Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Robot_Teacher]

I'm kinda new to ESL and finding I lack knowledge in pedagogy with no one helping or coaching me to improve. I know Thailand and Prague offer ESL courses, but I'm looking for support from and within Korea while I'm at it. Does Korea do anything in the line of professional development of foreign English teachers I might be able to get involved with? Can I take time out from PS and do a 1 month course in Seoul? Maybe even keeping the job I have?

Well, I have no one to speak English with and just be friends with who could maybe enlighten me and I'm home alone on a Saturday night just pondering my thoughts about my career situation. I feel it could be a rewarding job to do for 3 to 5 years if I knew better how do what I'm trying to do. To teach. I'm studying Korean and picking up vocab, but find it difficult to speak Korean. I feel insecure on account of not having a grasp on how to be a professional teacher, but just guessing at it. And getting it wrong most of the time. Maybe students might tell me to F off or disrespect me, becuase I don't know what I'm doing? Maybe I got a gravy easy job that's smooth as glass if I knew how to best do it? I think so as it's the least demanding of any job I've held with no one bossing me around one bit. They don't expect much nor give me any feedback nor tell me I'm wrong in any way; just a quite and peaceful relationship where I'm respected quite well. I do my best to my knowledge, but know it could and should be better. My only real complaint is the old principals don't understand why I don't speak Korean and I have no one to talk with.

It is an easy easy easy job and easy way to save money, but I want to better know how to be good as to get job satisfaction and decent results. I don't really have curriculum and find the Korean PS English curriculum is practically unusable as it's terribly written. I mostly use Bogglesworldesl.com and icnelly's material as well as my brain. I majored in international finance and my experience is in sales, accounting, manual labor, and military service, but the job market is not going to offer anything for quite some time to come. Things are really really getting very bad back home for the worse, but very much miss the natural elements of home such as great fishing, hunting, and all that fresh air with many square miles of wilderness. I love it so much, but own not one parcel of that land like some of my friends do which I envy though it's just rich parents money; not poor boy gets a good job and actually pays for it.

I want to get some training and insight on teaching and then go back to work at the elementary school to make a decision if it's what I really want to do. I'm divided at this point, but know if there's no real opportunity back home, I can't have a piece of land anyhow, but will only struggle to live as I've seen before. I know I have no chance of a real social life and finding a wife in rural Korea, but it's a money saving and investing way of life that might set me up to make my 40's and 50's something to write home about. My friends parents got it, because they worked good opportunities that allowed them to save and invest.

I really enjoy most of the students, but know I'm not getting it as right as I could. The vacations teachers get is very attractive incentive too. The job I have now sure is easy going in many ways and offers the nicest apartment I've ever had in my life. I'd like to get training and decide if I want to do this. If so, then I'll take their 2 year contract offer next February. I need a career opportunity to develop and invest money so I'm not broke at the age of 40 or 50. And this job allows you to take international trips on paid time off twice or thrice a year. How cool is that?

[icnelly]

One poster, Tob55, runs this program, KEISIE 100 hr Course. Other posters have taken the course, so maybe they can post on their perspectives.

Also, you can look at the British Council's CELTA course, or Sookmyung's TESOL course, which I think is know part of their MA TESOL, or Hanyang's TESOL certificate, which runs jointly with University of Oregon's MA linguistics program. My CT did Hanyang's course and I was impressed with the professors, content, and assignments. Expensive, but def. worth the money in my opinion.
She also got accepted into U.O, and then couldn't get the work release because the higher ups said elementary teacher's don't need graduate degrees. So much for an ethos of education.

[agoodmouse]

http://tti.igse.ac.kr/tti/ does a CELTA in Gangdong-gu, Seoul. It's cheaper to do it there rather than at the British Council in downtown Seoul.

[bassexpander]

If you think you need a training course to decide whether or not this life is for you, then nobody will stop you. To be honest, however, I read your post and thought, "Why doesn't this guy just try moving around a bit?"

As far as teacher-training goes, there are really three different worlds:

1. TESOL/TEFL courses that aren't true certifications. These are merely short-term courses where some entity charges you money for the service of giving you a course to go through. Some of these courses are more crafty than others in using words and phrases like, "certification" and "most widely accepted." They don't actually certify you as a true and legal public school teaching in any country. Not a single one mentioned on this page does. They can give you an idea of whether you will likely the field, but honestly, I'd think you could figure that out in your current job just teaching as you have. Any of these courses that lists 100+ hours on their "certificate" will get you a raise at a Korean public school job.

In my opinion, these courses are ONLY worth it for the pay bump at a public school OR if you plan to use one en-route to a higher degree. Sookmyung's courses can be applied toward an MA later, and the CELTA earns a few credits toward an MA from some British universities. The following DELTA course reaches a level which is considered by Cambridge to be equal to half of an MA. If you can find the right British school accepting these, and you can afford to go to the UK to finish the full MA later, then I would consider that route a good option. By themselves, however, the "better" TESOL/TEFL certifications are prohibitively expensive (in excess of 2 million won, plus lost work time if you go FT). The cheaper ones... well, they can get you a pay bump for a few hundred dollars, but as actual "certifications"? Uh... hahahah.


2. Actual teaching degrees and certifications accepted by public schools within your country as what's required to work there. To get these, you'll need to attend a teachers college or get the proper university BA plus pass "real" certification courses. If you do these, you will be a FT student for at least a few years -- and you won't be in Korea at the time.

3. Masters Degrees and Ph.D's, which will allow you to teach at the university level in countries the world over (even your own). You can do these via distance. They will not by themselves allow you to work for a public school in your home country, however. You'll need to get the BA in Education/etc., plus pass state or gov't examinations to teach in a real public school.

[kiknkorea]

I agree with bassexpander. You can use training for more pay, but you should have a good idea whether or not you like this enough to keep doing it.
It seems the area you're in doesn't seem to agree with you. I would try moving to a less rural location. Or if you don't care for Korea in general (as some of your posts suggest), try teaching in a different country. The money may or may not be less, but you can still live a decent life and save some in other places. And if you like it more, it would be worth it anyway. Better than writing off 2 more years in someplace you don't like.

Since vacation is coming up, why not travel somewhere else you could teach and see what life's like there firsthand? I know you could research a lot on the net, but nothing beats seeing someplace for yourself. You could even seek out some foreign teachers and talk to them about life there. Just an idea.

Anyway, I would just stay the course where you are for now and decide in the fall. Don't wait till winter because if you're like me and don't like the cold, you'll just want out of Korea period!

[ddeubel]

Robot,

I'd suggest joining workshops, getting out to conferences and what not... go online and start networking on teacher training sites (like my own or British council or even classroom 2.0). This can make a big difference in your teaching - even just finding a circle of friends that besides football/women/music - talk a bit about teaching.

I'd suggest browsing my own directory of materials. http://setiteachers.ning.com/page/teacher-training

I'll be starting a TEFL certificate course soon. It will take about 4 more weeks to get it going but all teachers are free to take a look at how it's going + use our Learning Management System to start their own course and manage their own students. http://eflclassroom.com/ecourses

Teachers just register and then request to start a course. Just a small filter to stop people that might abuse the "free"dom.

I'm hoping to get Teacher Mentors, experienced teachers, to mark all assignments for each module. I'm using SCORM compliant testing and materials , along with forums and open source videos for the course. Only if you want a certificate will you have to pay a nominal fee (as yet undecided).

Cheers,

DD
http://eflclassroom.ning.com