Korean Job Discussion Forums

[thestaypail]

Sorry if this topic as been covered before, but I couldn't find answers to my questions from my search.

I just spent a year working at an Eikaiwa in Japan (Nova specifically). For anyone who has worked at a conversation school in Japan and is familiar with the general types of lesson plans that these school utilize, I was wondering how the text books and lessons plans in public schools and Hagwons in Korea compare to Japan?

Any info would be helpful. Do schools in Korea provide a special lesson plan for teachers? How much room is there for creativity when using text books? etc.

And for anyone who has worked at hagwons and/or public schools in Korea. I dont see anything about any training when I look at job posts. Do public schools and hagwons train at all? and what are the main differences between lesson plans and/or text books at public schools vs. Hagwons?

Thanks in advance!

[Terrio]

No training.

Most public schools will use text books assigned by the Ministry of Education.

If the public school does not have a text book, you will be asked to recommend one.

You'll see this if you are assigned to a school way out in the boonies.

More importantly, most of the public school students are also attending the hagwons after school. So, you'll have a mismatch of ability and possible complaints about the text book.

As for lesson planning --well, it all depends on the school. You may be put into a school where you co-teach with a Korean teacher assigned to teach English or you may matched up with a korean teacher that has limited English but the best English that particular school has to offer, and this teacher may resent the hell out of it and doesn't want to teach English --so then it can get tricky.

You may have a great relationship with your co-teacher where you can co-exist and work well together, or you may have a co-teacher that either expects you to do everything and sits back and does nothing or just leaves the room and considers it break-time, or you're nothing more than a talking monkey and you do what he or she tells you to do...

In my experience, always have an outline of a lesson plan prepared --an outline because you may come to class one day expecting to teach a certain topic and at the last moment there'll be a change that you didn't expect...

If you have experience teaching in the academies then you should be able to run a class on your own by now, or work in tandem...