Korean Job Discussion Forums

[PatrickSiheung]

I would also like to know how one can teach privates legally... I thought that if you are married to a Korean you can then apply for a special visa and teach privately. If anyone has personally done this, please shoot me a PM. I would really appreciate any info on this.

[Squid]

An extremely persistent Ajumma has, after 4 months of chasing and phone-calling, finally secured my invaluable services for two hours each Sat. afternoon with her soon-to-depart for overseas study son. I'm not really happy about it, as I too value my time away from work but this time I have capitulated as it's only short term.

I have not done privates before and probably will not again after this one, but I don't say never.

50 an hour and it's closeby...sweeeeeet!

Squid the monied.

[bourquetheman]

Well I have the good fortune to see both sides of this "I do/don't do privates" because I've been here a total of 6 years. For the first three I was at a hagwon and I totally thought "My time is more valuable than money" and I didn't do ONE private for those three years. When I got my university job where I'm still at now, although the pay was more, housing wasn't provided.

This however STILL wasn't my motivation to teach privately, if you can believe that. It started off innocently enough that a former adult student of mine (who I had been teaching one on one anyway) mentioned how he'd prefer to continue our class after I finished working there. From there I took on a few more, but never so many that I still couldn't have a social life (I'm married now) or be exhausted. I can honestly say that while the money is nice, I ENJOY my private students because it's a nice change apart from my university job. I still get to teach middle school/high school kids AND teach at the university. In my mind I have the best of both worlds, and as previously mentioned the "almightly dollar" isn't my motivation, though I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a nice benefit.

So as I can see both sides to the argument, I believe it's purely a personal choice and I'm not knocking either one. As far as money goes, it does depend on what kind of class it is. My usual rate is 30 000 won an hour (which my wife insists is too cheap) but for special classes e.g. Saturday class I'll charge 50 000 an hour, it just depends.

[Chonbuk]

Privates-

Throughout the past 6 years I have done them, at one point they were my main source of income. Those 6 months nearly killed me actually, so damn tiring, travelling here and there, having students cancel classes, or ending the classes without a word why. Privates are a huge pain in the butt. But my salary is too low to save without them. I work at a great job with few hours and in order to make a decent wage I need to work extra hours. Some friends I know that are also long timers get extra work through their schools ELI classes that pump up their salaries incredibly, my school is not capable of this. So I have to get out and teach which means a long bus ride or an expensive taxi. I try to arrange block hours cause like the King said it is simply not worth it without it.

I have also not done them because I thought my free time was too valuable, but after 6 months or 1 term of no classes I became bored and broke.

I can understand why you married guys with kids don't do them. I wouldn't either if I was in your situation, especially if you already have 2 incomes coming into the home.

Right now bf is unemployed and we are saving for a Master's in Aussie which means I am left stressing about how to save cash. Here in Daejeon they seem to be a rare thing especially with so many F4 and husband visa's gobbling them up, and not sharing the wealth. This is actually what pisses me off more than anything is that they are so difficult to find.......

My point I guess is that privates are at times a necessary evil. Yes, I do enjoy my life in Korea but I also love taking long holidays overseas during vacations and the only way I can do that and not be staying in a dive is by working privates.

I'm lucky though because my school is reasonable and does give me permission to get a C4 visa.

50 000 is too much I think- it bothers me that only the rich in Korea have access to english.



Cheers,

Chonbuk

[krats1976]

I was going to start another thread with this question, but it works here too. I was approached last week by someone who lives in my building and wants some brush-up lessons. I don't have issues with giving up my time, especially since it's so close.

My question is: is it safe to teach someone who lives so close (and, consequently, knows where I live)? Especially since I live very close to my school?

[Homer]

Krats,

Its always a roll of the dice. You just have to weigh the benefits of doing this (a bit of extra cash) vs the possible drawbacks (less free time and perhaps deportation and fines if caught).

There seems to be a way to avoid the consequences by registering the private lesson. This means you will pay tax on the income but not run the risk of getting caught for doing an illegal private. I have no idea if this is allready in place or just still in the process of being implemented...

[TheUrbanMyth]

[TECO]

I know a guy who was caught.

Someone close to him reported him to the police.

He told me that he was fined W1,000,000.

They warned him not to do it again and that was it.

Be careful, it'll always be someone close to you, who knows what you're doing, that reports you.

They didn't deport him, either.

[The Bobster]

Very few people mention this about private teaching. Here it is :

When you are a the only conduit of English from one person to another you have many choices, the chief among them is that you can teach well or you can teach badly.

Many of us who teach at institutes (and I've heard it from uni teachers as well) are handed curriculums that make no logical sense ... and yet if they fail to shine, we are the ones to blame, not the morons who wrote the script - likewise, if we depart from said lame curriculum we are given strife even before the chance is shown to us whether our fresh ideas will show results or not ...

When teaching private students, we can look at them as individulas and decide exactly what they need, and then also decide if we are the right teacher who can give them what they need. If we decide we might fall into that category, sometimes we are even challenged to grow a bit to find out what teaching technique or methodology will solve the very unique problems that this student might have.

When I lived in San Francisco, a city with many ambitious immigrants and foreign students, I was able to support myself between teaching jobs (with an unemployment check as backup) by teaching privately. I continued it to a smaller degree once I had found a teaching job I liked ... and my boss didn't mind.

Turned out, I had acquired and improved upon some skills by teaching privately that made me a more valuable commodity in his classroom as well. He was wise enough to recognize this.

The only connection to this topic I can come up with is to change the focus of the question : It's not how much can I charge, but how much can I gain?

[paul]

I also did privates as a sole source of income for one year, but I didn't go to any kid's houses or apartments: Privates are widely available now at offices and companies who would rather have a handle on what their employees are learning, and overseeing the process. I believe this is much safer than going to children's homes, but still illegal.

The other thing is, you can't think of a private lesson by the hour. You have to think about it by the month or it will NEVER be worth it. One person took the time to break down the traveling time, prep and so on involved in teaching privates at 50,000 won per hour. Well...guess what? If you did the same math for a hawgwan job, you'd be pretty depressed.

Really, it's all psychological: Just like when you tell yourself living in Korea isn't so bad....so too is teaching privates, but only when you think about the overall extra monthly income.

Another point worth noting is you get to see so much more of Seoul or Korea in general when you teach privates, not to mention the cultural value of seeing a family home, or corporate office, and how they operate, and the extra skills you learn from teaching students with different needs than your present school.

Is it worth it? Yup! Just be careful.

[Homer]

Urbanmyth,

I don't know if the new law about privates is applicable to foreign teachers yet. Someone doing privates should check it out.

[GlowStickGirl]

I've heard something of the nature that foreigners with a Korean heritage are allowed to teach privates without any legal ramifications. I'm a korean-american but was born in Seoul (don't remember a single thing). Is anyone familiar with this provision?

[Homer]

Actually,
That provision does not exist....
The law that does exist concerns korean nationals and maybe teachers from other nations working here (still not sure about that). Regardless, a person would have to declare the income on the privates and pay tax on it and probably have to fill out paper work to get some sort of permit.
So far, the information on this is rather vague...

[dutchman]

[ajassi]

I'm on an F-4 visa
I checked about a year ago at two different offices about privates (one provincial, and the main office). They both told me that it was technically illegal, but they would never penalize me for supporting my wife and kids. They told me I should go ahead and do it, as long as my employer doesn't mind.

They didn't say anything about a new law. . .