Korean Job Discussion Forums

superhoover · Joined: 03 Mar 2009

Hey all, I used to live in SK for about 3 years, and have since relocated to Japan, gotten married and gotten a little bit bored.

My wife and I have traveled over to Seoul and she loved it there. We were toying with the idea of coming back for 1 year to sock some money away, hang out with old friends, etc.

My question is this - seeing as how my Japanese is around the level of a really dumb 3rd grader and it's painstaking to browse the ads, I'd like to know if anyone knows about hagwon-style jobs for Japanese teachers.

I'm assuming that the popularity of Japanese lessons in Korea is not even at 10% the popularity of English, but i remember seeing signs for Japanese on hagwons back when I lived there.

Salary wouldn't be a huge issue, because we're pretty frugal and can probably live and save on my salary - what we'd need is someone to sponsor her visa so she could live legally in Korea for the duration of my contract.

The real issue would probably be this, however. She doesn't speak Korean. Teaching English in Korea, one could almost always fall back on the fact that it's a pretty English-familiar place. I'd assume that teachers of other language would have to be pretty fluent in Korean.

Feel free to say "Hey, dumb idea, idiot, stay in Japan" if it is indeed a dumb idea.

jrwhite82 · Joined: 22 May 2010

Well actually, you could sponsor her on a visa. But she will not be able to seek legal employment. So I'd advise against her working if you go that route.

A number of the big hagwon chains offer Chinese, Korean, English, Japanese and French lessons at many of their locations.

I know LMC offers Japanese. (They're a medium sized chain).

But you're right in that the demand is not very high. I don't think she'll need to speak Korean at all really. The full immersion style is probably used in all the language classes. So they don't want her using Korean in class anyway.

If she does get a job, she could probably score some discounted/free Korean lessons at her school if they also teach Korean there.

furtakk · Joined: 02 Jun 2009

There are quite a few Japanese hagwons. Not sure how many of them have native teachers, but I'm sure quite a few do.

Here are some:
http://www.nihonggo.co.kr/index.htm
http://jchongno.ybmedu.com/hakwon/blog/hakwon_main.asp
http://www.japansisa.com/

If you speak a bit of Korean, perhaps you can try finding out more info for your wife. Although, I'm sure there is way more info in Japanese for this type of thing. They also may have some working holiday type exchange that she could apply for. I had one Japanese friend who worked at a clothing store in gangnam. Not sure what her visa situation was though (not a student for sure).

ttompatz · Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Location: Kwangju, South Korea

superhoover · Joined: 03 Mar 2009

thanks for the replies. i will research this more in the months to come.

Draz · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Location: Land of Morning Clam

superhoover · Joined: 03 Mar 2009

DaHu · Joined: 09 Feb 2011

I know a public school teacher who was Korean and she taught Chinese. She knows almost no Chinese.

So if you might think that a public school that teaches Japanese might want her, think again. I think they might want Koreans for these positions (yes, it makes no sense). It might be especially difficult since your wife speaks NO Korean, so it would be difficult to explain things.