Korean Job Discussion Forums

[paulandamy]

Has anyone here made a career from teaching ESL? I was just wondering if this was a) possible, and b) if anyone has done it successfully.

I was thinking about getting a master / Ph D in linguistics or English literature and applying for a job at the uni - I realize that takes a great deal of commitment both in time and money.

I'm currently teaching at a Hagwon which I'm pretty happy at but I'm not sure if I could make it a career...

[Thiuda]

[jellobean]

The foreign profs at the uni where I work with PhDs in tenure track positions in the non-language center departments have made careers of this. At least one go his job straight from uni abroad with no prior uni teaching experience, just the proper PhD and good creds. And not all these guys at my school have Korean wives. So it's definitely possible.

[jlb]

I think it's not a bad option for a career if you can get into the uni circuit as opposed to the hagwon/public school thing. The pay (in certain cases) is much better, as well as the hours worked, holidays, etc. Some people at my uni are on year 5, 6,7....with no indication that they're leaving anytime soon.

[paulandamy]

When do unis hire?

If I decide not to do another year at my current hagwon (which as I mentioned before, I am VERY happy at), when would I need to send out my resume?

My contract takes me to the end of May. Does the new semester start in September? Does that mean that I would have to circulate my resume in May or earlier?

Thanks in advance for the replies - I am trying to plan out my next few years and it's hard being that it is my first year here...

[jlb]

The semesters at universities here start in Sept. and Mar. Hiring happens anywhere from 6 months to day before!

[Sadebugo1]

Hmmm, I don't really consider working in Korea the rest of your life a career. For foreigners, there isn't a safety net and the pension scheme would not be enough to live on in my opinion. Your best bet is to get your credentials and then return to your home country. I did this and got hired by the government to teach ESL with all the benefits/protections government positions offer. So, it can be done with a little effort.

Sadebugo
http://travldawrld.blogspot.com/

[Spartacus]

I think it's very possible, but Sadebugo makes a good point. You probably won't do as well as a Korean with your same credentials, or as well as you could do back in the West. That's only from a career standpoint. If you love Korea, that could tip the balance.

[PRagic]

Tough to say. Take a look at the reported salaries paid to university professors on the Chronicle of High Education's web site. Korean universities pay at or beyone what most large universities in the U.S. pay. Promotions are generally attainable only after a certain amount of time here, but annual pay increases are provided with rank.

If your research involves Asia, why not be here? Prestige? Well, most working academics have to take some pretty low wrung jobs in some pretty out of the way places before they can get a job at the school they want. The idea is to finish the dissertation, and then start publishing. The more you publish, maintain professional involvement, and attend conferences, the better your chances of getting a better job down the road. One can always transition back to their home country if they have a good resume and have stayed involved.

But some academics don't want to be #1 in their field; they want to have a job and the freedom associated with it, and to enjoy their teaching. So why not be here? Family issues, maybe, I can understand, but strickly from a work perspective, the salaries and vacations in Korea are pretty decent, and this is a great place to do some traveling from.

To each their own.

[VanIslander]

Is having taught ESL for over five years mean I made it a career?

Or did I start to make it a career when I got a CELTA after the second year?

Is being perfectly happy in a hagwon teaching environ mean I didn't make it a career?

Does getting better and better at one's job simply through experience and attentiveness not mean one has made a career of it?

Back home a teacher teaching in the same classroom year in and year out is seen to have made a career of it, but somehow working in a Korean hagwon for years on end is not a career having been made?

Not all careers involve climbing a corporate ladder. A firefighter is a firefighter, a teacher is a teacher. Sure, there are some that want more prestigious positions (university "professor" even though still just an ESL teacher), and there are others who want to teach teachers in training schools (the DELTA approach in many countries, not Korea), but a teacher being a teacher is making a career of it whether or not they improve their skills through higher education or workshops or whether or not they chase better perks.

And to address sadebugo's concern: Most people have 4 to 5 careers over the course of their adult life, and planning for retirement should be more of a personal investment these days anyways, with aging baby boomers and cutbacks expected in social services. So it's often said to be good advice to invest in RRSPs and not worry about it in deciding which career to make your own and for how long.

[PRagic]

Does your hakwon give you annual pay increases, with the potential to negotiate higher increases if necessary given economic conditions or the profitability of the hakwon?

Does your hakwon provide you increased paid vacation time every year and the scheduling flexibility to enjoy it?

Does you hakwon provide paid professional development opportunities and the paid time off to participate in them?

Does your hakwon provide a distinct management track for those interested? Are these job strictly managment, or more like schedule jockey's with a title who still teach as part of their requirments?

If you do something for a living, that's your career. If your hakwon doesn't do all of the above, then you have a career, but really only a part time job.

[Hank the Iconoclast]

I am going to make a career out of TEFL but I have no clue if I want to do so in Korea. I do know that I want to be in a position similar to Pragic ten years from now instead of working in a public school in Buyeo. heh

[VanIslander]

The impulse to advance one's career, to climb a corporate ladder of some sorts, to develop a career is a modern obsession of the middle class manifested previously in social notions of progress in religion, culture, military, agriculture, construction, etc.

Raising a family is progess enough in many people's lives. A career needn't increase benefits, increase perks, increase whatever. A job that's stable, satisfying and in which one demonstrates skill, is career enough for all but the ambitious plans of the upwardly mobile.

You want progress in your life? Build a house with your bare hands, write a book or have a child. There's no real need to expect your career to develop into anything else than what it is, and those who are most obsessed with their careers seem to have little focus elsewhere in their lives than padding resumes. Those are the ones shocked and overcome with emptiness when they get the gold watch and retire to nothing but memories of work as a false panacea for life's challenges.

Teaching ESL is a rewarding career on many levels: It pays decent, its inherently interesting, the hours are good, it's flexible enough due to supply and demand that you can take three month's off for an illness in the family as I did this summer and either return to the same workplace (if they really want you back, which they did in my case) or else easily find a new workplace nearby to continue to do what you do. If you want progress in your work just look at your students' language abilities grow! That IS satisfying.

[sojourner1]

A career can consist of many different types of jobs. This is atypical if looking at it in the traditional sense of people doing the same thing all their lives like many still do. This is evident in an age where few, if anyone, stays at the same company all their life like back in grandpas day. He worked at McDonnell Douglas for 35 years and owned a house, raised a family, and left his kids a nice chunk of money who squandered it. It was like this all across the board for decades where the idea was to stay for a career and then pass the job down to your son, but this cycle was broken once they started outsourcing manufacturing to Asia.

If you look at the biographies of people who excelled and ended up with a top job, you'll see they put on many hats and did not take up a career based on their college majors. Many CEO's and other ladder climbers have a degree in history, art, science, or basket weaving of some sort, but usually not business and finance and many successful in the personal finance don't have a degree on account of getting into the act of selling something profitable such as cars, equipment, or widget parts of some specialized sort. The successful might had been a ditch digger, an engineer, an accountant, a salesman, a cook, a data collector of some sort, a customer service agent, a phone rep, a teacher, a trainer, a store manager, a delivery person, a credit analyst, and they just hopped many lower paying jobs and ranks, but somehow got into the money in their 40's, 50's, or even 60's. It appears also that most had been soldiers, airmen, or sailors in their young days too as military services adds something to a personality to make a person lead and drive the ball farther in life. It appears a career is not a linear upward track, but people go up and down where today you might be making less money than you did 10 years ago before you even got your bachelors which is my situation. That 21st century brought a new age upon us where nothing about 20th century careers applies to us and that's confusing and bothersome. It's high time we have to invent our careers, because this is not the age where it's handed on a silver platter just for being qualified like was common in the 20th century. Of course, teaching English in Korea does work in the 20th century America fashion where it's just handed to you on account of having a qualification such a degree. It's an opportunity being offered up to the educated so we take it and run with it.

The problem is relocation for too long to a place too far removed from home. It's great to travel and study abroad which is coveted by many, but we over do it in this teaching English job. No one in their right mind wants to travel constantly and be away from home constantly, because everyone wants to be home every so often such as for holidays. You have frequent fliers club and then you have the divorced and separated from family and home club. This is the problem with making a career out of a job that requires you to stay a whole year at a time with no Thanksgiving, 4th of July, and Christmas visits home. I love those BBQ's and fishing trips with relatives where you haul in the lunkers. Unfortunately not so in Korea, but it offers one thing home doesn't; a growing bank account and a rent paid apartment. And that's probably why you are here in a generally unpleasant Asian country. They're all unpleasant in my opinion to spend many months and years straight in. 3 months is great, but 6 months gets lonesome, and by month 9 I'm severely homesick. I stayed in Europe for 2.5 years straight on my very 1st international trip, but I had other Americans, American food, and it was in a very pleasant and fun country called Deutschland. You know it's gotta be good if no one wants to leave and don't display severe homesickness.

I've met many intelligent people teaching English in Korea that appear to fit this profile of career and job changers. I look back at my 20+ years of work since I was an elementary school kid mowing grass and shoveling snow and my resume consists of many trades and types of work in many places. I would have a 10 to 15 page resume if I listed everything I'm experienced and knowledge in so I have to simplify and focus on the ones that relate to the job I'm applying for which does severely sell me short on my long list of skills, abilities, and knowledge. The idea is that having put on many hats, gives you many soft skills that make you a leader who has the intellect to solve business oriented problems such as motivating employees, managing resources, planning, and knowing how to set goals and what they should be with the main focus to add value to the company you're looking to join.

We all know that adding value to a company is a textbook idea that usually only applies to small business or store management situations, but the main focus is to add value to your resume, character, and bank account by bringing the personality they want in their office as a part of the team. People go great lengths in attempts to re engineer their own personality to fit into a top job. It's behavior modification. For example, you act consistently different when teaching children than you would if working in a corporate office on account of program yourself to project the accept norm persona.

Yes, you can make it a career for the time being, but it's character of our 21st century time period we live in to pull many quick last minute changes on us with work demands, industry demand, and the fact we're living in a dynamic economy that is rewriting everything as we knew it in the late 20th century. Don't be surprised if you wake up one morning to find that you are either flat broke or quite rich on account of the fact something changed all of a sudden.

Thank you for reading my minibook on careers. Have a nice Chuseok to relax and reflect on life.

[Hotpants]

At age 10, I wanted to be a volleyball player; at age 15, I wanted to be a graphic designer; age 20, an architect; age 25 an EFL teacher; age 30, still an EFL teacher; age 31, had a mid-life crisis and wondered what the hell I am doing with my life.

It sounds like you are in the early stages of your TEFL 'career'. I don't think you can really make definitive plans about being in TEFL for life at this stage, or even at any stage, but, potentially it IS possible to make TEFL a career.

I believe you need to be an extremely adaptable person and be prepared for a lot of upheavals of moving from place to place, from job to job. As you get older, the prospect of living out of a suitcase and being an alien citizen loses some of its appeal, but it's very difficult to be assured any longterm stability in any one particular TEFL job. Picking up extra qualifications enroute certainly helps, although nobody should be under any illusions that this industry will make you super rich. From personal experience, I can also vouch that any overseas teaching experience will count for zilch if ever you decide to return home to a non-TEFL job.

Good luck.