Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Dude Love]

Illness is not tolerated, all teachers are threatened in emails, as an example we were told that if we didn�t do exactly what was required (in one case, giving quizzes) we would receive a letter of reprimand and that two letters result in termination. I�ve never heard of any organization except the military giving letters of reprimand.

I was told to not let any administrator know if I was ill and certainly not if I had a medical condition. I was told not to see a doctor in Daejeon but to go to Seoul so administrators would not know.

A number of teachers told me to be very careful about criticising Woosong because the wrong person hearing it could inform on the me and that criticism was grounds for termination.

I felt that one had to be very careful around the administrators and others, rather like walking on eggshells. I was also told by a teacher there, and this is not confirmed, that another teacher went to meet a friend at a private institute to go to dinner and a parent called Immigration, telling them the teacher was teaching illegally.

The teacher, his / her friend and people from the institute were taken to Immigration and questioned. It was determined that the teacher was not teaching there at all but did frequently go there to meet the friend.

An administrator at Woosong sent an email to all the teachers saying that no Woosong teacher could set foot on an institutes grounds without either then getting a letter of reprimand or, I think, termination immediately.

Korea is a free country and people can go where they please, except of course for certain strategic areas. No one has the right to limit where some one goes. Also, the administrator, a foreigner, had a management style would not be tolerated in a Native Englsih Speaking country and I know for a fact that something he did would be completely illegal in his home country under the labor laws in that country and might be illegal in Korea.

Had I known if it was illegal, I�d have gone to the Labor board, but at the time I knew very little about the Labor Board, except that another teacher told me to go to them to make a report of an (un) veiled threat by the administrator in case that behavior continued.

I didn�t go because I didn�t know where the Labor Board was (I�d just gotten to Woosong) and I couldn�t imagine the administrator having the management behaviour he had.

I�d known about Woosong for ten years as I�d known someone who taught there, but I wanted to be in Korea again and two Korean friends told me their thought about Woosong, not knowing what I knew.

When I arrived at The Incheon Airport and walked outside, I was approached by five or six taxi drivers who asked me where I was going (Daejeon) and why (to teach at Woosong).

All of them gave me their opinion of Woosong and all the same opinion.

I would recommend that anyone considering teaching at Woosong should ask any Korean friends or any foreign teacher in Korea about Woosong.

It was also very apparent from the telephone �interview� Woosong was hiring people just to fill vacancies. There was no discussion about methodologies, department philosophy or anything regarding teaching.

The books I was give were pretty poor, one virtually unusable. I also found the students to be mostly uninvolved at best; they just didn�t care.

Before I went to Woosong, a teacher there said the students had done so poorly in high school they couldn�t get into any other university. I thought the students would realize they had a chance at an education and would have started striving for knowledge and grades. That was not the case in the majority of students.

Also, in contrast to other universities where students were a pleasure to be with and worked hard, many students at Woosong at bad and poor attitudes and too many were just obnoxious. I�d not experienced any of that before in universities except in just two individual cases.

Too, many of the teachers were poorly qualified for the job, I doubt even with education degrees, let alone TEFL degrees. Many had been institute teachers and it seemed they were hired simply to full vacancies, with so many teachers needed.

I was paid on time and certainly appreciated that but was told by another teacher that extra classes might not be paid on time. That didn�t bother me so much because they were extra classes and not on the regular schedule. I don�t know because I never taught extra classes.

I thought the location was alright. It�s not difficult to get to downtown by taxi, though it is a bit expensive to go to Dusan-dong by taxi where EMart and a variety of restaurants are.

The Woosong apartments are in a very poor area, a lot of it looking pretty badly and there are burglaries there. My apartment was burgled one night while I was asleep in the apartment. I�d left the door open a bit because it was so hot, which I obviously should not have done.

The apartment building was had a card key entry but someone did get in unless it was someone else living in the apartment building.

I believe it was before I was burgled, but the front door to the building did not close properly and I informed staff and it was repaired. But it was easy for someone to come in from outside anyway.

A woman teacher in another apartment building was awoken one night by someone using a torch while trying to break into her apartment while she was asleep

I didn�t mind �sharing� an office because the four or five of us who used it had much different schedules and there was rarely more than one person there. I was warned about the computers though. More than half had burned up because of electrical problems. I do think computers were replaced with computers from classrooms when they were replaced. It�s just a bit concerning to have staff warn me about the computers.

Much more happened, but I don�t feel I can divulge any more because it might identify me and also because of the law in Korea that says a university can sue someone for criticising it.

I�d gone to Woosong just to be back in Korea and as backup to another plan, I�d stay at Woosong for one year and them move to a different university.

_____________________________________________________________
Woosong�s students are really bad! Sleeping, playing with phones, and other middle school pranks are quite common. If any Korean student complains about a teacher to a Korean administrator, the foreign teacher is automatically at fault. To improve its university ranking, Woosong hires its graduates and has hired a large number of foreign teachers. Yes, this increases a universities ranking in Korea! This gives the impression that Woosong is better than it actually is.

Your teaching will be evaluated by Woosong�s senior teachers, who quite frankly aren�t very well qualified. Most have no qualifications other than some university degree and having been in Korea a long time. Instructors are encouraged to use the money or stamp system where students are rewarded for answering questions with play money and stamps which are used for participation points in the grading calculations. Ok for elementary kids, but they are doing it with university students.

Keep in mind, most consider Woosong to be a unigwon not a university! Being a unigwon teacher implies that you will be teaching classes other than normal university courses. These other courses include elementary and middle classes and camps, adult conversation, and various workshop type classes. You may even be farmed out to teach adult conversation classes off-site. The worst job is teaching young students because they are fond of jamming their fingers into a foreign teachers backside in a Korean custom called �dong-chim.� Another bad assignment is teaching adult conversation classes because quite frankly, these adults have failed to learn English after upwards of 8-10 years of instruction. There isn�t much you can do with them, and they complain about anything and everything.

Another issue is that Woosong is a private university which is essentially a large family business. Although the founder had something on the ball, regression to the mean is clearly at work here, and many of the senior management are in their positions due to connections to the founder�s family rather than personal qualifications.

Of concern to most teachers would be housing, and Woosong�s housing varies from adequate to small and moldy. Maintenance and upkeep is quite bad, and getting the housing manager to fix something is an ordeal.

Pay and benefits are reliable, and what is promised is delivered upon. Vacations are short, and there is little or no down time between classes. A lot of work is just pointless and appears mostly to keep teachers busy rather than accomplishing any educational goal. Generally, vacation time is granted based on seniority, and I have not received the vacation days that I have requested.

Woosong is a good first employer in Korea since they will hire someone with little or no experience and from outside of Korea. It�s also an employer of last resort since they have a large number of foreign teachers and a high rate of turnover. They are also not as discriminatory as many universities in that they hire older teachers (50+), ethnic minorities, and those who for a variety of reasons unrelated to qualifications would be rejected elsewhere. It�s a good place to work also if you are gay/lesbian.

So to summarize, it�s a good place for a first job in Korea or as an employer of last resort. Keep in mind that it�s a unigwon (university + hagwon)! I can�t imagine why anyone would spend more than a couple of years there, but some stay for many years. The students are about as low quality in academic quality as well as classroom decorum as any you will find in Korea. Other than getting paid and receiving benefits, I don�t have a high opinion of management. I neglected to mention that pay raises are quite small with many teachers getting only about 50k won per month for renewing a contract.

I tried to be fair in my assessment of Woosong. There are some good things, but mostly, it a place you move on from.
_____________________________________________________________
Here�s the deal. The administration (a dozen white people) have sold out to the korean woosong staff to do their dirty work. In return they teach 4 hrs. a week and keep tabs on the rest of the 120 teachers. These admin people who married korean women are no less different than any other american corp. sold out to get slave labor coming in every yr. Korea does not want foreigners here more than 1 or 2 yrs. because of the pension system or anyone older than 60 because they don�t want to pay for medical bills. It�s all about the money of course and these koreans learned it from america! Welcome to Korea suckers. You�ve been warned. The 100% truth.
_____________________________________________________________
Many teachers in Korea and most foreigners in Daejeon, where I used to live, have heard of Woosong University/Language Institute and there are many stories out there, so I feel I owe prospective teachers, whether in Korea or abroad, informed information about this institution. As a disclaimer, it needs to be said that I left Woosong on good terms with most and even cordial terms with management overall � I am not someone who was stiffed on a paycheck and I didn�t commit any indiscretions, so I have no axe to grind in my assessment, I am offering a heads up for anyone thinking of working there.

Firstly, Woosong pay on time every time and although it is located in a slightly run-down part of town (not that close to the entertainment districts of Daejeon), Jayang-dong is being gentrified and there are plenty of quality coffee shops, drycleaners, supermarkets and recreation activities (weights gym, basketball and volleyball gym, hiking, football fields) available. A very pleasant surprise is Solpine restaurant, where culinary arts students (some of the best at the university for overall and English competence) serve haute cuisine (western, other Asian and Korean) at very reasonable prices. Additionally, the Korean admin staff are often placed with unreasonable demands by foreign teachers and really give their all for the university and for teachers, I am thinking of people like Amy, Beom-Ho, James, Iris and others. They really are the heart and soul of the place who should have much more power, responsibility and $$$$ than what they currently own.

Opinions vary on housing, my housing was spacious, clean, free of mould and air-con and the floor heating worked perfectly. As Woosong staff are dispersed in different installations (some take the housing subsidy and find their own accommodation), conditions vary widely and other colleagues did have real problems with mould, plumbing, cockroaches and other nasties, it really is luck of the draw in this regard. I also did not have direct dealings with the Woosong onsite TESOL mall program, but overall the word was positive from some, negative from others- speak to people who completed the courses and they will certainly have good or bad things to say about workload, plagarism policy etc. Many teachers come to Woosong to bridge the gap from hagwon teaching to moving into legitimate university jobs elsewhere.

Woosong (I mean management here) really let themselves down by their know it all attitude. As you probably know, Woosong have around 140 foreign English teachers and western management (ie that select group of foreigners married to Daejeon based Koreans) supposedly have very little power. One excellent example happened around June last year, when Woosong offered contracts to 21 foreign teachers based overseas but then revoked all but three contracts on the advice of Korean management because they did not possess TESOL specific Master�s level qualifications, merely generic ones. This caused considerable heartache to many (I know two of the people affected) and although the ruling probably came from Korean management initially and the offers were eventually reinstated, the whole episode was an absolute disgrace and puts blood on the hands of the westerners who didn�t mobilise the foreign teachers to protest this action (eg a stop work action). Revoking contracts is not an acceptable contract anywhere, anytime and in any cultural context.

There is much that Korean and western management could learn from other teachers, but they produce very little in terms of real outcomes for staff (unless you count photocopying concessions), which result in most foreigners moving on after a period of 1-2 years. The director seems like a reasonable man, but his second-in-charge, IB, is an ogre who enjoys doling out letters of reprimand to those who have constructive ideas. For example, an ex-colleague of mine and as fine and conscientious teacher as there is, was virtually hounded out of the university after he wrote a very thoughtful piece about Woosong adopting the European Framework of Languages (90% of the students never proceed past A1 level)and how this failed to stimulate learning. Another colleague of mine didn�t have his contract renewed based on IB�s advice because he drew Woosong�s attention to their �probation� system for underperforming teachers- you know -you are assessed on student popularity from illiterate and sometimes intellectually challenged students, while submitted to observations from teachers who many times do not have ESL specific qualifications- would you seek advice from a professional (lawyer, architect, doctor, dentist) who is NOT actually a professional? Of course, his way of dealing with theses issues is to state �Satan will wear a wool cod piece before I take management advice, or any other advice from a person like you�. I should also add DK, a Korean-American colleague of mine who moved from Woosong because she was given a better offer elsewhere after one semester and was deducted two weeks wages at management�s discretion because we need to give adequate notice for their staffing requirements, even though they want teachers to move on so they can nickle and dime on pay rises and filling vacancies is often done at an 11th hour basis elsewhere in Korea.

As a final word, Woosong have proceeded to extract the maximum commitment required from their staff for the minimum consideration. When I arrived, Woosong might have had only six weeks of paid vacations, but they had many fallow weeks out of semester when only esoteric classes were offered and teachers worked skeleton schedules. Both students and teachers alike could relax but Woosong eventually tightened the screws by demanding a full intersession schedule (20 hours) that is universally despised by all staff and students, with the exception of management and the rare bird with a cushy gig with good students in nursing or culinary arts like LoveWoosong above (Hi Mike!). Some of these courses include TOEIC preparation courses, while all students must take the TOEIC test. This is not administered by ETS (the rights holder) but internally by Woosong using their own specially trained staff- just don�t call this privacy (cough, cough). No one dares complain, because you might be given a letter of reprimand from you-know-who-, it�s amazing that he�s been here so long, it�s almost as if he has licence to do this from the chief in a good cop/bad cop routine.

in short, ff you�re in Korea or overseas, apply at Woosong, but only sign on as a last resort in terms of university gigs. You will eventually move on and will not be valued.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Woosong should be called Poo-song. My first eval came from a 25 year-old with no TESOL qual whatsoever. My second eval came from the Program Coordinator, who�d taught in Korea for 8 years and had no TESOL qual whatsoever. He criticized my use of hand gestures that were taught as part of the CELTA curriculum. I talked my way out of a 3rd eval, which would have come from someone who�d been in Korea for 20 years and had no TESOL qual whatsoever. Three supervisors, a combined 30 years of teaching exp. and no TESOL qual whatsoever. I�ll let you decide how much Poo-song cares about education.
The management that foreign teachers will deal with are all white American males married to Korean women. To my knowledge not a single one has a TESOL qual that includes observed teaching practice. Two have dubious degrees. I was hired without an interview. If you�re lucky you MIGHT be ok with your housing but it won�t be in an interesting area and it will probably be small. It MIGHT be clean and new and near work. You MIGHT also get really short hours if you�re lucky. But what good�s the free time if you�re in a crap area with nothing to do?
My second or third paycheck was WAY short, something about a proactive or retroactive tax deduction or something like that. It worked out fairly in the end but it happens every year and no one ever warned me. I also learned a new word at Poo-song: intersession. You�ll get less time off than at any other Korean Uni. because you�ll be working when your friends are travelling and enjoying time off. You have to deal with student evals and more observations if your evals are poor when you�re getting bottom of the barrel students who don�t have the maturity to fairly evaluate teachers. But because they�re nothing more that tuition-paying customers, their opinions are all that matter. Some of us had to judge a speaking contest on behalf of Poo-song and the outcome was rigged, no question about it. Once when I was teaching a class a jerk came and attacked his girlfriend when I wasn�t there. There were roughly ten young men in the room and not a single one helped her.
For the most part the students couldn�t be worse. If they�re not behaving like statues and it feels like you�re in an empty room they�ll be acting like children and you won�t believe how crap their English is, even by Korean standards. I had a student who couldn�t count to ten, another who didn�t know the months, one was watching Power Rangers on his phone in class, etc. My second eval, from the Program Coordinator with no TESOL qual whatsoever, was jammed with 46 students who I saw once a week for two hours and he expected me to know their names. Yep, lots of opportunity for learning there and I bet they gives a rat�s ass about education. He later told me he didn�t feel comfortable in my class, which I don�t doubt, but it never occured to him that it was because there were 46 dimwitted males in a classroom who expect to pass because they�re paying to be there.
I told an office worker how crap my students were and he said to just pass anyone who came to class regularly. Yep, lots of integrity there. I emailed management to complain about an eval from a 25 year-old with no TESOL qual whatsoever. He didn�t address a single one of my points and told me to keep my correspondance professional. He said my next eval would be from someone suitably qualified, which turned out to be a lie. He later gave a friend of mine a letter of reprimand and deleted a post of his on Moodle for proposing a different framework for teaching.
At the end of my contract I had to teach middle school students. The teaching material included vocabulary related to and discussions of drunkeness, vomiting, hangovers and cohabitation. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. I emailed a supervisor about this and received no reply. In the end I guess it didn�t matter because the students were unresponsive beyond belief anyway. I knew a teacher who hated teaching kindy at Poo-song because her Korean co-teacher just translated everything she said. Yep, very educational.
Poo-song is poo, no ifs, ands or buts. I know a few teachers who don�t mind it there and even they don�t think management cares about education. You could argue it�s better than a typical hagwon but that�s not saying much. You might make some friends, like some of your students, some nice people work there, you might enjoy your honemoon period in Korea and what not but it�s def a crap university and ranked in Korea�s bottom sextile, which is quite a feat. If you�re truly desperate for adult teaching work you could work there and look for proper work in the meantime. I lived in Korea for 10 years and my year at Poo-song was the worst by far. The next year I got a job at a proper Uni. and it blew my mind that the students actually acted like adults and did the work. I never thought I could be that happy in Korea again. If you�re a TESOL professional Korea can be your best friend but it�s more likely to be your worst enemy because of places like Poo-song, which don�t do anything to raise the bar of Korea�s crap ESL level and industry.

[earthquakez]

[baedaebok]

Hey...thanks for the heads up. I'm thinking of moving to Woosung University . Have things changed since 2003?

BDB