Korean Job Discussion Forums

narsty dog · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

butterfly, homer et al . i take your point. it s not really polite for me to call others half baked graduates / drifters etc. " not polite" - but ask yourself really . is it not accurate? not for you personally, i didnt call you a loser personally, i dont know you. but thinking of the EFL teachers I met in Korea ( hundreds and hundreds) I'd say most of them were arts graduates from small towns who didnt really have either a good degree , nor direction. Living in Korea itself is directionless. Butterfly i take it from what you ve said youre teaching adults at some pagoda- ELS-Sisa type institute in Seoul . You're no doubt enjoying going for cups of coffee with birds everyday and the odd DVD bang, you live in a shared small 'apartment' with someone from Australia, Canada etc. or alone if you ve been there a few years , and you make a couple of million won. you have few holidays but as you LOVE korea so much right now that doesnt trouble you.
Fine. But where will you be in 5/ 10 years ? Get serious with a Korean lass and ?? Can you spend 10 years teaching Korean adults students 'will vs. going to' for that length of time ??? Or doing the 'let s talk about culture' thing. Gimme a break. And be married and enjoy doing the SAME job, with the students repeating the same stuff year after year ? If you can , then you'll be like the people I met and criticise on here. Each to their own.

You said , you re enjoying it right now . Short term short term.
I try not to personally attack people on here if you read what i say, it s 'general'. if my comments about the general type of teachers you meet in Korea are wrong , let me know.

I post like I do , because I love my partner. She 's a korean, and like lots of koreans wants to be based in Korea. But I DONT - becaue there are no decent jobs there , and even good university posts are insecure and boring anyways. I say what I want ; you say what you want . But why do people who describe themslves as 'positive' have to have witch hunt on anyone who dares 'complains' about the place or tell it like it is .

It s not about success or failure. Its about seeing your life in context of being tied to place through your wife/ husband etc. and thinking how does that place offer me 'a foreigner' a real living for x number of years into the future. You'll get there.

cheem · Joined: 18 Apr 2003

rapier · Joined: 16 Feb 2003

Narsty has touched an interesting point- just how sustainable is life as an ESL teacher in Korea? Probably about as sustainable as any other job I reckon. After all, people in the west manage to do the same monotonous jobs for years and years. Its a means to an end. You get your enjoyment of life from your friends and family, etc. If you're in korea that long term, you're bound to rise to the top of your profession eventually. If you ultimately become fluent in korean, there have to be good job opportunities with multinational companies.

weatherman · Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Location: Korea

Butterfly · Joined: 02 Mar 2003 Location: Kuwait

indiercj · Joined: 30 Jan 2003 Location: Seoul

Cheem, i could not have said it better. Cool

narsty dog · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

indiercj :

as a partisan korean , you see this board in terms of 'foreigners' against your home country ; nothing wrong with that . It s exactly what any foreigner in korea experiences every day. Korea's all right at the Butterfly level, ie he s lucky enough to own a house in another country, good for him . Bill Gates is rich too. HE s not committed to Korea , nor any place. TEFL 's full of people like that. teach here , move on . Dont learn the language, havent got time , make their money , move on. Good for them . But that has nothing to do with me. This is the general discussion forum about living in S.Korea.

Butterfly ; Oh my Gawshhhhh, not the DELTA...... that 'eight week' training period , that makes you a real teacher ??? My dad trained 5 years to be an electrician and he DID make more money than you or your ilk ever will. Im so 'financially secure '.......LOL. Man , how old are you , and you've never even held a DOS position. Come on , 10 years plus teaching Headway's seems to have addled your brain, old chap.
You ve got a house in Brighton - exactly. How long you planning to stay in Korea??? Can you even make a sentence in Korean ?
I do KNOW a lot more about a Korean people than you , and I m sure of it .

Weatherman : correct and to the point as usual. Weatherman is a perfect example to rapier 's optimistic ( but misguided ) comments. If you are fluent in Korean , unlike japan , there arent lots of 'great jobs' out there waiting to be snapped up mysteriously - unless you get on TV, whatever, and like being a performing monkey.
University jobs usually entail having to re-apply for your precious post year after year and even if they do offer OK holidays , you still have to take out your pension, you have no real chance of promotion, you have no say in any real decision making , you are basically like the hagowns, the white face with the Masters, ( or without it seems these days ) to show the ministry of education, advertise, whatever.

Rapier: you dont like the record ?? Well , thats the result of banging it against a brick wall for years on end - it gets stuck. Like the main discourses in Korean - OLD ALREADY after the first week.

narsty dog · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

Sorry, the last 'you dont like the record " comment went out to CHEEM , not rapier.