Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rpayvin]

Hullo all,

I've been teaching with EPIK at a high school for the last year, and I was wondering if anyone with the appropriate experience could do a brief comparison of such work with a university job. For example, at my high school, I am more or less expected to focus simply on conversational abilities, and am not provided with a textbook, the classes last 50 minutes, and I see each class once a week. How does that compare with uni. teaching - are you expected to delve into grammar, are there longer classes, is there any kind of syllabus that you follow?

Thanks, I really appreciate any thoughts on the matter.

Cheers!

[air76]

The answer to your question varies greatly depending on the school...however, for the most part if you've got only that 1 year of high school experience then you're going to be looking at the lower-tier university jobs, which means that you're more likely to be at the Language Center than teaching courses for credit.

In general, though, I would say that yes, you will be needing to write a syllabus (at our school it is quite basic, but you still need to plug in the tests and what chapters will be studied when and oral presentations and all that jazz), and yes, you will have a textbook.

To a great extent the amount of grammar you teach is up to you...unless you are stuck with a horrible micro-manager you will have the autonomy to design your courses as you wish. If you want to do more grammar then you can do it, but if you want to skim over the grammar and focus on conversation you can do that, too.

We have 2 hour classes, but I think that 1 hour is more the norm.