Korean Job Discussion Forums

[deetah]

Hi everyone,

Has anyone had experience working for ECC hogwons in Korea? In Donghae City?

Is their curriculum a joke or actually OK?

Any input would be much appreciated!

[Grotto]

I have yet to see a place in Korea whose curriculum isnt a joke and that includes the public schools.

ECC used Wake Up when I worked for them 3 years ago. The lesson plan was a page a day. So you were expected to teach I am a boy, she is a girl for 50 minutes a day.

They usually pay low but stick to the contract and pay on time.

[NearlyKorean]

ECC is a fairly well-established company....I work for them the 2 years I was here and then wanted more pay then they were willing to give. I didn't back down and neither did they. The housing was not the best, either.

So I left. when I work for them back in 1999, they were using the Discovery series and Hooray for English.

Each level has 2

What this place did was use Discover 1A ~ 3B then used Horray for English 2 and 3 then do Discovery 4a~6b then Horray for English 4~6.

I liked the Discovery books, in that I thought it was excellent for hogwan style teaching. Each book had 9 lessons. each lesson was divied into 2 parts Lesson 1a and 1b. So if you were the first teacher, you would teach lesson A and the Korean teacher would teach lesson B and vice-versa.

Since ECC had 12 lessons in each monthly cycle that means you could complete one book a month, have a review day. a test day and an activity day.

The down side of the Discovery Books was that the supporting material was lame and they were no tests. You had to make your own. Which lead to everyone doing something a little different and of course, the student's scores were different. They also had mistakes and used unnatural phrases.

Overall ECC has low pay, not the best housing, and made your work on some holidays. Each ECC is a little diferent and that was my experience from 6 years ago. It is a solid company, I never worried about being paid on time or not. My ECC had lots of overtime, so you could make more money, if you wanted. The Korean teachers could not string a proper English sentence together, if their life depended on it. That was frustrating.

My 10 won worth

[Homer]

I worked at an ECC when I first arrived.

Good curriculum that gives you a good starting point. If you limit yourself to it you will not go far but it is solid as a base to build from.
The lesson plans were very well organized and easy to follow. s I said, if you were serious about your job, you could build excellent lessons from those books. Or, you could be an idiot and teach its a boy-girl for 50 minutes and then cry about it.

The school was very well run. They respected every point in the contract.

The hours were heavy and the pay a bit lower but it was a good learning environment if you were a new teacher.

In closing, ECC is not the best job out there but it can be a good first job.

[Grotto]

I stand by what I said about curriculum over here.

ECC was a joke.....slow paced AND boring to the extreme.
REI almost a total waste of time...the only good thing was the drama book they had as students had to memorize some lines(not that the lines were realistic or anything)
Public school, no testing, no reviews, no spelling/printing/writing and a curriculum that is based on crap chants and songs....some of which I still cant get out of my mind!

There are quality programs for teaching ESL but I have yet to see any implemented here. UNFORTUNATELY the programs are usually chosen by a Korean who has little or no grasp of English.

[Homer]

Sorry but a school's curriculum is only a starting point Grotto.


I was a teacher in Canada before coming here and the same statement applies there. Curriculum was often deeply flawed and quite limited in scope.

Yet, it was implemented and developped by Canadians in the ministry of education....whats their excuse Grotto?

They have diplomas and a full grasp of English...

[Grotto]

Their excuse?

Them that cant do teach..them that cant do or teach plan curriculum I guess

I guess what I am trying to say is the curriculums arent that good and you really need to supplement the material in order to make a good program.

The curriculum doesnt teach English you do.

[Homer]

[inkoreaforgood]

There are many ECCs that are franchises. A teacher's experience at any ECC comes down to what kind of person the owner is. The franchises do what they want, and I have experienced this directly. Always check out a school by talking to former teachers directly, over the phone. If the school refuses your request for this kind of confirmation, it's a red flag. Very basic to the industry here.

Good luck.

[captain kirk]

People want to work there because, being a big franchise, it has more accountability and comes through for you. Like getting paid in full and severence. I worked at one branch and got proper pay stubs and the pay was meticulously fair, including severence calculated for the time I worked (didn't stay the year).

The books, and I can't remember what they were called, were enough to bore anyone to death. They're like the kind of textbook that's suitable for Korean teachers who can't speak English well. Very simple stuff for beginner learners (Korean teachers lacking English skills) to teach kids. But not teach kids, train them, like dumb animals. Bludgeon them with that so they just keep repeating, reviewing, and it's torture. The only thing that keeps them going is each other and their teacher. Like a sort of prison camp situation.

The other foreign teachers there (and this is just one branch I experienced) were teaching their first year and, being Australian, were very friendly types and really got along well with the kids. Thing is they were doing writing practise with the kids. I'd walk by and they'd be checking the kids writing. One kid. The rest would be standing or in their chairs talking in Korean about whatever like it was a place to hang out. It was really lowest common denominator fare being generated. With no expectations or organization. It was really weird. The foreign teacher teaches conversation, IMO, it makes sense. Not trolling along with 'writing practise' and make do stuff like that (make do with the lack of anything to do in the curriculum).

The boss didn't care, really, what was going on. As long as the kids were happy. Across the street was the mega-hagwon, the tyranosaurus hagwon, and this would always be the shabby second rate one in its shadow. Torn windowscreens weren't fixed or even thinking about being fixed. Corners or aluminum whiteboard shelf very sharp waiting for a kid to impale himself in the small of their back after being pushed. Grimy needing a powerscrub to take off the drab, oily, film on everything. The listless, Sargasso Sea of hagwons. But because it has the big name of a known franchise, I guess, along it tugs.

[Lao Wai]

I agree with most of the previous posters. I worked at ECC my first year in Korea and felt ripped off due to the low salary. However, in retrospect, it was a good training ground. It was organised and my contract was honoured. I worked for a company owned ECC, so it wasn't a franchise.

The Korean teachers at my school were nice, but I found that the kids viewed me as the "play teacher", and the Korean teacher as the real teacher. That was annoying. Still, I managed to a decent job of teaching.

Oh! But one thing about ECC is that that make you do an insane number of "report cards" every month. I did hundreds of report cards a month when I was there. While I was doing my teaching practicum at an elementary school in Canada, the teachers would moan about report card period. I would just secretly roll my eyes. They had to do 30 max, and only a few times a year.

I also had to work Saturdays at ECC. This completely wore me out. I don't care that I didn't work full days all week long. Working six days a week felt completely unnatural to me.

The previous posters were right about the curriculum. It is much too simplistic. The poor kids were being held back. But, if you choose to, you can really make up your own stuff to improve on the lessons. The Korean teachers at my school were nice enough, and had an o.k. level of English, but they really hindered my progress with the kids' accents. One week the kids would be bang on with certain sounds, and then the next, back to Konglish. I couldn't figure it out until one day the kid's told me that Mary teacher (Korean) doesn't say it like that (my way). So of course, they decided she was right.

It also seemed that the more you complained at ECC the more you got. Unfortunately, I was kind of a doormat, and didn't complain all that often. Plus, the Korean teachers have to do a lot more than you for a fraction of the pay, so you kind of feel like an ass when you do complain.

I had to laugh at Captain Kirk, who wrote about the metal ledge under the white board. I ripped a big hole in my shirt on it once, and gouged my arm another time. I mentioned this to the academic director, but nothing changed.

As an aside, we moved to a new officed building setting that was quite nice. The floor was a bright reddish orange colour soft linoleum that was perfect for kids. However, some head honcho from ECC in Seoul came to inspect the place before we moved. He hated it. So, they ripped it up and put down white linoleum. WHITE!!! By the end of day one in the new place, the floor was a grubby grey colour. Real intelligent.