Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Unicorned]

I can't seem to find anything on it. Searching through these forums has been a trek. There's hundreds of pages that match my "keywords," but when I skim through them all, they didn't really match.

Is anyone familiar with this branch at all?

I'm having an interview with them soon and just wanted to know more. I've done my CDI (in general) research and it's obviously not everyone's favorite. I just can't seem to find anything on this specific branch.

In the contract they sent over almost everything was pretty ambiguous. The hours are supposedly 6hrs a day, but after reading the contract, I have a feeling it's not always going to be like that.

[Skippy]

You have pretty much answered your own question. It is CDI.

Has the school given you any contact details present people who work or worked at the school to talk with you.

Also use google to help with your search add the the following line to a google search with the place names. Use one or the other and maybe you can find something.

site:forums.eslcafe.com/korea

[Unicorned]

Actually, in the contract it says you are not allowed to speak ill of the branch or deter anyone from doing business with CDI in any way or you are subject to termination.

Lol I guess that says a mouthful already.

I will try that google suggestion.
Thank you, Skippy.

[Beeyee]

April is different to regular Chungdahm. It's more focused towards lower level students and story telling as opposed to critical thinking. You'll have an electronic board that you will do most of your work on and will use blue screens to create movies etc.

You'll actually likely teach less than 6 hours. The April branch where I live teach 3-7.30 but need to stay there until 9 doing prep.

You'll get all national holidays plus two weeks vacation, again, unlike regular Chungdahm.

[Engrish Mufffin]

Why is CDI so bad? Just curious.

I had a few friend who worked there and didn't hear many complaints other than having to work on national holidays. They said the students were smart though.

[Times30]

Regular CDI has long working split shift hours. The particular branch I worked for also had a lot of prep time and unpaid hours. So your Saturdays were sometimes out of the blue, taken away from you. All CDI's are like that btw.

There's also unpaid meetings and school activities that you must go to or risk your relationship to the rest of the branch.

It's honestly ok. But you'll be tired, underpaid, and if your manager is unreasonable, doing a lot of unnecessary work.

I think the worst thing is that CDI has some of the most asinine teaching materials. I'm always complaining about "elimination". They are trying to teach kids what are not important aspects of a sentence but have no methodology for doing it, and differs all the time. Imagine teaching a book that contradicts itself all the time, day to day, even chapter to chapter. You often find yourself trying to justify things that make no sense to you and then later realizing... oh wow the book is completely wrong or the answer sheet has typos.

This was a daily event that drove me up the wall and I would tell my students to use better judgment rather than rely on what the book says. I got punished for this by management for teaching my students to think critically about the material (Which is the biggest irony because CDI's supposed competitive advantage is teaching critical thinking).

Anyways, what I know about April is that it's easier, you get more vacation, and the general vibe is more easy going. The kids will definitely be harder to manage but april has a lot of interesting activities you do with the kids and you have a lot of freedom in terms of how you run the class.

[Engrish Mufffin]

Split shifts? Aren't the working hours from like 4-10?

[Beeyee]

[northway]

[Beeyee]