Korean Job Discussion Forums

[MuddyCAmo]

My preference is to work in a public high school but I'm having a hard time finding positions. I am a newly certified TEFL/TESOL graduate. I have a B.S. in Animal Science. Although my experience is in medical coding and billing, I have lots of experience training coworkers.

Am I simply not qualified? Are their certain recruiters/job boards for these positions? Is EPIK/GEPIK/SMOE the only option for teaching in a public school?

I will completely understand if I'm not qualified. At this point, I'm just curious.

Any information would be greatly appreciated!!!!!

[nicwr2002]

High school positions are few and far between. They phased out most of the NETs for those positions as well as middle school.

[SuperfuzzBigmuff]

As stated above, public high school positions are quite hard to find as the overwhelming majority of jobs are for the elementary level.

It may be conjecture, which happens a lot with bored expat teachers, but it seems there might be a slow phasing out of high school positions. Korean English teachers see the NET's classes largely as a time wasting joke as they are trying to get through the book and don't have the time to give up a lesson a week for the NET's lessons, which the students see as a joke as well due to the fact they are only concerned with grammar and vocabulary so they can pass the college entrance test.

Also, you're competing with people such as myself who are already in the system and who have fairly extensive experience.

As I see it, you have zero experience in teaching EFL, so I'd lower my expectations if I were you; just get your foot in the system by applying for EPIK/GEPIK/SMOE and teach elemnetary for a year and see what happens.

[ttompatz]

Korean public high school and most middle school positions were phased out about 6-8 years ago due to poor results in the program. It was deemed to be ineffective and the positions were eliminated.

Most provinces and the national government still maintain a program for placing teachers into elementary schools. These require a TEFL certification of at least 120 hours with a minimum of 20 hours of Face to Face classroom time (60 hours F-F for Busan MOE).

IF you want to work in a high school then you will need to get certified (State certified / licensed teacher) as an "English subject teacher" rather than a 30-day TEFL certified EFL teacher.

Otherwise, if you want to work with high school kids look at China or Vietnam (similar money but you need to buy your own plane ticket) or SE Asia (less money).

.

[SuperfuzzBigmuff]

^
I work at a public high school, and I know of several people who do as well.

BTW, Vietnam is in SEA and you'll be on FAR less money than in Korea as you have to fork out for your own gaff and there are hardly any benefits.

[denverdeath]

[wonkavite62]

Yes, the last person to comment on this post was right. Korean governments do not seem to know what the best policy is for improving students' English ability. The impression that I get is that educationalists' priorities are very short-term, and more about subjective politics than anything.

Currently, the best way to get a high school or middle school job is to look for schools that are listed individually. Some private middle schools and high schools are listed individually and NOT through EPIK. This is the only way for most people to teach that age group.

[weigook744]

No, high school does still exist. But they are very few and either very rural or very specialized schools. A few schools many hire their own teachers directly with their own money. Very little is from EPIK. Seoul and Gyeong gi had their own systems for hiring seperate from EPIK. Most POEs under the EPIK umbrella got rid of most high schools 2 or 3 years ago. Most still have elementary and middle school positions available. If you are in Seoul, I believe it is only elementary schoools and maybe Gyeong gi too? Their rural parts may have other schools? It depends on where you live or want to live. As for Seoul, Gangnam use to have their own seperate hiring for their schools and may have hired for other types of schools as well. Not sure if it has changed.


The MS and HS positions were cut mostly by the local governments sseveral years ago or phased out. Some of it was federally funded, but much of it was locally funded by different groups. Local funding has gone down most. It was when the opposite party of 2MB got elected at the local level that cut started. As for the provinces, some cuts were announced at the end of 2014 going into 2015 for the rest of the country. But very little of it seemed to have gone ahead except for most HS disappearing. A few places tinkered around the edges. A few local ed offices imposed their own "higher" standards like teaching demos and interviews. Some reduced the pay a bit or talked of trimming renewal allowance.

Mostly things have been stable here for a while as far as public school is concerned. Few cuts recently. After schools have taken a hit but are different from regular public budget. Academies have been on the mend with some wages going up.