How to Teach in Korea in 3 Easy Steps

A steadily increasing number of you have asked me how you too can teach English in Korea. I suppose there aren't too many jobs floating around in the United States or something.

Well, at the moment there are a lot of "Teaching English as a Foreign Language" jobs in Korea.

First, the basics. There are three sorts of TEFL jobs in Korea:

1. Public Schools
2. Hagwons (privately owned academies)
3. Universities

Next, the details.

You do NOT want to teach at a hagwon.

I don't quite understand why anyone does. Hagwons are where parents send their children after school in a desperate attempt to boost their child's chance at success, at the cost of their child's happiness. My students attend classes from 8:20 am to as late as 11pm. They're exhausted and not especially prepared to learn when they're falling asleep on their desks. From a pedagogical perspective, I'm not sure if hagwons are effective or not, but, as someone once said, "Just because torture works, doesn't mean it's right." Which is not to fault the teachers (and my friends) who work at hagwons: some just didn't know; others are merely meeting market demand.

So, though the public school day lasts only six hours, the after-school school day can last until 10 or 11pm for a third grader. After school and during vacations children attend hagwons -- private academies. As my friend Lauren writes (she's so much better at expressing indignation):

"During vacations, students go to their academies (one for every subject), taking extra classes all day long. And then of course have homework all night. This is on top of the homework assigned by their public school teachers for vacation. They literally have no break from studying. From the time they are 6 until the time they finish high school, they will be studying continuously without one break - they do these classes during the summer vacation too. It's absurd. How do they not crack and go crazy?! No wonder there is little excitement in my students during our classes. It's because they're just off to more classes after I'm done with them."

Lauren continues, "On top of the normal subjects they study, they also generally study 2 instruments, art, and sometimes Chinese or Japanese on top of English. Beyond that, I have students (13 years old) studying computer programming. Every night of the week she tells me she spends 2 hours working on her programming homework. SHE IS THIRTEEN."

As far as actually teaching at a hagwon, it's not the best situation. There are a few excellent hagwons, but most are run by Koreans with little international experience. They're running a business and you're their commodity. They'll pay you about what a public school pays you, but you'll have to teach twice as much (up to 40 hours a week), either in the early mornings or after school into the late evenings. Hagwons are notorious for dodging their responsibilities to you, like paying your pension, deducting the correct amount of taxes, paying you on time, offering you a clean, sanitary, furnished apartment.

Yes, I'm describing the worst possible scenario -- not all hagwons are hellholes. Some are reputable, friendly and treat you well. But it's not worth the risk, especially when there's such an obvious alternative.

You DO want to teach at public schools.

Public schools are not profit driven. That makes them immediately better.

• You'll teach 22 hours a week at the maximum, though you may be required to stay at school a full 40 hours a week. I've heard of people using that time for naps, for side projects, for reading, for dying of boredom, etc. How you use your free time is up to you. I recommend getting a laptop and reading all the free books available from Project Gutenberg.
• Your pay will be at least equivalent to the hagwons. Public schools pay you on time. My base wage is 2,000,000 won a month.
• You'll get anywhere from 2-6 weeks vacation (I've heard of people getting 8 weeks). Some districts pay that vacation, some pay part of it, some pay only two weeks of it.
• You may have to work summer or winter camps, but they'll pay you overtime for that. I made an extra 500-600,000 won off of camps this winter. That's on top of the base salary.
  
• They get a budget for hiring you, which includes paying for an apartment. Hopefully you'll be placed in a new apartment, like the teachers in my city were.
• You teach the state curriculum with a co-teacher, which means any curriculum development you do is voluntary.
• You're not contributing to student exhaustion, because public school is compulsory. The better you teach, the less need for a hagwon the parent perceives.

Universities require experience / certifications / advanced degrees. I'll let you know about those if I ever find out.

I recommend Footprints Recruiting to help you find a public school to teach at.

A few more tips:

• Do your own research. I spent probably 20 hours researching everything I could find about Korea and teaching here.
• For more information, look around on Dave's ESL Cafe. The forums are full of advice and good and bad experience.
• When you still have more questions (which you should, because even after all that research I was still unprepared for Korea), contact me.