Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hatcher]

My boss told me today that the natives must have a 4 out of 5 in order to be re-hired. He then told me that Korean profs only need a 3.4... He wouldnt explain why.

Anyone have a similar set up?

[Seoul'n'Corea]

[emmahearst]

If you've done a great job, no need to worry.

[liveinkorea316]

Korean teachers or professors? Anyway, it doesn't matter because they are not on 1-years contracts like us. It is much much harder to fire a full time employee in any country and in Korea the teachers union is the strongest there is. Government education reforms basically do not happen without the unions consent. One bad evaluation or ten horrible evaluations would probably not be enough to fire a Korean teacher. They would get warning after warning, then give excuse after excuse, have paid training after training and be shifted from school to school before firing was even mentioned.

[willteachforfood]

[Unposter]

Since you said Korean Profs in the subject heading, I will assume you meant universities.

1. Take anything a Korean says in English with a grain of salt; you would be surprised how often things are expressed awkwardly.

2. Let's say that is true. FTs are usually hired as teaching experts (they don't generally do research or hold administrative or staff positions); maybe the Korean Profs are evaluated differently depending on what else they are expected to do.

3. You do not have to agree with it but some Koreans believe there is a "foreigner bounce" - Korean students won't hold you to the same teaching standards as a Korean Prof so an acceptable evaluation may be different or they may think there are different degrees of difficulty that teaching content might be more demanding than teaching conversation. I am not trying to argue that is right or wrong just that maybe the school you work for thinks about it that way.

4. It is my understanding, and my wife is a Korean school teacher, is that Korea has one of the WEAKEST teachers unions in the world. In fact, unionized teachers are highly discriminated against and that private school principles and owners have amazing power to set curriculum and to hire and fire nearly at will.

[PRagic]

If the OP did indeed mean professors, then I can tell you from experience that for tenure-track and visiting professors (with Ph.D.s), the evaluations are exactly the same for Korean and non-Korean professors.

[Kwangjuchicken]