Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Whistleblower]

I am starting to get more interested in IELTS Examining and hoping some pro's here could help me. I have some contacts and hope to apply to become an IELTS Examiner later this year but I would like to know what Examiner Training is like and how long it takes. Does it take 1 or 5 days to undertake the course? Would you say it is difficult? How did you prepare to become an IELTS Examiner?

Any help would be appreciated and thanks in advance for any support.

[Whistleblower]

Bumpety bump. Can anyone help me?

[livinginkorea]

How does one become an examiner in the first place?

[Vimfuego]

You can apply to train as either a speaking examiner or writing examiner. The training courses for both are intensive two day courses. The training is pretty tough. You then have to mark some example exams to see if you are up to standard.

It's quite difficult to actually become an examiner, you have to go through quite a rigourous selection procedure.

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

IELTS test, as far as I know, are done at the British Council and at Kyo Dae in Gangnam. The former you'd need to be British I guess.Dunno who administers IELTS at the latter.

What's the pay for these gigs?

[Vimfuego]

You don't have to be British to be an IELTS examiner (or work at the British Council), actually you don't even need to be a native speaker.

[spyro25]

taking the training in cambridge in february. waited for ages for a training session to be available in korea (i was in busan) and just when i finally leave - they announce the training! you (might) need to pass an interview first with someone from the british council. its 2 days intensive and you will need to pay the course fees yourself (250 pounds for me, dont know what it will be for you). you have to take a test at the end of it. pass the test and you get qualified examiner status. if you are caught by the british council ever teaching IELTS while holding examiner status you will be stripped of it.

[Vimfuego]

I'm not sure that part about if you're caught teaching IELTS prep then you'll be stripped of your status, there are a lot of IELTS examiners teaching IELTS prep courses at the British Council.

[Jeonmunka]

[naturegirl321]

[bassexpander]

Korea hates tests that make other countries money off of their students.

[naturegirl321]

I'm sure they do. But there are still ike 5 testing places in Korea.

[AltF4]

[Toju]

Did my training 3 years ago in Seoul at the BC.

2 days training for speaking.

2 days training for writing.

Re-trained every two years.

Don't have to pay if you do it in Seoul.

Selection changed after I was trained, luckily for me. They are tight on who they do and don't accept nowadays.

Testing happens three or four times a month in several different locations in Seoul and also once a month in Pusan.

Yes, if you're caught advertising yourself as an IELTS examiner you won't be invited to test anymore and if you don't test for three months you will be monitored when you first come back.

You can transfer your status to whichever country you are in, which is handy as Hong Kong are no longer training people but I could test there.

IDP also do IELTS in Korea and around the world I believe. Both the BC and IDP pay the same, train the same and run the same using the same materials. There is no difference working for either apart from some people believe that the staff at the BC are a bit more snooty. Other than that, nothing is different between the two.

It is a good way to supplement your salary and is also a good way to improve your teaching skills as it shows you more what you need to be heading towards in any classroom really - communicative competence.

Send the IELTS team at the BC an email - they will keep your details until they have training again and will contact you if they want to invite you on board. I know that for the last training they didn't advertise because they didn't need to and that it wasn't that long ago that trained a group up.

[Toju]