Korean Job Discussion Forums

[globalnomad]

Hi all,

I've been reading about this. I guess it was suppose to take off last year,or not?

The Ansan City English Village.

So if it is up and running, does anyone have any info. on how it is going, and if anyone works there, how are conditions? Seems like the work load is pretty heavy, true or not?

What's this Ansan City area like?

Thanks for any info provided.

[dulouz]

I know one person that worked there and they complained.

[globalnomad]

A bit more detail would have been nice.

[globalnomad]

Hi all,

So this post is a bust....NO one knows anything about this program....

[guangho]

I'm moving to Ansan. Remind me in a few months and maybe I can help.

[ajuma]

I have a friend who has worked there from the beginning. She has complained about the horrible teaching schedule. She never knows from day to day, let alone week to week, what her schedule will be. You would think that after almost 1 year, they'd figure it out! She will NOT renew!

Another problem is the housing. It's quite far from the school and, while nice, adds a lot of "worthless" time to her day.

[globalnomad]

Hi all,

English Village has come a calling...could REALLY use some advice from people that have worked there...

What's the scuttlebutt on this place......this system their implenting sounds interesting, reminds me of what they say the Russians use to do to train their people that they were going to place in the US during the cold war....actually I heard the US did the same to their people they would send overseas......ANYWAY off topic......REALLY need the low-down on this school PLEASE..

What's this area like too????

[UncleAlex]

If you've seen the movie 'The Village' then you know better than to get
mixed up with places like that.

[Hater Depot]

I stayed there 2 days last summer just to observe with some Korean teachers. It's a pretty interesting setup and the teachers I spoke with were enjoying it. The class sizes were small and the students were well-behaved and got to do fun things. There were cooking, art, geography, and computer classes; no Korean was allowed to be spoken during class.

The students I saw were from out school and they enjoyed. Of course their behavior was much better than at our school...

[3baekwon]

I have personal knowledge of the place. I'm one of the teachers there now.

There is no reason to come here, unless you think that the project is an amazing idea (which it is) and are willing to put up with just about anything to see it succeed. OR unless you have a particular calling to help the kids in Korea understand that there is a reason to study English (an understanding which we hope to give them a glimpse of in their short time with us).

The salary is not a good reason to come:
While it's not a really low salary, it's not outrageously high, either - and you work really long hours to earn it.

The contract is not a good reason to come:
The contract is binding only to you, not to the employer. They reserve the right to change it at any time they deem necessary. And indeed they have done so on numerous occasions. (None, to my recollection, were in our favor). Granted, they were just starting up and hadn't thought of quite a few things that should have occurred to them before making the contracts.

The housing is not a good reason to come:
While the housing is nice and clean, as someone mentioned, it's far from the job site. To be fair, there is no good solution to this problem. I'd rather make the 45 minute commute every day than live out there in the middle of a field. At least there are stores and a metro station where we are now. At least they supply a free shuttle bus to and from work.

Things to think about:
If you work M-F from 9-5, you'll have to figure out how to do your banking, post office errands, etc.

If you are someone who needs "your time" during the day, this may not be the place for you. While it looks like you should have SOME time in your day, that's not always the case. Indeed, sometimes you'll work for 13 hours straight without sitting down once. Your mealtimes are often spent either eating with your kids or taking your turn supervising them during meals.

If you are a "contract pointer" ("But it says here in my contract...") this is not the place for you.

If you are not flexible (indeed, sometimes "Be Flexible" does mean "bend over") then this is not the place for you.

Keep in mind that this is not only a government organization, it is a government organization in a foreign country (Obviously. But you'll know what I'm talking about if you come). This increases the amount of frustration with the place exponentially.

If you expect things to be "logical" then this is not the place for you. Many many many things here are ANYthing but logical. I can't emphasize that enough.

If you expect for your work to be acknowledged and to receive recognition for it, this is probably not the best place for you.

If you expect for your hard work to be rewarded the following year in your contract, forget it. Most of us feel that we got screwed in our renewal contracts, some worse than others. The contracts (whether they offered you one or not; whether you got a raise or not) depended not as much on your teaching and contributions to EV as on what certain people thought of you. Rumor has it that some people received probationary (3-month) renewal contracts because some distant person "perceived" that the individual did not have a good enough attitude. It's a rumor, take it for what it's worth. It doesn't surprise me. The contract situation is unfortunate, but there's nothing anyone can do about it. Remember, I said that you can't expect the place to be logical. It isn't.

Reasons to come:
To be a part of the project
To help Korean kids "get" the purpose/use of English
For the experience

Questions?

[D-Train]

Hey 3baekwon,

I applied for this job and my recruiter told me that of the 40 teachers currently working there, 25 of them are going to re-sign (leaving 15 openings). Any truth to this?

Also, I heard the starting salary was around 2.6 mil a month. Is this true, coz if it is, it seems at the high end of the scale for most of the jobs that I've seen advertised.

[3baekwon]

Hi D-Train,

I think about 25 or so had planned on re-signing, but that was before the new contracts came out (they just came out one week ago) and that may have changed a lot of things for a lot of people. I've heard that less than 10 will re-sign. Naturally, none of this is definite. We won't know for sure until June when we have to make the decision: to sign or not to sign....

Teachers discovered that they would actually be making less on the new contract than they're making on the current contract, and that just turned a lot of us off. Many of us came with the expectation that working hard = appreciation, but that's not the formula that GECF uses.

The starting salary is 2.6. They say that there are seven pay levels, but only the first two are really used (2.6/2.7) regardless of your education/experience. I said that the pay isn't amazing because you can make almost that working fewer hours elsewhere. The pay might be a little less, but the fewer hours balances that out, as does the fact that other jobs will let you work on the side. It's in our contract that we cannot work anywhere else. Other employers might sign the paper that lets you go to the immigration office to get the permission stamp, but GECF will not.

The contract isn't that bad for people just coming in. It's only the ones of us who have been here (who will be making less next year) who feel slighted.

That said, the project is an amazing idea and they don't want anyone there who cares about money. They are searching for the kind of people who would work for free if they had to, just to make the project succeed.
Not that they are actually asking people to work for free, it's just that that's the kind of teacher they're looking for.

I do believe in the project, but I also believe that those of us who have poured ourselves into it shouldn't be making less next year than we are this year.

[D-Train]

Thanks for the inside knowledge 3baekwon. But I don't understand how they can offer you less money after you've done a good job??? Is business that bad? If you don't mind saying, how else did they change the second year contract??

[mack the knife]

[3baekwon]

How is it that we'll end up making less?

Let's say a teacher makes 2.6/mo.
Add to that 250,000 that we can use for certain utilities (water, gas, electricity only) This money isn't given to us, it can't be used for any utilities except the ones mentioned, and anything unused is not given to us - it's just that we don't have to pay for those utilities up to that amount.
(For those who've never paid bills, our gas bill alone last winter was well over 100,000 and we used it carefully)

In the contracts, we were told that we could get a max of 100,000 raise. Then they're going to take 150,000 away from the utilities.
2.6 + 100,000 raise = 2.7 - 150,000 less for utilities = 2.55

Add to that the fact that most of us (it seems) did not get raises, regardless of how hard we worked.
2.6 + 0 raise = 2.6 - 150,000 less for utilities = 2.45

Then, (again the rumor mill) I heard that someone was offered even less on the 2nd year contract than they are making now.

Business isn't bad, but EV is famous (relatively speaking). People have seen it on the news and read about it in the papers. It's a huge project that has attracted lots of attention. This has prompted (so I hear) tons of people to send in resumes. I sense that GECF is feeling rather safe, even a bit "c0cky" about its ability to staff the facility regardless of what they do to their teachers. I'm not sure that this is a good long-term plan, but no one asked for my opinion.

Another change to the contract is that teachers will be required to do the overnight shift. This pays an extra 50,000. (This shift currently exists now as well, but it's on a volunteer basis).
Let's say you work the 9-5 shift.
The camp is located on an island in the middle of nowhere, so when your shift ends at 5, you're stuck there. You have to pay for your meals in the cafeteria (meals are free once a day for teachers). Your night shift begins at 8:30 and runs until the students settle down (midnight, 2am, etc.) It's you, one other teacher, and 240 middle schoolers. You wake them up the next morning around 7 and stay with them until 9 when the other teachers arrive. Then you work your normal 9-5 shift. GECF is very reluctant to change the sheets in the rooms, as they've only been used "a couple of times." If you ask for clean sheets, you'll be told that this "isn't a hotel."
Add to that the mold crawling up the walls....

Another obvious change is that, with the opening of the new Paju camp in the spring, they reserve the right to send teachers there or leave them here as they please. (They've *said* that they'd try to accommodate our requests....) Paju will be a great camp, but the teachers will have to live on grounds (not even in a discrete location) in dorm-style apartments. As far as we can tell, there's no parking anywhere near the apartments. It's a LONG walk from the entrance to your door carrying your groceries/shopping, etc. and it doesn't look like the taxis will be able to drive you anywhere near your apartment door. I could be wrong, this is just looking at the plans, but there aren't driveways, service roads, or parking lots near the apartments.

I'm out of time now, but if I think of anything else, I'll let you know.

Mack the knife ~ how true, how true!!