Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cdnguy]

This question has been rolling around in my head for some time now. If you are looking into a contract and a recruiter or representative from some school gives you contact names to check into the employers past dealings, what use is this. What guarantee is there that these people were even teachers at the school? Even if they were teachers they would clearly be the ones who the representative believed had the best possible experience or else he wouldn��t have chosen them.

I know that they are no guarantees in life but there must be a more reliable way to get info than referrals.

Cheers,

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

Via chat or e-mail:

Check the grammar, spelling, and usage of idioms. One SURE way to distinguish between native and non-native English speakers is using idioms and seeing if they respond properly or not.

Example:

Him/Her: How is your teaching?
You: Teaching is a piece of cake!
Him/Her: Oh do you like cake?

You: Does it rain cats and dogs in Korea?
Him/Her: I never seen them come from the sky

etc.

Via the telephone:

Ask about mundane and seemingly irrelevant things. Ask where the washroom is in the school. Ask about stores or little shops near the school. Ask about some of his/her favourite students.

If he/she cannot answer these types of questions, then of course they had never even set foot in the school let alone teach in it!

Also, ask about the text books. After teaching the same text books for 12 months, he/she surely is familiar with some of the passages and/or questions in the book.

[kangnamdragon]

[cdnguy]

Thanks for the tips. I would like to be in Korea to check out the school but in a previous post the majority of people said that it would be better to have a contract before I came to Korea.

In terms of using idioms to test for native english speakers that is a great idea. I will definetly give that a shot when I am checking for references.

Cheers