Korean Job Discussion Forums

[lao_ocean_girl]

I got offered a one month summer camp position in Jinju, to be held at Gyeongsang National University, and one at Chang-sin college in Masan. Has anyone ever worked at either of these two camps? How was your experience?

If not, what summer camp will you be working at? And why that one in particular?

[gang ah jee]

I hope you like Korean cafeteria food.

[lao_ocean_girl]

I worked at one before, so I know what to expect. The food doesn't bother me. Plus, it's worth it for the amount of money they're paying.

[Medic]

Have worked at both camps, and they have a similar progrme. The Masan camp was organized by the head of the English Department along the same lines as the Chinju camp. He was a professor at Chinju a while back, and saw the success of their camp, so decided to start one of his own.

The Masan camp isn't as strict on the "only speak English rule" the way the Chinju camp is, but they might eventually get around to doing the same thing. The Chinju camp has a strict "only speak english rule", and the teachers have to give penalty points to those poor students caught using Korean. The brighter students at the Chinju camp have no problem , but the lower level students suffer somewhat under that system.

The meals left a lot to be desired at the Masan camp, but then this coming camp is only their second camp. Could be a teething problem that they will eventually work out. The meals at the Chinju camp were outstanding and looked forward to by most of the students. They of course have been around a lot longer so they have obviously worked at their menus.

Accomodation could be a problem at the Masan camp. You either live in the dormitories in your own rooms or in shared accomodation in guest houses. The shared accomodations are the best because you have your own room with a communal shower between the two people in the accomodation. The dormitories can sometimes be noisy, because there are a lot of other groups using them for various functions during the vacations. For the guys it's bearable, because they have an excellent gymnasium which opens early every day. That was where we showered( those unlucky enough to have the guest house that is). ladies in the dormitories suffered, because they had to suffer the indignity of showereing with everybody else on the floor (that included students as well)

Gymnasium incidently is excellent, and it's new. Equipment isn't beat up, and us teachers had free passes to use it whenever we needed. It opened every morning at 7

The Chinju camp used to have private accomodation in the dormitories, but at the last camp I did there we had shared accomodation. I had no problem with that. They have some free weights as well in a room to exercise with if it's something you like to do.

Both camps were well organized with regards to materials for course work for the students. Photocopying was something we all did at Chinju, but at the Masan camp it was done for us by the staff. Could not have been done by the staff at the Chinju camp, because their were too many English teachers.

At both the chinju camp and the Masan camp we were required to do skits. At the Chinju camp each teacher did one skit with his or her class. At the Masan camp we had to do a skit every week. I personally enjoyed doing the skits with my class, so the extra work required was actually fun.

The chinju camp had a sing song night or activity night every wednesday. When I was there they had an expat teacher amongst us who was quite oustanding at leading the whole group in singing. However I think they could have reduced her workload a bit with a speach festival say where some students from each class could have given a speach before the sing song on each wednesday night. After their speaches it wold have been less of a strain for the song leader to get the music going.

[lao_ocean_girl]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write a detailed replied! I believe the interviewer at the Masan camp said all teachers would their own rooms this year. I had already set my sights on the Jinju camp before this post, so I'll go with that one.

Are you already in Korea? Will you be working there this upcoming summer camp too?

[Tiger Beer]

[the_beaver]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

What ages are the 'campers'?

[lao_ocean_girl]

[lao_ocean_girl]

[Len8]

The masan camp finished at 6 in the evening, whereas the Chinju camp finished between 9 and 10 mon to Fri. At Masan you were free almost every night to do your own thing. Most of the students were local and they were bused home every night. There were about 20 students from Koje and other towns in the area, and they spent their nights in the dormitory. We were rotated so that we taught that Koje group from 7 to 9 once every two weeks.

Me thinks that there will be a lot more students at both camps this summer, because they both managed to provide the right mix of learning and fun to make it interesting. In the case of the Masan camp, teachers could be up for a few extra rotation night classes.

Mention was made of the noise in the dormitories. There were a lot of expletives levelled at the many noisy guests by a few of us teachers

Occassionally you would get the young Korean cretins who would purposely come down to where we were all located just to create a disturbance.