By First, job news: I had a phone interview with the Seoul school board (SMOE) and should know sometime this week if they will take me – which I can’t really imagine how they couldn’t and I’m a pessimist by nature and training.
I was also contacted about an interview at a university, but I haven’t heard back from them since I emailed that I was not in Korea and would need a phone interview — which showed they had not paid particular attention to my resume cover letter. Over at Dave’s ESL Cafe, some said it was impossible to get a university gig without being in country (I guess unless you have a ph’d and are going for a full professorship).
Now – the main post:
I noted in this previous post that the massive growth in Internet availability, with the explosion of PC Bangs, has made being an expat in South Korea significantly different and better. I mostly talked about how it helps you stay connected to information and people outside of Korea.
Today, I want to highlight how it has made life easier for the ESL crowd:
Since I left teaching in Korea in 2000, the number of TESOL-related sites around the world has mushroomed like PC 
Bangs. The immigrant community in the US has continued to rise and spread out into more and more areas and thus increased the need for ESL teachers –
– and with the growth in teachers came the growth in teachers sharing their ideas and issues online.
There is also Google Books – like I mentioned last time. Here is a book on teaching large multilevel ESL classes I just started reading after finding a link to it on one of those TESOL forums.
I have some limited experience teaching straight English Language Arts classes in high school with 25-35 students, but my ESL classes in the US had a max of 11 in them.
I’ve been told the ESL high school classes in Seoul will have 32-38 students of mixed levels. That will take significant adjustment to what I’m used to doing with ESL classes.
Before the explosion of the Internet and things like Google Books, I might have had to go to Kyobobook Store in Seoul or the ESL-related shop near it to check out possible books to buy to help develop activities to handle such a class. And even as late as 2000, the amount of good ideas you could find on the Internet was fairly small and nothing compared to today.
With Google Books, I can do an easy, extensive search for material and read it for free online, and I can find a lot of quality lesson plans or activity plans that have worked for real teachers in actual classes.
I can also contact a couple of my old professors I’ve kept in touch with over the years and get the password for academic databases commonly used online for university libraries. Through those databases, I can locate much information on TESOL through a variety of publication types that have the full-text of articles online.
…That makes a world of difference from the late 1990s when I was teaching in hakwons. (Thankfully, in hakwons, we were so over worked and poorly managed, we didn’t have the time, energy, or motivation to seek such professional development tools…)
3:01 pm on July 19th, 2009 1
Update:
I got the call and email saying I have a job and they sent the contract. I'll be on the 2nd tier pay scale if they accept the proof of experience I could dig up.
I couldn't find much from the hakwons from 1996-2000. I scanned pages out of my old passport that showed the different Visas with the handwritten name of the school sponsoring it in Korean penned in by someone at immigration each time.
I won't get my degree and certification until the end of the month, so I'll have to see how that works in getting the visa on time.
I have to be in Seoul by the 24th of August for orientation.
My wife's father died this weekend. His cancer and her mother's needs were part of the reason we made the decision for me to go to Korea for a year or two. Hopefully, I can get the visa by the second week of August and be in Korea by then. We'll have to spend some time thinking about that…
…we can be flexible with my wife coming along with me, because her mother told her to wait until things settled down over there and the other relatives have departed before she comes for an extended visit. So we can plan that around my visa issuance…
The contract did not say where I'd be teaching or living.
I've heard they wait until you come to the orientation – I guess so people can't back out easily if they get a school level they don't like.
I will…If I had to teach children, I'd rather take the risk of a hakwon with small class sizes than a public school with 30-50 students.
I've emailed asking for the specific name of the school and housing location. We'll see if they give it. I would bet it is a question they are used to getting….and probably avoiding…
Anyway, unless some unforeseen snag happens – I will be back in Seoul by August 24th…
3:50 pm on July 19th, 2009 2
I presume you're coming over through EPIK and those guys will not let you know a thing. Since you have an MA plus experience, I would assume throwing you into class of little ones is pretty slim, but you never know. First they place the very qualified and then it's a lottery, but you never know which category they'll throw you into.
10:55 pm on July 19th, 2009 3
I'll be prepared for anything. I'll try to find out if I can beforehand but will not put much stock in the effort. It will be awkward figuring out what to do if they put me in an elementary school…
But, I take some comfort, for whatever its worth, in how the interview went:
She was pretty thorough. She asked questions you would expect from someone in that position and covered just about all the important issues.
And when she got to my preferences, she asked if high school was ok especially since they have 32-38 students per class.
She didn't mention middle or elementary schools, and from what she did ask and say, I am pretty confident she would have wanted to quiz me about how I'd handle a classroom full of little tikes since my education and teaching in the US has been in high school.
I am also hoping slightly that since it is Korea, if they haven't been assigning jobs on a first-come-first serve bases —– the administrators at the better regarded high schools would see my qualifications and use influence to get me.
…of course, now that I think about it, I could picture some big shot in an "elite" elementary school deciding he wanted an MA with experience no matter what level he's trained to teach and the "influencial boss" thing in Korean society could work against me…
Time will tell…
Now, I just need to get a visa soon so my wife and I can go over early to spend time with her mother now that her father has passed…
It might not be possible for us to go together since someone on the Korea side will be paying for my ticket….
11:19 pm on July 19th, 2009 4
Are EPIC and SMOE two different programs or the same program just SMOE is the Seoul version?
Anyway, I contacted the recruiter about adult hakwons early on then added high schools when I got little response from any that provided housing – and we've been doing the SMOE paperwork…
12:34 am on July 20th, 2009 5
USinKorea,
I don't get it, dude.
You have an MS, you have experience living in Korea, you have experience working at a hogwon and you have a Korean wife…
…and you are coming back to Korea like a 22 year-old graduate with a fake degree in general studies that couldn't hold an entry-level McJob.
Why all the drama? Why didn't you just fly over and start knocking on doors until you found the place that gave you the deal you want along with a nice place to live?
Your excuse was that you would have to pay your own ticket… but that ain't so. You can work the same deal you would work there… except the happy hogwon owner wouldn't have to pay the broker fee… which you could probably even get a part of with rudimentary negotiation skills.
Face it, if you show up at a hogwon and honestly tell the director why you are there, he has to make a decision… are you better than the probable slug the broker is going to send along with a big, fat fee?
I presume the answer is YES…
Further, with your Korean wife, you can get a no-restriction work visa… meaning you are GOLD… no hassle for business owners and you can write your own contract… meaning mornings only to hold you over until you get double-pay private lessons in the afternoon or evening… which would be legal (as long as you registered for tax purposes (as I understand it)).
If it is high school or university that tickles your fancy, showing up in a sharp suit and a million dollar smile while demonstrating a familiarity with Korean manners that shows you are a team player, instead of a complainer or a culture-shocker, goes a long way toward getting the job you want instead of it going to the other guy who was sitting at mom's house in front of the TV hoping the broker would get him a job.
Even if you had to pay for your own ticket, so what? Break it down over a one-year job and it comes to, maybe, a hundred bucks a month. Wouldn't you pay that to have a perfect job instead of playing the Korean English Teaching Job Lottery… which has about the same odds of winning.
Just sayin'.
1:33 am on July 20th, 2009 6
I doubt a fake degree would get through the SMOE or other programs. A hakwon, sure.
Next, I don't want to pay the airfare. That would be a half a month's to a month's salary depending on whether the school I eventually found gave me return airfare.
I do not want to trust to the luck of finding an adults-only hakwon that will pay the equivalent of the airfare and provide housing. None of the hakwon chains or specific hakwons I've contacted that are adults-only will offer housing or an allowance + key money that makes it worth it…
And if I'm going to teach other than adults, I'd rather go through a public school where I can at least teach high school students which is what my interest and training and experience is in.
No hakwon is going to hire me for high school kids only and pay for housing and both airfare for coming and going once I'm already there.
Next, the SMOE program also has extra money I'd only get covered in private lessons elsewhere — 300,000 incoming money and 1,300,000 the first month that doesn't need to be paid back if you complete the first 6 months then 1,300,000 for finishing a contract.
Next, on the visa, from what I've heard, in order to get the F-4 visa, my wife would have to give up her US green card and get a regular Korean overseas passport. That ain't gonna happen.
Maybe I could get the F-4 through her mother or sister sponsoring it – like my wife had to when we came to the US through my sister since I had no job in the US after working in Korea for 4 years.
But, that would be complicated working out through her mother or sister, and especially with her father's cancer (and now death), it is better for my wife and others concerned if I just suck it up and go the E-2 route…
I believe you can add F-4 while in Korea, and I might check on that once settled in and able to communicate directly with the in-laws…
Next, privates — from my limited experience with them before, I found them to be a major pain in the ass. Great money – as long as you didn't get stiffed or didn't mind the endless haggling to get the full month or whatever time-period paid in advance…
…and even if you got paid in advance, you'd have them demanding to change the schedule or demanding more of you. And if you went the illegal hakwon hours route, the chance of your getting dicked around by them was high and thus would require more fighting for pay and benefits up front.
That is way too much a headache for me. I'd rather have less money and more peace of mind.
But I think the lottery is the same no matter how you go…
Even university jobs are not much of a sure thing at all.
And from what I've heard and experienced, no matter where you are and how you work it, things can turn (and too frequently do turn) to crap fast. — The economy hits a snag, the school changes hands, a new manager comes in, whatever – and a good situation becomes very bad overnight.
It is all a crap shoot. Privates come with more money, but they have their own issues and dangers. It's the same all the way around. I knew an American professor who taught at Yonsei who was married to a Korean who had been in country for 8 years or so – and he had to leave his job and change cities when a new department head came in and felt the need to take the department under his thumb…
…it's all a crap shoot…
What is important for me this time around is getting there sooner rather than later, having housing paid for, and both airfare, and being in Seoul with weekends off – so I can do some work with NK-related NGOs or visit my mother-in-law and do some sightseeing of historical places I'm interested in.
SMOE will provide all that.
And as a sub-benefit, if I do end up in a high school, it will be a boost to getting jobs back in the US when the job market opens up…or at a community college in the North Georgia area that has ESL classes for the large and growing immigrant communities.
I've weighed the different options, and I've learned to always have backup plans for my backup plans…
…I'm not going this route out of fear and trepidation. It fits my needs better than others. If it were just all about the money, I'd consider putting up with the pain in the ass aspects of private lessons all the way, but it isn't, and I didn't enjoy the hassle of privates they few times someone talked me into doing it.
Lastly, I've had conversations like this before with friends over the years. We always come at it from different perspectives:
They see the planning and analyzing situations are as a chore or task better avoided. Like saying it is drama.
To me, when you come from the economic bracket I do, if you want to accomplish anything beyond working in a carpet factory (which is a fine enough life, don't get me wrong), you have to have plans for your backup plans for your backup plans. You have to think of how many ways you might perhaps skin the cat your looking at.
By the time I went to college, it was second nature. Like breathing. It isn't drama or even stressful. It's instinct by now.
And it has helped me out a lot. I never would have gotten a scholarship and TA position at U. Miami given my grades if I hadn't scouted out schools that had people with a focus that matched one of the profs I had as an undergrad. Just having a letter of recommendation from someone they knew pushed me ahead of a lot of people with better stats. I got a scholarship to go to France in a roughly similar situation. And so on…Opportunities that others would miss because they get too stressed out with trying to put it together.
1:42 am on July 20th, 2009 7
On the SMOE contract, I found this interesting:
"Baby daughter died on a Thursday? Why weren't in in class Monday!! You had 3 calendar days!!"
They give you a week for parent but 3 for a child…
4:38 am on July 20th, 2009 8
In Korean culture the death of a parent is of greater significance than the death of a child. Lee Kun-hee and his wife did not participate in the funeral for their youngest daughter after her suicide in New York, apparently following a traditional custom that parents do not attend the funeral of an unmarried child. I think the logic is that by dying without leaving an heir, the child was unfilial. Of course, many Korean parents do not follow this custom and do attend the funerals of their unmarried adult children.
4:47 am on July 20th, 2009 9
Sorry to hear about the loss of your father-in-law. If you are going to the trouble of returning to Korea, you might plan to stay two years. The recession seems to be bottoming out, but unemployment is expected to rise further. Our school district expects another tough budget for 2010-2011. If you wait out the recession in Korea, you will have more choices.
As I mentioned earlier, while you can land a teaching job in Korea from the US, doing the reverse – getting a job in the US while in Korea – is much harder. Schools aren't going to hire you from overseas unless they're really desperate. Once you've put in a year or two, you can probably finagle a six-month contract, come back in March and spend the spring subbing while interviewing for jobs.
Your intercontinental job hopping might make some schools nervous. The last question my principal asked me during the interview was, "If we hire you, you're not going to pack up and head back to China in a year or two, are you?" I told her I was glad to be back in the US after more than a decade overseas and was looking for a place to settle and call home. I just signed a continuing contract.
1:19 pm on May 31st, 2011 10
USinKorea,
Thanks for explaining your experience so clearly. This is just the sort of information for which I have been looking;very specific and detailed. I hope all went well for you!