“A lot of people have said that Korea is one of the toughest places on Earth where you should be employed teaching English. When I hear this from teachers who have returned from Korea, I start getting a bit worried. English teachers in Korea have complained on a cross-section of issues. When I put down a list of these issues, I was shocked to see that none of them were pertaining to non-reception of the students or the audience.
Demographically, Korea is divided into two parts – one the major cities and other the villages. Most of the complaints have come from people who have been teaching English in Korean villages. Their complaints are more on the subject of lack of basic amenities to teachers. Interestingly, a lot of teachers who have been teaching English in Korean villages have come up and said that they had to learn Korean (At least a little) to make the villagers understand.
Teachers working in schools in major cities of Korea have complaints of a different category. Most of these guys say that they are made to work a lot extra than what was promised to them in their agreement. In employment terms, I could say that they do a lot of Overtime and yet not get paid. A major issue of teachers is that they just cannot adapt to the Korean lifestyle in order for them to save money of their salary. As it goes in Korea, if you adapt to their local lifestyle you would be able to save a lot of money. Else you could land up being seen as a spendthrift.
A very minor percentage of Teachers of English as a foreign language in Korea said that they had been cheated off their jobs. Their complaints were direct accusations on the school management that they had been promised a salary of “x” won but not given the salary. Few of the English teachers have also come up and said that they were terribly insecure of their jobs. They say this as they had seen couple of teachers being fired right in front of their own eyes. More importantly, they were given just a day’s notice.
All this should make you shudder at the thought of teaching English in Korea. My argument is – I have told you a list of challenges that you could face, at least given a gist of it. Why don’t you start preparing for the challenges to make your English teaching job memorable? As it has turned out, a teacher who goes well prepared to Korea has done well