Korean Job Discussion Forums

[justpale]

I'm considering applying to G/EPIK. I've found lots of information about contracts and life in Korea and such, but I'm having trouble finding information about daily school life. I'm mainly interested in public schools.

What are the students like?
How much freedom in lesson planning do you have?
Are you expected to teach to the TOEIC?
What are these "Open Classes" I've been hearing about?
Are classes generally multi-level or divided by ability?

Anything else I should know?

[mmstyle]

[plchron]

Epik means you might end up anywhere in the country, Gepik means you are in the province that contains seoul, but not actually in seoul.

Student attitudes depend on age group. Elementary are generally really nice kids with some problem cases like anywhere. Middle school kids are very wild and a little disrespectful from what i've heard from my friends that teach them. But again it depends on the school and the area you work at.

Lesson planning also depends on the school. At mine we "follow the book" and just do the activities in it while only changing the games from the teachers manual.

Never heard of TOEIC

OPen classes mean that a special lesson plan is required. Kind of a pain in the ass to type. Then it is either parents watching you and they give comments/ suggestions/ complaints to your co teacher when you are finished. Or you get watched and evaluated by teachers and administrators and then critiqued afterward.

Classes are a wide spectrum of ability because you have kids that go to night school for english lessons and then you have kids that don't know the ABC's. Usually the curriculum is simple enough that the low level kids can participate though and the high lebvel ones might get a little bored.

[The Floating World]

[Modernist]

A huge amount depends on how well-off the community you are placed in happens to be. If there's money sloshing around, there will be many more kids going to hagwons -- good because they can actually communicate to some extent, bad because they will often be exhausted in your classes.

1. This is impossible to predict. Personally, almost all of my kids are quite sweet, but I have friends with schools where the kids are almost literally hellions. Even in my school there are kids who can charitably be called a-holes, and others who are terribly obnoxious [my least favorites, the mimics...], plus then the ones who hate English, the ones who are so shy they won't speak, the ones who won't obey any directions, and the ones who are just flat-out stupid. In just about any PS job you will have plenty of all of these.

2. Also tough to predict. I have to teach to the basically horrible textbooks, including the absurd key expressions such as 'what seems to be the problem?' and 'may I take your order?' [seriously]. Depends on your co-teacher. We can use PPTs but they should be based on the book's goals, and most of the time I have to do the textbook activities even if they are useless and boring [as they always are]. If you have after-schools, or in extra 'special' classes, you can do more of your own thing.

3. Um, are you kidding? In PS? You are MASSIVELY exaggerating the skills of most PS students.

4. It means you are being watched by teachers, principals/VPs, parents, or some combination thereof. Your CT will go through a lot of ridiculous preparation including a lesson plan that is considerably more detailed than usual.

5. Well, divided by ability but that's a relative idea in Korea. Kids will be a huge range. In my 'A' classes some can speak quite decently and others are only there because they do well on rote memorization grammar tests. I would plan for a pretty mixed experience, catering well more to the lower end rather than the higher.

[justpale]

I tried some searches, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. Mostly just people griping about their hagwons or how long the application takes. A lot of discouraging posts.

What are the good things about teaching/working/living in Korea?

[ttompatz]

[koreatimes]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[sing81]

[Ribena]