Korean Job Discussion Forums

[JessRainbows]

(I bolded the main points to get to the point easier)

Hello,

I currently live in Tokyo and have to be out of the country by March 5th (my work visa will be up then). I've been very unlucky with finding jobs here either in the Japanese market or the English teaching sector. I also have a Korean boyfriend I live with and we want to continue living together, so we have a few options.

Right now, we're looking at going to Korea since everything else takes a lot more time and preparation. I'm currently in communication with Footprints and Morgan recruiters since from what I gather in this forum, they sound pretty professional and understanding.

My main concerns are that I would need to be located in or near Seoul, and since I'd want to live with my boyfriend (we plan to get married this year), we'd rather not live in school-appointed housing. Also, since I have no real teaching experience, and don't know any Korean, I'm under the impression that teaching young adults or adults may be a lot easier than teaching children. At least at first, I'd like to start there and work up to teaching kids.

I see that having an F-2 visa in Korea is really useful but at first I might not be able to get that right away since we're not married yet. Basically, I'm looking for any kind of advice or suggestions.

Many thanks!
Jess

[andrewchon]

I don't think teaching adults will be any easier if you don't have a classroom combat badge.
I'd say teach any age-group and just take a job near Seoul.

[sketcha]

how does that line from a song goes ... 'you want rain, but you dont want it from a storm'

if you've been in contact with Footprints and Morgan Recruiting then I would assume you know what you need to teach in Korea (college degree, transcripts, etc etc)

and if this will be your first time teaching in Korea, then you would also need to be interviewed at a Korean embassy in your home country

so that could be an option if you want to go through the E-2 visa route, go home, take some time off, visit family/friend, etc

but if this is not an option - if you would rather go straight to Korea from Japan ...

since you are planning to get married this year and will have an F-2 visa, why not wait it out - or come with a student visa, enroll in a school, learn the culture, language, etc

you'll have much more freedom and options looking for a job with an F-2 (being a female also helps tremendously - so dont worry too much about not being able to get a job once you're here)

adults vs kids - depends on your character and personality, each has its positive and negative and their own sets of challenges

last piece of advise/common sense - dont work illegally

you're heading into a big event in your life (marriage) and (I hope) things are working out well for you - dont risk it all by doing something stupid

... and dont always look for the easy route, I understand that you want to start slowly, crawl before walk, but sometimes life will throw something hard at you - have some confidence, believe in yourself

[djsmnc]

[JessRainbows]

[JessRainbows]

[djsmnc]

One of the major differences is this:

As a downside to teaching adults, there's a 99.9542% chance you'll have a split schedule that involves teaching fairly early in the morning (~7am - 11am) and then in the evening (~6pm - 9pm) depending on where you work.

Adults have higher personal expectations in regard to language learning, which can be great as your enthusiasm and wit can make for both fun and productive learning experiences. You're also working with people on a somewhat similar level of intellect (with exceptions, of course).

More downsides: Adult students who despise you but won't tell you to your face, as they often would in a class back home, so they tell the school owners instead, which leads to the school being concerned about something or other because of one individual complaint (i.e. the teacher does/doesn't use a book, the class is too difficult for its level, etc.).

It's good to retain strong sensitivity towards students and their sensibilities. Not good to bring up too much about politics or sexuality (with exceptions). Saw a Japanese teacher get fired once for discussing the colonial period of Korea, and had an older and younger student share quite heated remarks (until I intervened) between each other about who was complicit in the Korean and Vietnam wars, Korean "guilt" and whatnot because the older guy was talking about his military experience.

Now, the kid thing is solely my own perception. A lot of people love teaching kids, most of them work straight shifts without splits, and have fun doing what they are doing. I personally never in my life wanted to be a schoolteacher, don't like dealing with parents and administration about how to do things the right way, and don't like having snot and other bodily fluids smeared all over my clothing or the classroom when young kids try to hug or have some kind of accident. Also don't want to deal with apathetic, angst-ridden, sexually repressed (or shockingly open), USA hating teenagers.

It's not that hard to get a job teaching adults here as long as you represent yourself professionally with your credentials, photo, etc. I personally wouldn't mention I have a live-in lover or that I'm coming to be with such-and-such lover, but that I am a willing and competent person who understands how to build on adults' prior learning and create meaningful and organized lesson plans. A decent school will likely ask you to provide some sort of evidence of this, like a lesson plan.

University jobs, on the other hand, tend to be more of a challenge to obtain.

[Satchel Paige]

[djsmnc]

[JessRainbows]

Well, as for discussing politically controversial subjects, I think it makes sense that the teacher would have to be as unbiased as possible in the teaching, but it is his/her choice to have an opinion as part of the class discussion. As well as being unbiased in the teaching, also having a good idea of where the limits of the conversation can go and have the point not to be arguing the controversy but actually have something to do with English like practicing how to hold a valid argument (like supplementing your debate with supporting facts and not just going "Well I think such-and-such is stupid.").

As for the live-in lover thing, are you specifically referring to talking about my having a Korean boyfriend? We do plan to get married (either in Korea or the US depending on which is easier, since we live in Japan, Korea is a lot closer so it sounds a lot easier) would you suggest against stating that your married unless it's asked or required information by the employer? I mean, of course one wouldn't go running around advertising their marital status - unless they're that desperate for attention or something. I only mentioned it here because I felt that knowing it might help people give advice.

As for children, what I'm most worried about is just the teasing the teacher thing. I don't have any teaching experience, but as long as there is a period of training and they have some kind of guidelines, like a lesson plan book or something, I think I'd be fine teaching kids. It's not children per-se but just the scare story that my boyfriend told me about how mean HE was as a boy at his hagwon.

At any rate, all of these comments so far are really helpful and informative. Thanks so much!

[djsmnc]

[JessRainbows]

[djsmnc]

[JessRainbows]

Yes conversation! That's more what I'm interested in. But I would like to actually help them, you know? I'll keep looking around the forum, thanks for all the help. You're awesome!

[ingroup_vice]