teaching English In Korea

I certainly don't claim to be the world's leading expert on teaching English As A Second Language (ESL) abroad. Anything I can tell you is only based on 8 months experience doing it here in S.Korea where I currently teach English in a public high school. But I will tell you that I like it a lot and I think it's something that a lot more people would do it they really knew the opportunity existed and if they knew how much fun it was.

So what I primarily want to do in this post is give you perhaps your first understanding of why the opportunity exists and how it's structured.

The first thing that you should realize is that regardless of what you think of American politics, the USA is still the focus of attention for much of the world so that also means that our language is the focus of attention too. Most people who want to do business internationally know that English is their biggest liguistic asset.

The fact is.........English is the business language of the emerging global economy. Parents, educators, business leaders and governments around the world recognize the high value of being able to speak English.

I'm not saying that other languages and countries aren't important. They are. Matter of fact I speak a little Japanese and a lot of Spanish myself and I'd like to learn some more Korean and some Portuguese and Russian.

But nevertheless, the facts 'on the ground' show that you can go to just about any country in the world and get a job teaching English and you can't say that about Japanese, Chinese, French, Russian, or German. Only English has that much of a universal demand.

Your largest markets (i.e. easiest places to find ESL jobs) is S.Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Russia. In Latin America there's lots of work availabe too but especially in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. There's also lots of jobs, I hear, in the oil rich Arab countries but frankly I don't know much about them.

Qualifications to teach English vary from country to country and even depending on specifically where you teach within any particular country. Most require a minimum of a college (a real college) degree although in some cases you can get a job with something like TOEFL, TESOL, CETA or some other language teaching accreditation. Having a Masters Degree helps to a certain degree too.......depending on the situation and the employer.

But when you realize that just the fact that you can 'talk' in English makes you a hot commodity in all kinds of cool places that you'd probably like to visit you begin to get real excited.

Motivations for doing such a thing vary somewhat but let's talk about some of the reasons most people do it.

It's obvious by just looking around at who's doing it that most ESL teachers are young people. I'm talking......... early twenty's to 30-something. The primary reason for that is

• Younger people frequently take ESL jobs because they can make decent money and get their college loans paid down or completely off.
• Younger people frequently have difficulty getting a good job fresh out of college.
• Younger people are usually more interested in living in and immerseing themselves in a foreign culture.
• Sometimes they're simply smart and they recognize that ESL jobs abroad often have some very nice benefits that they wouldn't get back home.

Older people, like me, can get ESL jobs though. I'm 63 right now (64 in July!). When I applied I was a little apprehensive about my age. And in fact I was told by a few agencies that I'd have a hard time getting a job over here. But the agency I finally used did get me a job and in fact I've met a lot of older teachers since I've been over here. People whose age is up into the 60's like me are kinda rare but I've met lots of teachers, men and women, in their 40's and 50's and they seem to love it just like I do.

There's two primary ways you can get a job.....through an agency or apply directly to the prospective employer yourself. My....I got my job through an agency (Asknow.ca). I thought it was a good idea then and I still do....for a new teacher anyway.

Agencies here are in essence the same as a recruiting agency back in the US or Canada.....i.e. they have contacts, they know the market and they get paid for filling vacant teaching positions. I'd say the quality of service you get is generally pretty good although there are bad stories. Generally, if you do some research and find some people who've used an agency and been happy, you're OK to go with them. Remember too that you're not limitied to using just one agency.

The other way is just applying to the schools yourself. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that except that

• It's very time consuming, and
• Not being Korean yourself, you might miss some important detail

There's 3 kinds of jobs teahers get over here too:

• Private academies (called Hagwons)
• Public schools
• Universities

Over here, there's a huge number of things called 'hagwons'. A hagwon is basically a 'private school'. Most of them are much smaller than what we'd call a private school in the US or Canada. Most of them are run pretty much by Korean businesspeople.....sorta like back in the US most of your day care centers are basically just excuses for making money off the fact that parents don't have anything to do with their kids during the day. Only difference is here the kids probably get a little more education in the hagwons.

Hagwons, for the average Korean, aren't cheap either. But Korean parents take their kids' education very seriously (even if the kids don't) and most of them try to get their kids into as much extracurriculor education as they can. It's not uncommon for kids to spend 18 hours of a day 'away at school' of some sort.

Korea has a big public school system. They do teach English in all the public schools and they're trying to get as many 'foreign' English teachers into as many of the schools as they can as fast as possible. The significant differences between working in the public schools vs. hagwons is this:

• You'll make a little bit less (about 5-15%) in public schools
• You'll always get paid on time in a public school but it can be in a disreputable hagwon
• You'll get noticably more days off in the public school
• You'll have more time at work but doing nothing
• You'll have more prestige
• Public school experience is probably somewhat better on your resume if you decide you want to stay longer in Korea.

Believe me, the work is not hard. I'm not saying you're allowed to just goof off, or that I do that, but it's also true that there's only so much you can do when it's one of you (the teacher) in a classroom with an average of 40 kids.

So, once you understand that you're here to be a 'conversational English' teacher....not specifically to teach grammer, or spelling, not to revolutionize the Korean educational system.......and that's it! Once you realize that and just realize that the best you can do is enough.......then you begin to realize what a good gig it is.

You don't (hardly ever) have to take your work home with you. Nobody bothers you because most of your co-workers either don't speak English or aren't confident about their English. Matter of fact, in a way.......you're sorta treated like a 'star'. Now where would you get a job (especially just out of college) like that in the US or Canada?

No matter where you're from, other than maybe Arizona, you'll probably like the variety of the weather. It seems like it's changing constantly because they have 4 very distinct seasons. To Koreans, a lot of them think that's a very unique thing. Of course it isn't really but it is very refreshing.

In my case (coming from the climate of Houston, Texas) I thought the Winters would be something like the movies I used to see of the weather in the Korean War. But actually I found it a refreshing change. The weather can be far worse, hotter or colder, in many parts of the US or Canada.

Some 'things' over here aren't as easy to find, or as cheap, as they are back in the US or Canada but those usually aren't things that are terribly important anyway. There's virtually no crime in the country. Matter of fact, in some ways, the Koreans are a bunch of 'wusses' because they're so darn polite. Even the big tough looking guys. Then can be mean but they very seldom are.

There's a little bit of paperwork involved in getting over here but, again, it's nothing that can't be handled by any normal person can't get done. From the time you decide you want to do it, you could probably find some recruiters, go through all the 'stuff' and be over here working in as little as 6-8 weeks. And if you're here already you could get a job almost immediately as long as you were able to assemble the necessary documentation (diploma, criminal record check, etc.).

I'm especially fond of Seoul. I like to salsa dance and Seoul has over a dozen great salsa clubs full of pretty salseras. But no matter where you are in Korea there's always something interesting to do. Public transportation if very efficient and very cheap. Food (if you know what to order) is relatively inexpensive too.

You can find videos about "ESL", or "ESL in Korea" on YouTube and you can also get lots of information from the internet. Read what you see and also sometimes read between the lines. It's not hard to find someone who's been over here if you ask around or look around on the net. Some people don't like it but most do.

The gender mix, as far as I can see, is about 50/50. If you get a job in a metropolitan area there'll probably be other foreigners in your area. if you're in a big hagwon you'll most likely have some working with you there too.

The two primary resources i'd recommend are

• www.daveseslcafe.com An immense amount of constantly updated information there but be careful because there's a certain percentage of 'snipers' and negative types on there too.
• http://www.asknow.ca . I think this is one of the best agencies that recruits for over here. It's owned by 3 guys who taught over here and then decided to start the agency. But they still teach at least a little. Plus they have staff back in Canada too. Their website is excellent and full to the brim with good information.

And I think you can reach me, somehow, through here. Don't hesitate to contact me if you think I might be able to help. And if you're a girl who likes to salsa dance............by all means gimme a shout when you get over here!