A Teacher's Life In Korea
Special thanks to Darrin Jones
| So Ya Wanna Teach in Korea... |
| Adult students are vastly preferable. Kim-chi is only for the brave! What else do you need to know? |
"KOREA BASHING" is a popular sport among expats right now, with the economic nightmare and the unscrupulous schools ripping off teachers. Please don't be put off Korea by the lousy things you've heard. Sure, there have been some hard times and lots of schools ARE dishonest, but it's not everyone.
If you're thinking of coming to Korea, then before you sign on with a school I suggest you get the home telephone number of one of the current (or former) EXPAT teachers at the school and invest in a phone call. I think you'll find the teachers will give you the honest low down on thier school if they're not having the boss look over their shoulders, and any school that can't get a native English speaking teacher to take a phone call from a prospective teacher isn't worth working for anyway. Get a phone number rather than an email address though-- email replies are easy to fake (or coerce people into writing), but a native accent is a tougher.
Just my .02.
(NAME) Cynthia
(LOCATION) Yongin, South Korea
(JOB) Instructor
(SCHOOL) Samsung HRDC
Date:Mon, 15 Jun 1998
Where Should I Live?
What's a good school to start with?
What about my visa?
What kind of students should I look for?
What about Korean food?
What about Korean weather?
What about Korean customs?
| Brief Intro |
My wife and I worked in Chonju, South Korea (Chollabuk-do province), for a year in 1997. Since we had never traveled anywhere outside our home states of Illinois and Missouri, we noticed many of the interesting differences between Korea and our own home states.
| Dollars and Cents |
Editor's Note: Please note that exchange rates with the West have soared throughout Asia recently, and Korea has been one of the hardest hit. Please consult The Two Cents Cafe's own EFL Info Center for today's exchange rates.
With the money we made in Korea, we were able to save enough to pay off a major part of our credit card bill and to buy a car. We made 1,100,000 won (individually) a month, which after taxes was about $1100 apiece (the won was at, roughly 900W/$1 US when we left). Since the school paid our apartment rent, we sent home about 66% of our earnings. I wouldn't suggest planning on this, though, if you plan to travel a lot. 20-30% should be no problem, even if you do travel a lot. The taxes we had taken out of our paychecks were not very much. Even if they had been, though, we received them back at the end of the tax season.
In Korea it is illegal to tutor privately if you are working for a business (such as a private school). However, many parents want their children to learn from a native speaker of English and are willing to pay a lot of money ($35 US/hour or more) to have that. If you want private work, it will come to you.
| Where Should I Live? |
In Korea, any city that has a population smaller than one million is considered a small city. Chonju, the city I lived in, had just over five hundred thousand people living in it at the time I lived there. There were certain advantages to living in a smaller city: quieter, safer (I have never been in town of even three thousand in America where I have felt as safe as I did in Chonju), and less polluted. Also, if you do like Korean food, a smaller town might be the place for you because that is basically all there is. There were a few fast food chains (Pizza Hut, Wendy's, Baskin Robbins, KFC), but the small towns have very few. Along with this, there are very few things written out in English. This isn't much of a hassle, except when you want to ride a bus somewhere and can't read the sign.
Large cities in Korea, of course, have many of the same problems as any large cities. Pollution and smog, I would say, are two of the major negatives against Seoul and Pusan (South Korea's two largest cities). In my opinion, though, I much prefer the larger cities, even though you can eat the air for breakfast. In Seoul, you can still enjoy the adventures of living in Korea without having to wean yourself from the luxuries of "Western" life. Nearly everything has an English subtitle (yes, buses also), and it is possible to buy almost anything you need. Western items are expensive anywhere you go, though. For example, it was not uncommon to pay twenty US dollars for a pizza at Pizza Hut or five US dollars for a can of Foamy shaving cream (the only Western brand I ever found). There is a market in Seoul (Itaewon) where you can buy many Western items for cheaper than normal prices. Also, Seoul has a subway system (fifty cents will a long way) that will allow you to go nearly anywhere you want (again, in English). Pusan has many of the same conveniences, although the subway system was not nearly as developed as Seoul's. Pusan (Korea's major port), though, is by the sea and has some spectacular views.
| What's a good school to start with? |
With a Bachelor's degree, you can work at almost any place in Korea. The universities usually require a Master's degree, but it is relatively easy to get a job at a university if you do have a Master's degree. Jobs are fairly easy to come by.
If you were to work in a school for younger students, though, I would highly recommend ECC. True, I just spent several sentences bashing it, but it was one of the best as far as its treatment of the foreign teachers. Our accommodations were very good (i.e., we didn't have a squatting toilet), and our director honored the contract to the strictest degree. Many schools were known for letting their teachers go a month before their contracts were up so that they didn't have to give them their severance pay. ECC, though, gave us every bit of what the contract said we would get. For that matter, I would highly recommend any Si-sa-yong-o-sa school merely because, since they are a larger, older business, they tend to honor their contracts. In Korea, that is one of the best things you can say about a school.
| What about a visa? |
I would highly encourage you to have your work visa before you go to work in Korea. I've heard of some companies which have hired teachers and told them to get their visa in Japan. This is a hassle, though, and you cannot legally work in Korea without a work visa. If you find a company which wants you to come over without a work visa, I would suggest that you start looking for another company.
| What kind of students should I look for? |
Take my advice and remember only one word: adults. We taught at an ECC (English Children's Center) school (a division on Si-sa-yong-o-sa) in Chonju, and we quickly lost our zeal for teaching little kids. From our experience (and from several others we talked to), we found that teaching younger kids in Korea is similar to babysitting in America. ECC was a hogwan ("private school"), which meant that as far as the administration was concerned, the kids could do pretty much whatever they wanted as long as their parents kept footing the bill. At this comment, some might say, "discipline is the key"; in fact, I would have said that, too, before I went to Korea. The private school, though, changed my views. At ECC, some kids spit in teachers' faces, hit, bit, swore (get used to hearing f*** in the classroom), and did nearly all they could to get at the teachers, and the administration did nothing about it. This may seem like a personal beef, but actually, from what I heard, this was usually the case. I would highly encourage working with high school age or older in Korea.
| Food |
One of the most important items. If you have never eaten Korean cuisine, I would encourage you to try it before you work in Korea for an extended amount of time. Personally, I loved it. There are many Korean dishes which are very spicy. In fact, if spicy foods do not agree with you, you may be somewhat limited as to what you can eat in Korea. My wife is one who can't quite handle spicy food, and Korean food attacked her with a vengeance (yes, you can assume the worst).
Korean food, in my opinion, is very different from any variety of Chinese food I have ever tried. There are almost no fried foods. Meat is in very small amounts (probably because meat is so expensive in Korea ($10/lb. for beef; $3/pound for pork). Nearly every meal is served with either rice or noodles. And (could I forget?), you get at least four or five side dishes with every meal. Don't expect baked beans or potato salad. The side dishes are usually very small, but they will often be refilled. For me, the side dishes were the most adventurous part of eating Korean food. There were several dishes that looked like grass. One time, we got a bowl full of pigs feet. Quail eggs (mae chu’ri ar) are often served in soy sauce (really, very good). Bean curds in water is common. And also...
KIM'CHI!
I thought kim'chi deserved its own paragraph. I don't think it is possible to be in Korea without seeing at least one bowl of kim-chi of some sort (there are different varieties). Kim'chi is Chinese cabbage fermented in a red pepper sauce. Even if you have some experience with hot food, I'd take it slow on the kim'chi the first time you try it. I would say it is definitely an acquired taste (one my wife never acquired), and it is, for sure, an acquired smell. It is a more common food in Korea than bread is in America. Many of my students told me that they ate kim-chi for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Don't be scared to try it, though; to miss trying kim'chi in Korea would be missing a lot.
| What about the weather? |
Like I said, we have traveled very little, but Korea was, by far, the most humid place I have ever been. When we stepped off the plane at Kim’po International Airport in Seoul, we thought we were in Sauna-land. Although the temperatures never got above one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, the humidity made the temperature raise about twenty degrees.
That was in July, however, and the weather started to cool down around September. The Fall was beautiful---much like a midwestern U.S. Fall. Winter was reasonably mild. Keep in mind, though, that Chonju is a bit farther south than Seoul. We never saw a heavy snowfall, but Seoul occasionally had the "people pushing their cars out of the snow" pictures on the news. One thing we did notice about the weather was that, at least in Chonju, very few people put anything on the sidewalks or roads for ice (including the downtown sidewalks). This was quite amusing, at times---frustrating at others. There isn't much that can be done to prepare for this. Maybe you can pad your butt with a pillow.
Spring was also very beautiful. Korea has more wild flowers than I have ever seen anywhere else. It seemed like every where we went during the spring had flowers.
An excellent book that explains/shows the many differing customs between Koreans and Americans is Ugly Koreans, Ugly Americans by Min Byoung-chul. The address of the publisher is:
BCM Publishers, Inc.
752-27 Yuksam-Dong, Kangnam-gu
Seoul, Korea
135-080
Phone #:(02)567-0644
Really, you just need to be aware that there are different customs and be willing to follow some of those customs (if you want people to like you, that is). Just like we would think it was odd if a Korean man asked another man to dance, Koreans think it's odd to drink or eat while walking down the street. Be aware of such customs. I cannot think of anything that is done by a normal person that would get you poked in the eye by a chopstick. Koreans, like all people, appreciate people who attempt a good faith effort at honoring their customs.
I'm sure there are many more things I haven't covered. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at the address at the top of this page.
-- Darrin Jones