Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nlmurphy]

Can anyone tell me about the "English Villages"? I think there are several Seoul English Village and UN English Village. Do you live and work there? Good / Bad insights

[Yu_Bum_suk]

The right place if you like working with foreigners; the wrong place if you're like me (I would cry if I found out that my school was getting any other foreigners).

[formerflautist]

It depends on the village. There has been some bad stuff posted on this board about some of them.

[JohnTeacher]

Hi,
Basically, things depend on what yowish to accomplish here in South Korea. If you see yourself as a bona fide educator and want to actually be able to guage some degree of accomplishment on a weekly Or daily) basis, the an English Village is definitely NOT for you.
I could be wrong....but I think the term "edutainer" was coined by the English Villages. "Edutainer"....if this even remotely sounds like you'll be accomplishing something of pedagogical value....try saying it to yourself again.
Then again....there are many who aren't trying to accomplish anything at all of a pedagogical nature here. If that description fits you, then English Villages are the place for you.
Depending on the place, there are differing requirements. The ones run by the Gyeonggi provincial government (the original ones) have great expectations/demands placed upon the staff. They also are 24 hour operations and expect staff to be "flexible" (their term...not mine) and be ready to jump in/fill in on a moments notice. Places like Incheon English Village are run by the municiplaity...and are (to my understanding) not quite as bad.

[Lunar Groove Gardener]

Aside from the fact that most employment in Korea has its ups and downs, my experiences with "English Village" were mostly positive. It offered the chance to develop very creative 'project based' lessons of my own design, and then to fine tune them through repetition. The repetition can become a little tiring. Now that I'm back to university teaching, I am really grateful for these experiences. If you are creative and "flexible"(read interested in expanding your own vision of the classroom) then these places are potentially great centers of innovation and growth for your professional repertoire. If you prefer to teach out of a book and have that book tell you what your students should learn at any certain point, you'll be having some trouble figuring what to do. Some teaching professionals do believe in their hearts that education should not be entertaining, some of their students may disagree. I think that is perhaps a notion that is in keeping with language acquistition concepts of the past. I find that my students respond very well to things which fascinate, challenge and entertain them. Presentation and "hands on learning" has an impact in this regard. Does this mean you must sing, dance, draw, create? Well the fact is that students remember verbal material that is presented in song quite well. Learning dance has benefits on many levels and visual learning is a very useful tool which most of us use. Frankly I've never met a Korean student who wouldn't sing, though many teachers won't.
I hope for my students to gain confidence through new experiences. I think the best of the "English Villages" have that intent and effect, and at their best demand some of the same from any teacher. That said, I'd never live "on site". It's good to see new concepts being tried and improved upon, and being a part of that is a rewarding experience.

[JohnTeacher]

Hi,
I didn't mean anything negative about the term "flexible". I was merely using the Gyeonggi province's definiton.
The English Villages can provide a fun learning environment...no doubt.
I also employ a lot of fun and a great deal of energy in my classes.
I teach English to Korean teachers for the provincial government during winter and summer breaks...as well as make presentations before teachers' groups like KOTESOL...and I am generally told I am very funny, entertaining and the most energetic teacher they've ever seen. Even my much younger "foreigner" contemporaries have commented on the energy I expend each and every day. (I'm 54 in Korean years).
My lectures and classes are generally under the theme "Making English Engaging". No...I don't believe in adhering to any text. The text, to me is merely the starting point...the idea for the week, the general direction of the course load for the semester one week at a time. I add variety, parlance and innovation....it works fine for me.

[rawiri]

Post a video link to some of your classes. I'd like to see exactly what it is that you do.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

If this is your idea of "education," then I suppose you're right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JzsM05OYQc

[m8888888]

The kids in that video were kindys, which is NOT the target age for an English Village. I worked at a village run by YBM for a few months, and we were always getting stuck with ECC kids, since it was a free fieldtrip for them. Almost none of them spoke any English, they have very short attention spans, and there were no lesson plans for them. It was such a pain. The video is NOT representative of normal English Village Activities.

But the normal English Village activities, when the appropriate students were there, were definitely educational. Er, most of them anyhow. The kids are there for a week, learning tons of new things, but there isn't much repetition, so a lot of it doesn't stick, but I think they do pick up a lot.
It's one of the easiest jobs out there. A lot of weeks, we didn't work 30 hours specified by the contract, because there aren't enough kids. & of course there's no prep time or any work to do at home. During summer and winter vacations, we always worked 30 hours, and weren't allowed to take vacation then. There were plenty of opportunities for overtime, too. It was really easy to make friends, because there were so many foreign teachers, and so many Korean teachers fluent in English. Of course that means some people only had limited contact with Korean culture. But your time here is what you make of it.
The worst part was the schedules- we wouldn't find out until Friday, Saturday, or sometimes even Monday morning what our schedules would be for the next week. The days off weren't consistent- so I could find out on Monday morning that I had Tuesday and Sunday off this week, which was annoying. I've heard that not all of the villages do this, though.
There were two different shifts- 9am-5:30pm, and 1:30pm- 9pm. But most people picked one or the other, and always got that shift, so it wasn't a suprise. But we didn't have to stay in the teacher's room if we weren't teaching, like you do in public schools. We could go home, so the time flew by.
The teachers lived "on-campus," which I thought was fine. We could bring in guests, we just had to sign them in. We couldn't hear the kids in our rooms, and the rooms were typical small apartments with little kitchenettes. We also got 3 meals a day free when the kids were there (all semi-bad Korean food, almost never Western food, and almost no vegetarian options).
It was definitely the easiest job I've had. I learned how to modify lessons for high- and low-level learners, and improvise, and be entertaining while teaching. I've used some of the lesson plans at my (very low-level!) high school job now. But otherwise I don't think it will do much to improve your teaching skills. & you definitely should like kids if you're going to work there, of course!