Korean Job Discussion Forums

LL Moonmanhead · Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Location: yo momma

it strikes me that a lot of english teachers I meet here are just going from contract-to-contract teaching dead end hagwon jobs.

I was wondering what the motivation for this is?

The one's I have met either have K-girl fever (70-80%), couldn't score even the most basic job back home (10%), or too scared to go back to their parents house and the hum-drum of Nova Scotia or wherever(10-20%).

So, it had me wondering, how long can you teach english in Korea, before you are a burnt out wreck who will never amount to anything? I have met people like this before the baiting starts...

Also I fully expect people who have been here and taught english in colleges, universities, and those who have an MA in english teaching to pipe up and say ' hey not me buddy, i'm doing something with my life i make 4 million a month blah blah blah.....i go to manila three times a year and still save 15 million a year, plus on top of that i only work 12 hours a week and i never wanted to make it back home and be sucessful in anything less than the TEFL field'. to lay their ten cents on the line.

So, open to you guys, when do you think people go past the point of no return???

Junior · Joined: 18 Nov 2005 Location: the eye

ChilgokBlackHole · Joined: 21 Nov 2009

Trollololololol...

I'd like to give a shout-out to the hardworking mods who will end up deleting this post. You guys rock.

caniff · Joined: 03 Feb 2004 Location: All over the map

jvalmer · Joined: 06 Jun 2003

What's the difference between slaving away in Korea or back home? Let's get real here, not many people actually make it to upper management back home? And how many people back home actually like their jobs?

NilesQ · Joined: 27 Nov 2006

There is a big difference between being an ESL Teacher and working at Hagwans. The people who choose to make it a profession, for whatever reason, are in a different boat than those of us who are on their tenth "one more year, to get some money to go home".

I was always a firm believer that if you don't have a clue what you want to do, working in a hagwan is a pretty good gig. However, if you're 35 and are hiding here not looking for anything else to do, it can be a deadly trap. The money and life style are just good enough that they are difficult to walk away from.

Sometimes it takes a step backwards to make a leap forward. I felt I was hitting that point, so I found something I wanted to do back home, went back to school, and am now working in that feild. There are days when I wish I was in Korea. Remembering the feeling of a last class on Friday, knowing I was going to hit the town and party. My life isn't like that anymore. That isn't just about location. I'm 34 now. I was 24 when I lived like that.

I taught ESL so I could live in Korea. I was young and wanted to see new things and party. If you live in Korea to teach ESL, that is different. The job is first. So is there an expiration date on teaching in Korea? Sure, but is is different for everyone. Be aware of yours!

bucheon bum · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

redaxe · Joined: 01 Dec 2008

wow, this isn't a loaded question or anything... Rolling Eyes

I wasn't an ESL teacher but like most foreigners in Korea, I was given next to no responsibility at my job, and spent most of my day on the internet. Two years of that was my limit.

Louis VI · Joined: 05 Jul 2010 Location: In my Kingdom

IlIlNine · Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Location: Gunpo, Gyonggi, SoKo

I'm sure some people can do it forever - those, as mentioned above, who are actually passionate teachers.

My personal strategy here has been to experience as much of the country as possible. Not in a geographic sense, but in a Korean lifestyle sense. I have worked in hagwons, public schools, universities, the public and private sectors. I've studied here (including lectures at the blue house), lived in the country and the city, and I now work in my field at a big corporation as a full-time employee (not contract). Where the future will take me, I don't know .. but I'm already feeling a little antsy.

thegadfly · Joined: 01 Feb 2003

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

I know lots of folks that waste their lives back home -- wasting your life is independent of your chosen profession, though honestly, if one is in teaching for the right reasons, then I think one's life is not wasted, no matter where or whom one teaches....

Unfortunately, a very small percentage of ESL teachers in Korea are in teaching for the right reasons...then again, I think most people squander the opportunities they are given, so really, not that different than life elsewhere....

PatrickGHBusan · Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 3:25 pm Post subject:

itaewonguy · Joined: 25 Mar 2003

you can waste away and rot in a corporate 100.000+ a year back home as much as you can waste away here making 30grand a year!

I think it all depends on your mind! where you are mentally!
to some people even though they have been here 10 years they like their job, low hours free housing etc..

others hate it... still I know plenty of people back home who hate their jobs and feel they are wasting away at the corporate job..

but yeah.. hakwon teaching is not a career, you will be passed over often when you get into your late 40s early 50's but there will still be jobs for you but probably your salary will not be what you expect for 20+ years experience. then after spending 30 years in korea as an ESL *beep*.. might find yourself retiring in the philipines, or if you couldn't save anything. find yourself back home stacking selves telling stories about Asia

mc_jc · Joined: 13 Aug 2009 Location: C4B- Cp Red Cloud, Area-I

You know- I am usually the one who comes off as being arrogant, obnoxious and egotistical about my job and this comes across as being vain with many posters on this forum...
But this post takes the cake.

Yes- I do boast and brag about my job and who I get to network with because of it. But at the same time, I have to work terribly long hours and have to pay attention to the smallest of detail.

When I was an ESL teacher back in the late- 90's and early-2000's, I loved it because there was little responsibilities and the
more effort I put into planning my classes, the more my students and the director really appreciated it.

Office work is not for everyone and not everyone is cut out for business. ESL teaching is a calling- some people do it for a year and then move on but some love it so much that they continue for as long as they could.
Everyone has a reason and a motivation to do what they are doing and it is not for one person to decide if it is a waste of time or not because if they honestly thought it was a waste of time, then they would stop and move on to something else.

- Why does the OP and Koreans for that matter care if a foreigner lives with their parents if Koreans also live with their parents well into their 30's and possibly 40's? The only way most Koreans move out of their parents house is when they get married. So why should they care?

- Why does it matter if a person has a preference for their partner?
There are also many Koreans who prefer to be with a foreigner rather than a Korean because if the social stricture placed on women after they get married (IE, obligated to take care of the in-laws like a servant girl and pressured into having children by all sides of the family).

- Why does the OP care where a person earns their money? I'll bet if Korean schools were not offering the salaries they are offering, most people would be going someplace else. Remember, Chinese schools are raising their salaries almost to the level Korean schools and they treat their teachers with a little more respect.

The difference between a person in business and a person teaching ESL is that there is always a need for English somewhere in the world and they could find a jobmuch more easily than a person in a non-ESL field, who is struggling in the job market.

Who knows, maybe after I retire in a couple of years I might go back into teaching.

captain kirk · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

Public school threatened to kill any passion I had for teaching English because of the politics getting in the way of what was, in a sense, 11 years of holiday. 11 years of hogwonning then two years of public school at the end. Now I've bolted, and have been back in Canada 15 months.

Hagwoning, boss just left me to teach as I like. Public school it was do it the Korean way because when in Rome... really ridiculous. Drove me up the wall, couldn't stand it. Kids are great. In public school I was told, 'it's not important how you get along with the kids, rather, it's more important how you get along with the Korean teachers'. Whatever, la la la. Cul de sac. Same Kcoteacher told me teaching English for a foreigner is a 'dead end', WTF? I made more money than her, maybe that was it, probably. I found out that she and her husband (also a K teacher) were disliked generally. Does anyone like office politics?

But hagwons, great. In fifteen months back in Canada I can count five instances of encounters with children that felt heartily enriching, the stuff of days of smiling and laughter back hogwonning in Korea. But then I'm studying for job retraining (math), not alot of similarities between that and hagwonning.