One of my brother’s best friend is taking the plunge and coming over to Korea to teach. He graduated with a History major less than a year ago and has just been hanging out, wanting to travel and experience something new before starting a “real” job. Hmmm, sounds eerily like myself six years ago! He had a phone interview recently and asked me for advice. I didn’t take too much time thinking about what to say, but wrote what I’ve come to learn from living here. I’m posting the email below to help other newbies that might be interesting in teaching for a year here. Looking back at this, there’s a lot more I could have added, but this should give you an idea. [ ] are comments I’ve adding while posting this blog entry.
I’m not really sure what they’re going to ask you [during the interview], since I’ve only had a phone interview once, and that was for a summer English camp. Other than hearing your accent, here’s what I think they might ask you:
- Why do you want to work in Korea?
- Have you ever taught children?
- How would you discipline a student?
Really, I wouldn’t get too hung up on the interview. I’m sure you’ve looked at this page already: http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs
/korea/index.cgi? As you can see, there are TONS of jobs out there. Remember, they need YOU, more than you need them. If you’re not sure about a school, don’t rush into it. As for question you should ask, there are plenty.
- How many foreigners work at your school? (Gives you an idea of how big the school is. Plus, your co-workers will be a good resource for questions about Seoul, and will help you adapt socially to a new country.)
- How long have they been in Korea? (Are they all newbies like you? That could mean the school is not that good, and they have a high turn around rate. Are there teachers that have been there for a 2nd or 3rd contract? If so, that tells you volumes about the school.)
- How many hours will you be working? (Does one 50-minute class equal 1 work hour? Or does 50 minutes equal 50 minutes? [Meaning, some schools will try to squeeze every last working minute out of you].)
- Will you be working a split shift? (VERY IMPORTANT. Sure, you’re only working 30 hours a week, but a morning and afternoon split shift just wastes your whole day and tires you out. I would NOT recommend teaching kindergarten students. [My first year teaching kindergarten was torture!])
- Make sure overtime is OPTIONAL. (You don’t want to be forced to work a 40 hour week when you don’t want to. You should get this in writing on your contract.)
- Can you take your vacation anytime? (Most likely, they’ll want you to take one week off in the summer, and one in the winter. These are the peak vacation seasons, when at least 75% of Koreans have those weeks off. Remember it’ll be really expensive to travel during that time.)
- How far is the school from your apartment? (10-20 minutes by foot is ok, but you don’t want to travel by subway every day to work.)
- How big is your apartment? ( IMPORTANT. The unit of measurement for apartments is called “pyeong” or “pyong.” 1 pyeong = 3.305 square meters. Don’t take an apartment 10 pyeong or less – that’s small. Even if you end up hating Korea, your job, and co-workers, your apartment will be the only place of solitude you have. If it’s too small, you’re really going to hate life. 12 pyeong and up is a decent size for 1 person. Also, make sure you’re not sharing your apartment with a co-worker. You should have a 1 bedroom or studio apartment by yourself. Sharing an apartment = a cheap school.)
- Can they send you pictures of the school and apartment? Schools don’t usually go to the effort of doing this, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. EVERYONE here has a cell phone, and those cell phones have cameras, so it’d be very easy to snap a couple pictures. Remember – most likely, you’ll be going through a recruiter. Their job is to place teachers in 5, 10, or 50 schools they have contracts for. They get about $500-1500 for each teacher they place in a school. Most of the time, they’ve never even visited these school, and that’s why they probably won’t be willing to send you pictures of the school or apartment. This is also the reason why they might be pushy about having you sign a contract right away. Take your time.
- Last but not least, ask for the email addresses of your future co-workers. If it’s a good school, they should have no problems having you email current teachers to ask about the work conditions there.
17. August 2007 at August 17, 2007 - 4:42 am
Prospective ESL teachers should realize that every school and town is different. What are you looking for? The Big City, midsize, smaller, rural, or is the beach and Jeju your thing. Private vs. public. Private schools have smaller classes, but sometimes they are on shaky financial ground as enrollment is all important. With private, do you go with the big franchise guys (GnB being one) or maybe with a small mom and pop school. With public, you never have to worry about the school folding and not getting paid, but the class sizes are ginormous and discipline is very tricky as shown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVdbPrwyU54&NR=1
Do you need the comfort of a Costco or other foreigners close by? Are you comfortable with “four” seasons (one being quite frigid when you are from the deep South)?
If coming, bring a laptop and maybe a 500 gig hard ($119-139 at Wal-mart or BestBuy) drive from back home to do your downloading. Electronics are rather pricey here.
17. August 2007 at August 17, 2007 - 5:57 am
Good advice, John.
BTW, my 2nd and 3rd years here were spent working at a GnB!
17. August 2007 at August 17, 2007 - 7:48 am
Here are two more good ESL job sites:
http://www.eslplaza.com/
http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/esljobs/index.pl?index=0
Here are a couple for bringing your TV viewing pleasures with you:
http://www.amazon.com/Sling-Media-Slingbox-PRO-SB200-100/dp/B000IVDIL4/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-1290866-8495663?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1187361955&sr=8-1
http://www.myhava.com/products.html
You might also want to check out Windows Live Messsenger, Yahoo! Messenger, or Skype for free computer to computer calls or very cheap computer to phone calls from anywhere in the world with broadband access.
18. August 2007 at August 18, 2007 - 12:44 pm
I’m glad you posted that ESL link. I’ve tried googling Korean Teaching Jobs and came up empty handed. Thanks
28. August 2007 at August 28, 2007 - 3:58 am
Always make sure, no matter what your prospective employer or prospective coworkers say, that the school is not mentioned on any blacklists. There is also a graylist, if I’m not mistaken, of schools that have had minor complaints. You can’t be too careful about this: the school I worked for considered the contract a guideline instead of a binding legal agreement. My contract called for “optional” overtime, which meant that I had the “options” of either doing the overtime or losing my job. Read the contract carefully and learn about Korean employment laws to see how many loopholes in Korean law the contract is exploiting.
I really liked teaching kindergarten, particularly the class I taught for the last four months of my contract: ten seven-year-olds (by Korean reckoning) who had never been to school before, English or otherwise. If you like working with little kids and learn to cultivate some patience (that took a while for me) it can be wonderfully rewarding. There’s nothing like starting from scratch, knowing that when you leave, you’ll have taught them everything they know. It’s heady stuff. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss those children. That’s just one teacher’s opinion, though.
Another note on public vs. private: if you choose a hagwon, which is a school that specializes in one particular subject, find out everything you can about that hagwon. What are their disciplinary standards? Do the foreign teachers really have authority over their students or will management refuse to uphold punishments/rewards? Some hagwons care more about keeping the kids and parents happy (i.e., bringing in the money) than actually teaching them anything. I had the occasional problem with this as well. The positives of hagwons are that there are generally several foreign teachers and much smaller classes than in public schools.
Just some notes from a teacher who has learned from her mistakes. I’m going to push for a better deal this time around.
28. August 2007 at August 28, 2007 - 9:22 pm
Erin, thanks for the added info. It sounds like your kindergarten class was good. For me, it was my VERY first time teaching, and I had 15-18 students in my class. It was very overwhelming at the time. Now, I’d try it again, but with a smaller class.