comparable schedules are awarded widely disparate amounts. (One cannot even assume that the bonuses are based on predictable factors like fulfillment of extra hours or student evaluations, because teachers who excelled in these areas were often awarded as much as 100,000 less than comparable or underperforming teachers.) According to Korean labor law, the administration must explain, in writing and in advance, its criteria for bonus payment. Otherwise they must award each employee the maximum amount. Both before and after commencement of the interim sessions, the teachers have requested this explanation of the bonus criteria. The administration has consistently refused. (I find this disturbing because of its incompatibility with the philosophy of educational institutions. No teacher would evaluate a student and assign grades according to secret criteria, denying any justification for the grade. This is in direct opposition to an educator�s responsibility and commitment to helping students advance their learning, understanding and preparation for career and personal growth. The SWELL administration apparently sees no incongruity.)

Teachers have attempted to address these problems. The administration has responded dismissively. They instruct the teachers to quit if they are not satisfied. However, once a teacher registers dissatisfaction, staying on is not an option anyway because the administration is clear that the schedule is used as a weapon to punish upstarts. They have stated plainly that if you raise your voice, you will be subjected to compulsive overtime, successive semesters of split shifts, and generally poor and unmanageable schedules, and the threat of non-renewal.

There are other points of tension. The head administrator holds regular one-on-one meetings with a sample of department students. The student must deliver ongoing accounts of their classes and evaluations of their teachers. This activity is not objective. The students have reported that if their evaluation of the teacher differs from the administrator�s personal opinions, the administrator instructs the students to change their opinions. The administrator keeps a record of these conversations, presumably for use when needed. (Several times I saw students exiting these meetings. They looked indignant, like they had been violated.) In a related point, the administration does not defend the teacher against student complaints. When a student complains about curriculum or subject matter, responsibility and blame are placed on the teacher without any proper inquiry to determine the validity of the student�s complaint. In one instance, a student complained that the subject matter of a textbook exercise offended her religious sensibilities, and she wrote a scathing letter against the teacher to the president of the university. This student was notorious in the department and in the university for writing slanderous letters against her professors and various administrators. In my layman's opinion, the student was sociopathic, and quite possibly psychotic. Despite knowing the student's profile, the faculty administrator decided to handle the situation in the manner that she found most self-protective, but most damaging to everyone else involved, including the teacher, the student (for mental health considerations) and the department. The administrator confiscated the textbook and presumably destroyed it. Then she asserted to the president that the teacher had gone rogue, and begun teaching satanism. Why she decided that it was more face-saving to assert that she had hired a nut-job teacher rather than admit that some subject matter in the prescribed texts might be problematic to some students, I cannot explain. However, after convincing the president that the fault lay entirely with the teacher, she proceeded to harass the teacher out of the university, enlisting the help of the office staff and the inner circle of teachers. The teacher had no choice but to leave. However, when this teacher attempted to find a position at another institution, the administrator contacted the other people and repeated the story, compelling them to withdraw their offers. The teacher was eventually forced to leave the country, for lack of opportunity. I refrain to guess why the administrator went so far. Possibly she was just resentful that circumstances compelled her to release one of her most highly qualified teachers, so she took out her anger on the teacher as the most easy target. Regardless of the details, I say that this is probably the most revolting episode I have witnessed in my professional career.

(Oddly, when a student has a legitimate complaint about teacher professionalism, the complaint is seemingly ignored. More on this below.)

Other problems involve housing, for instance. The provided housing is sometimes substandard with serious heating, cooling, and water problems. This may be a problem common to many schools, but one irksome point here is that the administration is adamant about holding the teacher responsible for utilities after the teacher has vacated a problem unit, and before a new (unsuspecting) teacher comes to take her/his place.

Also of note, the administration shows outright contempt to the teaching staff. During teacher-administrator meetings, the administrators commonly and quickly resort to personal insults and name-calling. This behaviour would be appalling if it was not, at the same time, so downright bizarre.

The teachers respond rationally to these conditions. Good teachers, teachers with education, qualifications, and alternatives, typically leave after one year. The department has a high turnover rate. At the close of one semester of my term there, 45% of the total teaching staff�western and Korean�quit. At this time, the teachers (both western and Korean) unanimously filed several letters of protest with the administration concerning work conditions. An exodus also marked the beginning of my employment at the school. Since I left, more have quit, and I have learned that this turnover rate has been characteristic of the department for quite a while. In a first, about two years ago, five master�s degree E1 teachers were hired simultaneously for the program and given the title of Professor. Each one quit at the end of their first contract; one quit midway. (One remained because he had been co-opted by the administration to push unpopular policies.) These teachers had realized quickly that they were not being treated remotely like professors. The administration soon revealed that these master�s teachers were hired in order to satisfy a quota of language professors needed to qualify for a large federal grant. After the university won the grant, they stopped recruiting E1s, and said farewell to the present ones.)

The environment that results is obviously not good. The department does not resemble a serious educational institution. The teachers learn to simply fulfill their hours and complete their classes with a minimum of effort. No current foreign teacher, to my knowledge, has been there more than two full years. With a few exceptions, the teachers that stay on are not professional educators and do not possess teacher sensibilities. In my time there, I was most disturbed by a man who was clearly a misogynist. He raged at the students, in class, in person, and in writing. During the interim sessions he would target shy, effete, confused young male students and pursue them relentlessly with obvious sexual intent. The administration was aware of a pattern of abusive behaviour, but they declined to act because this man was a favorite of the university administration. Some teachers would teach the female students curse and obscene words, and lie about the meaning. One teacher to my knowledge would teach the girls obscene gestures, apparently for his personal excitement, and also lie about the meanings of course. Other teachers had obvious substance abuse problems that carried into their class performance and regularly kept them out of class. At least one to my knowledge admitted material and financial involvement in narcotics trafficking. I�ve seen teachers verbally abuse students. Grade falsification is rampant. Others turn a blind eye while presuming to high ethical distinction. The general environment among the teachers is very cliquish and rife with drama. Sabotage, in the form of stolen files and documents, is common, as is teachers slandering teachers to the administration. �High drama� characterizes the general work environment, in my opinion. Much personal time is devoted to disparaging the students and Koreans generally. A few teachers who remain are well-meaning. I suppose they mainly appreciate the comparatively lower hours and longer vacations of a university position and/or otherwise have an easier time navigating the terrain.

(The administration has been made aware of these problems�often by direct student complaint�but I am unaware of any action. This is difficult to explain. My best interpretation is that as good teachers tend to cycle immediately out, a sense of protection and privilege coalesces around a core group that seems like it will remain stable for a couple of years. Despite not wanting the teachers to hang around too long, the administration is not so stupid as to believe that they can handle 100% turnover every year. However, this amounts to cynical favor and it predictably results in cynical and deleterious consequences: for the school and the students, but also rebounding on the teachers themselves in unexpected ways. One person was fond of saying that having taught ESL in Korea for two years, he felt confident teaching anything to anyone, anywhere. [True to his beliefs, I never once saw him at any professional development function.] Another man who fancied himself a �real� teacher would brag about his ability to correct 45 student essays each week in the hour before class. [I can't decide if he is at least more admirable than those who never read their students' essays at all but who at least made no pretense about being "real."] One man deliberately attacked students� self-confidence in order to drive down his class enrollment to a number that he could teach with ease [usually under ten; about half the original registration]. Two teachers, having gained special administrative favor, rarely ever again arrived to class less then ten minutes late. I believe that all these teachers honestly believed that they had arrived someplace.)

Most importantly, the students are not insulated from this sour environment. The students have expressed their opinion that the department is �rotten.� They recognize which teachers leave and which stay year to year. Enrollment in SWELL has been steadily declining overall for approximately six years. Among upperclassmen today, comparatively few have continued on to the higher levels of SWELL. The dropout rate from the low levels to the top levels is greater than can be accounted for by mere attrition, and is not even balanced by the influx of students who enter the program at a mid or high level. A point that should be alarming to the administration: many of the students perceive an actual intelligence gap between themselves and some teachers, which goes beyond mere teacher-student incompatibility or student resistance to unfamiliar teaching methods. Many students believe that some teachers possess a genuinely low intellect. And although I firmly agree that a college degree is no measure of a person�s intelligence, I think that at least in the education sector you have to respect the general rule that peers cannot evaluate peers. To my knowledge no present SWELL teacher holds more than a bachelors degree, and many of these degrees are from technical or arts colleges. Many of the teachers who oversee and guide the students� Licensure research papers have themselves never written a comparable research paper.

Students also become frustrated by being placed in levels that are too low or too high: a frustration which is shared by the teachers. This is usually the result of being ramrodded through an inefficient evaluation/placement process. (For example, during oral assessments, teachers have been reprimanded by the office clerks for spending more than two minutes with each student.) However, even in cases where the student is obviously several levels misplaced, there is no course for redress. Тhe reason is plainly stated: it would create an administrative inconvenience of paperwork. If a teacher attempts to advocate for the student, she/he incurs the wrath and the consequences.

It is not clear how the SWELL environment is reflected in the larger Seoul Women’s University realm, but I generally believe that the fish rots from the head down. I have witnessed physical altercations in the faculty cafeteria. Once, I witnessed a senior university official physically attack a foreign professor. The attack was unprovoked and gratuitous, and seemingly racist in intent. I often felt that I was not surrounded by scholars, but surrounded by thugs. Concerning SWELL, the Dean of Faculty Affairs has expressed concern about the declining enrollment in the SWELL program. However, he has been the recipient of many teachers’ concerns and I am unaware of any action. The students complain about the usual inefficiencies in the administration, but most bothersome to me are students’ allegations of religious discrimination. SWU is a missionary school; all students are required to take a set of religious courses and attend chapel once per week, regardless of whether they are of that religious tradition. (The school is Presbyterian.) Students have claimed that if they do not adhere strictly to the Presbyterian catechism, they are penalized in their grades. Other students have claimed that the university will not process or sponsor scholarship and grant applications from religious minority students. I have never investigated these discrimination claims, but I think they are worth mentioning.

I do not believe that the SWELL institution is appropriate for a professional educator or anyone who believes they possess teachers� sensibilities. I do not believe that SWELL is a serious educational institution nor do I believe that it aspires to be. Mostly, it seems to me like an ancillary cash cow. In my worst opinion, I feel that they are committing outright consumer fraud against the students. The administration exhibits little desire to build a functional department or provide sound educational training to their students, which is reflected in their apparent disinterest in building a competent and stable teaching staff. There is no dialogue between the administration and the teachers concerning enhancement of the program. Teacher input is simply not welcome. In fact, it is discouraged. Courses are not assigned according to teachers� strengths; rather the schedule is used to reward favorites and to punish outliers. (In this particular duel between the administration and the teachers, of course, the students are the losers.) And as stated above, the administration also exhibits an odd lack of regard for the program generally. In fact, the administration tells the teachers shortly after they begin that they should consider their jobs to be stepping-stones to other positions. For the administration, this policy is arguably rational. The administration knows that many applicants are happy to take the job as an entrance to the university teaching sector. They seem focused on minimizing their financial outlay by tapping into a labor pool that is satisfied to work for introductory low wages in harsh conditions in order to gain higher education experience and qualifications. (For example, you do not need a master�s degree to teach here. As stated above, I believe that all present teachers have only bachelors degrees, almost all are in their mid 20s, and almost all were hired straight out of the hagwons.) However, if SWELL acquires a bad reputation among universities (I know that the program is gaining a bad reputation within the teaching expat community) the experience will be less valuable to future employers. And the policy is finally destructive to the SWELL department itself, as more and more students become frustrated and quit. A professional teacher will find this environment very frustrating. Perhaps it is especially particular to real educators that their efforts be recognized and supported. Even for a single year, I believe that this school will tax the patience of a professional person.

However SWELL may have some value for the other class of teacher, those who find themselves in the profession by circumstance and/or who are traveling and otherwise trying to finance their private lives. SWELL has some advantages over the typical academy gig. For example, despite its academy status, it is nevertheless a sanctioned university operation, so you can get some semblance of prestige from it; and unlike most such university academies, you don�t need a master�s degree to work there. (In fact, at least two teachers with bachelors were even assigned classes in the regular university catalogue. To the shock of several students.) Another benefit is vacation: you can expect about 12 weeks, for instance. Total teaching hours may also be less than those at a purely private hagwon, but you can expect that your classes will be arrayed over an 11-13 hour period during the regular terms and also during the interim semesters. You can also expect to be assigned 5-6 different subject classes, meaning substantial uncompensated preparation and evaluation time. During the interims especially you can expect to work an extra 25 unpaid hours, mostly in the evenings. And they may also fudge your contract by assigning you extra classes in lieu of your contracted writing lab hours. This is a common stunt by which they gain free teaching hours. (This may not be objectionable to some teachers, but classroom time is nevertheless more preparation intensive and will cost you extra unpaid time outside class.) As stated above, there have also been problems with payment of salary, but apparently not as serious as reported by people in particularly shady hagwon situations. Still, the administration has a great deal of trouble and/or reluctance in explaining short monthly salary payments and late overtime payments. The administration�s dismissive attitude may or may not be a hurdle. If you are just passing the time as a teacher, then you may not mind the administration�s lack of seriousness. However, many such teachers at least believe in doing their best while they are at it; you will quickly find the environment very dispiriting. That, coupled with the early morning hours and the school�s distance from the center of town, can quickly take the shine off the opportunity.

[toonchoon]

Thanks for posting about your experiences. Hope you find a better uni job (there are plenty of them out there).

[Stan Rogers]

OP your post is just plain too long. You lost me after the first paragraph.

[Mr. Peabody]

[The Cosmic Hum]

[Zackback]

Despite the intense drawbacks of the place just the thought of being around all those university females is extremely tantalizing.
I would put up with/ignore/just laugh at all the disaster of the program as long as I could just be there with the students.

[One Shot]

[hogwonguy1979]

they've been that way for years, its one of the univ programs i would encourage people to stay away from, you'd be worked less at a hogwon

i assume during intensives you still have to work through holidays (no seolal break)

[Illysook]

Those admins are not thinking correctly.

I work split shifts at a well-known adult hagwon and the pay is alright, so why would I want to work the same job for what is probably less money? Because it's a university? Not likely!

[Son Deureo!]

I worked for SWELL a few years ago, and I had a good experience there overall. The students were great, I got everything I was promised, and I felt that the program was very well run. I'm disappointed to hear that there have been problems.

My information may be outdated, as I no longer know anyone who is currently in the program, but some points that run counter to my experience:

The "split shift" was nowhere near as bad as you might get working for an adult hogwon (e.g. 7-10am, 6-10pm). Nearly all teachers started at 7:15am. Teachers teaching for their first semester would have an evening class that might run as late as 6:30pm, two or three days a week. After my first semester, I never had a class run later than 4pm. The first semester split shift was paying your dues.

The summer and winter intensives were a lot of work, no doubt. Teaching a full load of 20 classes plus having to help run activities (dodgeball competitions, ice cream socials, talent contests, etc.) and monitor an evening study hall would lead to 12+ hour days. However, SWELL was very clear about what was expected during intensives during my interview, and 12 weeks of vacation plus the bonus helped compensate for it.

I did not live on campus, I took a housing allowance and commuted instead as I had an apartment I liked and didn't want to move out of. Campus housing for teachers though, looked pretty good to me. Teachers get a two bedroom cottage in a wooded area with patios and a shared barbecue pit. The only downside I could see was that the campus gate is locked at midnight, so to come and go you'd have to hop a fence. The joke on campus was that the security guard didn't like to be woken up. Since the OP doesn't mention this, perhaps this problem has been solved?

The textbooks we used were decent, and the foreign head teacher is a former public school teacher from the US who I found very helpful and supportive of new teachers. The curriculum had a pretty clear progression in both the writing and speaking classes (at least in OCS classes, Topic Discussion classes were a different animal as they're student-generated classes).

One thing I'll definitely agree with the OP about is that SWELL is a stepping stone uni job, not one to make a career at. Because the workload is higher than at many other universities, most teachers who stay in Korea will move on after getting a few years of experience. I know several former SWELL teachers who went on to better paying uni jobs thanks to their SWELL experience, including some who now teach at SKY universities. In every university interview I've had since working at SWELL, the Korean professors interviewing me had heard of SWELL, and were impressed by its reputation.

In short, teaching at SWELL is more work than many other uni jobs in Korea. The two six week long intensives are a lot of work, but the other 40 weeks out of the year are just fine. SWELL can definitely open doors, and at least when I was there I thought it was a great place to work.

I hope that things haven't deteriorated since I worked there.

[Mr. Peabody]

[edh]

Definitely, things have changed since Son Deureo's time. I met several former teachers who worked at SWELL several years previous, and they all described an ok experience which they quit because they could see the beginning of a serious deterioration. Many of the senior girls I taught complained of this drop in quality, both in academics and administration, which they saw over the course of their four years in the program. Obviously I cannot compare the two eras and I don't know what occurred to force this change. I do know that most of the administrators are now different from the past.

I would add a just a small warning to teachers who may feel that a SWELL/university stint may enhance their resume. Like Son Deureo, I have also heard some praise of SWELL from administrators at other schools. However, be clear on what is being praised. The praise is not for the regular semester program. The regular semester program is not practically different from other unigwon situations. Besides, outside people have no practical insight into this program. Rather, outside people are familiar with, and respect, the 6-week interim program. This interim program is regarded as one of the best interim university intensives in the city. The program regularly attracts students from the top universities, who skip their own school's intensives to join the SWELL interim.

Furthermore, this regard and praise is for the organization and structure of the program, which I agree is excellent. The students are sequestered on campus for the entire program (they are free on Sunday) and staff people monitor the students 24 hours to enforce the English-only rule. Cell phones are confiscated, even ipods are checked for any random k-pop, and students risk expulsion for too many violations. There are many extracurricular activities. I think all these things are great. Perhaps less great are the 8 hours of daily class, plus high-pressure daily tests, and general regimentation, but these things are purported to be a selling point to the parents, and it's probably true. And this is all what is known, loved and respected by the outside public about the program.

The praise is not for the actual academics of the program, which are obviously imperceptible to outsiders. The classes are basically the same, and suffer the same problems, as in the regular semester. It appeared to me at least--and I don't have any actual stats--that the bulk of the complaints about academics came from outside students, and these students comprised the highest number of dropouts.

This is all simply to say that I don't believe that SWELL will be a factor in a teacher's upward mobility. SWU is a third-tier university, probably fourth. In the Korean status-obsessed education sector, it does not receive any high regard. I would gamble that any teachers who are moving up, are doing so on the basis of strong teaching skills, professional integrity and advanced degrees from reputable western universities.

One word about the cottages: They are very old. Last winter there were many serious breakdowns with heating and plumbing, and many of the teachers were extremely angry. One of the cabins was recently shuttered, deemed unfit for habitation, but only after two successive teachers left in frustration. There is much mold in the summer. They are more expensive to heat than typical apartments, as they are very drafty. And you do still climb the fence at night. If you drive, you will have trouble getting in or out at night. But the environment is great. Lots of trees making fresh air.

Lastly, I do agree that the students are great. They deserve better than they are getting.

[litebear]

[Zackback]

Thanks man.
I just tell it like it is....especially with women.
Seriously what guy would not want to be around all the university ladies?

[edh]

I've just been informed: It seems that SWELL has changed it's name. Once again they are advertising for new teachers, but now under the name Division of General Education (Language Education Center) : English Education

http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/korea/index.cgi?read=54648

So, be informed.

According to the announcement, they're requesting higher qualifications this time around. That's good for the teachers' obligations to the students and the department. I wonder if the department's obligations to the teachers are similarly improved.