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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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| Are you applying with EPIK this year? (ie starting Sep 2005) |
| Yes - have applied and can't wait! |
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6% |
[ 2 ] |
| Yes - have applied but am in two minds about it really... |
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6% |
[ 2 ] |
| Yes - haven't applied yet but I intend to soon! |
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3% |
[ 1 ] |
| I'm thinking about it... not sure yet though |
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19% |
[ 6 ] |
| EPIK?? Are you MAD!!?? bwa-ha-ha: good luck, fools! |
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64% |
[ 20 ] |
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| Total Votes : 31 |
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stat
Joined: 22 Apr 2005
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 Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:09 am Post subject: Applying for EPIK this year? |
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Anyone else applying for EPIK this year? There's a lot of debate about EPIK's performance on these (and other) forums, and this is a thread intended for us applicants to share our experiences/worries/tips.
I'm applying with my girlfriend, we've put Kwang-Ju (cos it's a cool city), Dae-Gu (quite liked it when I was there once), and Kyong-sang-nam-do (lots happening in this region, pretty coastal stuff) down as our preferred POEs. Does anyone know any people currently teaching in these POEs (Provincial Office of Education) we could contact?
We're also trying to negotiate with the respective POEs about the possibility of having the school vacation as unpaid extra holiday so we can go and do stuff (travel around a bit, come home and see family) but it seems a bit of an uphill struggle. Anyone got any tips? We've got their fax numbers if anyone else is looking to contact their POE.
So come on fellow applicants!! What're your hopes and fears?!!
ps just had our interviews in London's Korean Embassy - anyone need some reassurance about EPIK interviews? seemed to go quite well.... |
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stat
Joined: 22 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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oh come on guys'n'gals!!! any of the voters care to leave a message?
*bump*  |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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Hello, Stat!
I wasn't going to leave a message, because different job-seekers are looking for different things. So I am reluctant to give someone else advice on job-hunting.
EPIK seems to be "one big happy family," and I'm not looking for one big happy family.
I understand that a foreign teacher works with a Korean teacher in the EPIK program. That reduces discipline problems, but Koreans tend to differ with us considerably on what constitutes good foreign language education.
A person applying for EPIK is taking a gamble. You might hit the jackpot, you might win the booby prize. Perhaps it would be worth your time to visit the education offices in the places which you named. If you and the administrator click, that administrator might request you. If you and the administrator don't click, a disaster could be prevented.
Have you tried entering EPIK as a search on the forum?
That will give you 242 matches! |
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globalnomad
Joined: 06 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 3:33 pm Post subject: |
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I'm contemplating doing the Epik thing, mainly because of all the terrible things I read about here about hagwons, being fired before end of contract, fighting to get paid, promises made and not kept, etc...I'm aware that there are good hagwons, but how does one know which is which if one is not in country.
I hear the public school route, though work load intense at times, is very secure in terms of getting paid, completing a contract, getting your letters of reference etc... Is this about right? Or am I way off base?
Aside form the luck of the draw in terms of the Korean teacher assistent you may have to work with.....are there very many differences between the schools (I'm mostly interested in High Schools), like in the US and the difference (and I know I'm stereotyping and I don't mean to lable nor discriminate, just to create a reference) between an innercity school and an uptown school, or a well funded, big football team school and a run down broke school...are there big differences between the schools in S. Korea?
Also...please advise, describe, the difference berween Epik and Gepik..any advantages one from the other?
And it seems most agree that doing your own leg work and finding your own public school is the best way to find the best deal, both economically and locationwise. Is there ANYway that one could do this NOT being in S. Korea?
My qualifications are: Master's in ESL - Bachelor of Science in Education - Teaching Certificate 10+years experience.
I'm really looking for a university job, but not being there in S.Korea to interview I feel that my chances are very slim, so I'll probabaly have to spend a year in the tenches and public High School seems the place to go....Any comments and/or advice on my plan.
I also have a Master's degree in Latin American Studies and I'm bilingual in Spanish, with 6+ years teaching experience (native speaker). I was wondering what the chances, after I get settled in over there of me being able to use my Spanish in any way. I've heard that some of the High Schools offer Spanish too. |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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| I thought about it since it's my first time teaching and teaching in SK. However, the money scared me off (I'd be a 3rd level, if I remember the category's name), as did the horror stories floating around here and on editorial pages. The thought of having a Korean assistant---in spite of the constant complaints here---was attractive, as was the association with the SK government, but I couldn't really get over the consistently low reviews EPIK's gotten, and all that implies. I've since found a job in an English village. |
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Badmojo
Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Location: I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
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| Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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Say what you want about hagwons, but their conditions are the most conducive to the communicative approach. By that I mean the classes are smaller, you're more apt to see them everyday, and have a greater say in the curriculum, structure, and class aims. At least that's been my experience.
I've never taught in the EPIK/public school program but 20 plus students, Korean co-teachers, and classes you see once or twice a week would definitely put a damper in my enthusiasm. |
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Cherry Ripe
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
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| Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 6:45 pm Post subject: Vacation |
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| Well...if you like the idea of travelling around during your vacation, you should forget about going to Taegu POE. A friend of mine works for one of the schools there - last winter vacation they were told not to make any plans (to travel) for the entire vacation. They had to work at a camp for 2 weeks. This summer they will be working at the POE and at a camp - that leaves them about 2 or 3 weeks vacation during which they are allowed to leave the country. |
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Saxiif
Joined: 15 May 2003
Location: Seongnam
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| Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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At what they pay?  |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 9:41 pm Post subject: Re: Vacation |
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| Cherry Ripe wrote: |
| Well...if you like the idea of travelling around during your vacation, you should forget about going to Taegu POE. A friend of mine works for one of the schools there - last winter vacation they were told not to make any plans (to travel) for the entire vacation. They had to work at a camp for 2 weeks. This summer they will be working at the POE and at a camp - that leaves them about 2 or 3 weeks vacation during which they are allowed to leave the country. |
My school is trying to implement the same thing with me. I'm gonna implement my own personal "Don't ask, don't tell policy" Don't ask me where I'm going and I won't tell you lies.  |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:16 pm Post subject: Re: Vacation |
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| peppermint wrote: |
| Cherry Ripe wrote: |
| Well...if you like the idea of travelling around during your vacation, you should forget about going to Taegu POE. A friend of mine works for one of the schools there - last winter vacation they were told not to make any plans (to travel) for the entire vacation. They had to work at a camp for 2 weeks. This summer they will be working at the POE and at a camp - that leaves them about 2 or 3 weeks vacation during which they are allowed to leave the country. |
My school is trying to implement the same thing with me. I'm gonna implement my own personal "Don't ask, don't tell policy" Don't ask me where I'm going and I won't tell you lies. |
Peppermint, Peppermint, Peppermint... 
You know, it's people like you with attitudes like yours that really act like acid on the "one-for-all" teamwork approach that we employers try so hard to instill in our 'corporate family'.
Look, I agree that there has to be a line that separates your professional career and your personal life. No doubt. But here in Korea, that line is drawn in different places and ways, and it's usually not as rigid a line as we're used to seeing in the West. Sometimes it's a dotted line -- -- -- -- -- . Sometimes it's so very faint and hard to see ----------------, that you might forget it's there at all. Sometimes it meanders all over the place ~~~~~~~~~, and all over your calendar. And sometimes it moves, suddenly and without warning. It's a funny old line of separation, as I'm sure you've discovered. (  )
The Guru has worked for Korean employers where the local staff rarely if ever took their entire allotted days off during the year, and there weren't all that many days off to begin with. I was constantly being reminded (though generally in an innocent, unintentional way) just how selflessly devoted everyone around me was, and how fully prepared they were to have their personal plans and trips dashed against the jagged rocks of some higher-up's slightest whim or velleity. (which was almost entirely a function of him wanting to lay a big, sloppy, wet one on his higher-up's posterior)
It was always tricky making annual vacation plans, because it wasn't just a matter of getting one person's "o.k." and then booking my flight. I needed to coordinate my departure/return dates with the chiefs of several divisions, each with their own calendar of events and deadlines.
One year was particularly bad, when one of the divisions suddenly objected just days prior to my departure, and there was no way I could have rescheduled as there weren't going to be any seats left. I'd be waitlisted, there'd be rebooking fees, parents' plans would be upturned, etc., etc. On top of which, I'd already rejiggered my holiday plans for that year two times prior to that, both times at the request of the employer, and I wasn't about to do so again.
All they said was 'sorry, but please, you can't go', to which my response eventually became 'just you try and stop me'. When they started to break out the psychological thumb-screws, I simply laid out a few "what-if" scenarios of my own for them. (I say "them", but it was really just this one little jerky-jerk annoying twit cipher go-between who was running up and down from his boss' office to mine.) 'You can fire me or double my salary -- neither are going to persuade me to cancel my trip. Get that and get it straight.  ' (Naturally, I would've rolled on the floor and peed on myself if they'd doubled my salary for cancelling the trip, but I knew that wasn't in the cards... )
'But you just can't go!!!!'  ( )
"Look, when that plane takes off this Saturday, you're going to be running alongside it, shaking your little fist and screaming "you can't go!", while I'm going to be settling in to my second complimentary Bloody Mary up in Business Class. See you in a month!'
At that point in the discussion, things got ugly and the gloves really came off. He .... Nahhh -- gotta save something for my future posts! But I will say that my emotions, as that plane finally lifted off the runway, were akin to what a P.O.W. must feel being plucked out of enemy captivity. |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 12:33 am Post subject: |
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| I understand what you're saying, and I'd agree with you in a corporate setting where everyone gets the same amount of holidays. The thing is, here, the Korean teachers get 3+ months to upgrade their skills or travel or whatever, and I will get two weeks in which I'm free to travel, a couple of months of camp programs. ( which I enjoy) After that I'm expected to spend the rest of my time sitting in my apartment in small town Korea, because the government has decided that foreigners who leave the country can't be trusted to return.(This is almost word for word what my school told me) |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 1:05 am Post subject: |
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| peppermint wrote: |
| I understand what you're saying, and I'd agree with you in a corporate setting where everyone gets the same amount of holidays. |
I hope you know I wasn't being at all serious there. Wasn't even playing Devil's advocate. Just parroting the usual BS that gets tossed around by lots of employers who are all take and no give. I allowed myself to get jerked around too often before I realised that it was never going to be a two-way street in most employers' eyes. There is such a thing as being strategically flexible here, but generally people just wear themselves out for the employer's benefit in return for merely not being replaced. It's sad.
| Quote: |
| ... After that I'm expected to spend the rest of my time sitting in my apartment in small town Korea, because the government has decided that foreigners who leave the country can't be trusted to return.(This is almost word for word what my school told me) |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 1:19 am Post subject: |
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| Sorry, it's been a very high stress kinda week, and my employer BS detector is on overload. |
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stat
Joined: 22 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 9:05 am Post subject: Re: Vacation |
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| Cherry Ripe wrote: |
| Well...if you like the idea of travelling around during your vacation, you should forget about going to Taegu POE. A friend of mine works for one of the schools there - last winter vacation they were told not to make any plans (to travel) for the entire vacation. They had to work at a camp for 2 weeks. This summer they will be working at the POE and at a camp - that leaves them about 2 or 3 weeks vacation during which they are allowed to leave the country. |
Thanks very much for that, Taegu was our second choice. We had faxed them to ask if there was any possibility of negotiating longer holidays for less pay, but they just re-sent the contract to us.
Anyone heard of any good POEs? I know some have had problems, such as Cheulla-Nam Do, where Epik don't operate anymore as a top beaurocrat had gambled away the budget. |
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stat
Joined: 22 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 2:19 pm Post subject: a-i-go... michigetda! |
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HELP!!!
hmm. well, it seems as though we passed the UK's requirements, and our applications were sent off to the Korean EPIK office a couple of weeks ago. They tried to talk to us about this (get this - they called at 1.35 in the morning ), but in the end got the UK staff to do it.
Because we applied as a couple, they said that they could not find us shared accommodation that was near two available places in Kwangju, Kyungsangnamdo or Kyunggido. HOWEVER, would we like to go to Inchon? I said no, not really, and they said that it was that or nothing (this is a really paraphrased conversation, it was all done very nicely and politely).
So now we're in a quandry (sp?). Do we continue with EPIK and teach in Inchon? I'd really like to know what everyone's opinions of the place are, because as I see it it's essentially a large port with loads of sailors in it, connecting South Korea and China. The alternative is saying 'no thanks' to EPIK, and just applying to the next school in Gwangju that's looking for a teacher (one of us could get it, the other look for stuff when we arrive).
Help me please!!! I said I'd write back to EPIK and let them know tomorrow (Monday)
Thanks guys
ps EPIK want a comprehensive medical including chest x-rays. This will costs us upwards of a hundred pounds each. Is this a standard requirement for Korean teaching contracts? |
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