Korean Job Discussion Forums

tomato

I am going to try circuit riding.
I hope to find two or more English schools within a one-hour radius who can pledge me enough salary to live on.

I am doing this for the following reasons:

■ Many small English schools would like to hire a foreign teacher but could not afford one.

■ Many of such schools are in small towns.

■ Some of those schools might be able to share a foreign teacher.

■ It is legal for a foreign teacher to work at more than one English school if they are in different towns.

■ Most of the vacancies are in the big cities.
The employers all want young teachers and I'm not a young teacher.
There are more young teachers seeking jobs than there are vacancies.

■ I would rather work in a small town anyway.

So I am asking the following questions:

▶ Is it possible to get a list of all the English schools in all the rural provinces?
Where?

▶ What do you think of the idea of sending out letters to all the small-town English schools, asking them to share my services with neighboring small-town schools?

BreakfastInBed · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Location: Gyeonggi do

Sorry Tomato, can't help, but I hope this gets answered. I'm trying to do a similar thing right now. In fact, I'm running off resumes this week and am just going to wander around the downtown areas of the three nearest cities popping in to whatever places I can find. What I would give for a decent phonebook. Maybe the public library?

Best of luck to you.

tomato · Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 4:44 pm Post subject:

Shall we compete or shall we work together?
Maybe we will accomplish more if we work together.

A good way to find all the English schools in a particular community is to do a Google search, type in the name of the community in hangul, then type in "영어 학원."
That will give you map of the community with the schools marked with their names.
There must be a library somewhere with a complete collection of phone books, but if there is, I don't know where.

BreakfastInBed · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Location: Gyeonggi do

Good call. PM sent.

Juregen · Joined: 30 May 2006

Actually Naver will do far more for you if you can use Korean.

A lot of business put their adresses on it.

Mine is on it.

VanIslander · Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 5:59 pm Post subject:

You know the Korean language. Draft up a letter indicating the details of your plan and have a Korean edit it to be sure. Then GO door to door from hagwon to hagwon in suit and tie and introduce yourself and leave a cover letter along with your proposal letter (and a letter or two of reference wouldn't hurt to attach) with employers as you go.

How to find the hagwons? You speak Korean don't you? Just ask people on the street as you go from town to town. Seriously. It's the way to go.

Good luck whatever.

lifeinkorea · Joined: 24 Jan 2009 Location: somewhere in China

That's a great idea. You might want to set a blog of even video your attempts in this. It will be interesting how successful you are at this. Koreans don't generally go door to door in this fashion.

VanIslander · Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 6:14 pm Post subject:

lifeinkorea · Joined: 24 Jan 2009 Location: somewhere in China

tomato · Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:50 pm Post subject:

Hello, Juregen!

I had the same idea. I suggested Naver surfing in a private message to Breakfast in Bed. That's what I intend to do as soon as I finish writing this message.

Hello, VanIslander!

I was going to try to do it all by mail. But you got your job through the direct route, and I can't argue with success.

broken76 · Joined: 27 Jan 2008

Get someone who understands Korean to help you out. Every school board has an list (usually Excel file) with registered hagwons in it on their website. It'll give you the name, number, and address of the school. You'll most likely need to filter out other hagwons (music, art, etc) but it's pretty comprehensive.

lifeinkorea · Joined: 24 Jan 2009 Location: somewhere in China

tomato,

I was referring to your efforts to get a school, not you teaching in a classroom. Kids don't have to be in the video at all.

tomato · Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:19 am Post subject:

I know.
But I wrote parts for four kids in the video, and it just wouldn't be the same.
I got the idea of making a vdeo from the ESL Agent website.

tomato · Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:29 am Post subject:

I woke up this morning and turned on the computer, feeling very tired and very miserable from writing to the same agencies over and over and getting ignored over and over.
I wondered how I was going to stand it for one more day.
Then I remembered VanIslander's suggestion to go cold calling.

The first director I tried gave me the usual "We're not hiring any foreign teachers right now."
But something made her change her mind.
It might have been the children gazing in awe and saying, "아! 외국인이다!"
Then she held me so long that I almost missed my bus back home.

Even if the contact doesn't work out, I thank you for the one day's respite from isolation on a cold and lonely asteroid.

Juregen · Joined: 30 May 2006