Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gideon]

Anyone out there have jobs working for a company.. not a school that farms you out to work at another company... but just working for a company full time, teaching the employees... i just wonder about this because i had an interview with a company.. they want me to work for them..

Anyway, if anyone has experience working for a company as a teacher.. or something..

[Ya-ta Boy]

I did it for four years. Loved the experience. The bosses gave me full control of what I taught and were totally cooperative. I had a great experience.

Just like any other job, the administration will largely determine whether it's a good or bad gig.

The down side: Your pool of prospective students is severely limited. Your students will lose their initial enthusiasm to study English when English class becomes routine for them. So try to put some activities in each lesson that are lively.

[Southern Drawl]

I on the other hand had a much different experience than Ya-ta Boy. The administration wasn't cooperative and they maintained total control of everything. They wanted me to teach the old 1970's Korean style with large classes, rote repetition, and use korean middle school text books. Everytime I explained to them the benefits of modern language teaching methodology I was completely ignored.

And get this, when I first started I had to teach six month courses!! I recommended to them before I started that this wasn't a good idea, so did the previous teacher but to no avail. After 3 months almost all of my students disappeared. It's just too long for most people.

And then I got blamed for everything that went wrong. Even though I never made any of these organizational decisions. There were many other problems that I could write a book about.

Be careful.

Basically, working for a company can be lucrative. But working for a Universtiy is 100 times better. You don't have to stay in an office all day. And you can make up for the lower salery you get at a University through private teaching. Plus you can get vacation. Something that my company didn't offer.

Best of luck to you.

[Gideon]

They have told me i can decide how i want to develop my position. I asked them what exactly would my role be. They told me "its up to you, whatever u decide". intially they want me to level test all the employees (550+) over a 2 month period. It would be informal level testing so the employee doesnt know (so they dont get all shy and feel uncomfortable).. But aside from that, they said, we want to increase our english speaking ability because we are now a global company.. How i do that is up to me..

It sounds like they are giving me a lot of room to teach their employees.. Its only 20 hrs a week, and i negotiated 6 weeks vacation and of course all the othe benefits one would get, insurance, medical, ect.. not to mention the salary is pretty good.. also they will give me 450,000/m housing allowance..

I will know if i get this job on monday.. but i would like to hear other peoples experiences regarding working for a corporation.. it look potentially sweet.. so i am looking forward to ..

[some waygug-in]

I never worked for one, but I had a phone interview for one.

I discovered that I would have to live in the company compound in some kind of "dorm". (probably with some sort of curfew)

I would have to be there all day, teaching or not.

I would be subject to the whims of management, whatever changes they wanted to make I would have to be responsible for, whether I agreed with them or not.

Already after 2 minutes of the interview, they were complaining about me.
(said I didn't talk enough and complained that I had a BA music )

I could see that this was not a position I wanted to persue.