Tefl teaching in South Korea

elaine_d85

I'm planning to go to South Korea in June to teach English and am registered with Tiger English to get a job, who as far as I know are a reputable company (I've read a lot of horror stories about schools on different blogs so am trying not to worry).

Anyone who has been there please advise me:
Is a private or public school better to work for?
I've had a job offer (phone interview tomorrow!) for a school in Icheon, Gyeonggi. Does anone know this area, are there many other English teachers there? I'm going over on my own so want to be somewhere where I can make friends easily.

Any help or advise is appreciated, thanks! :)

Victor McDade

Have a read

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055471189

tannytantans

Hi

I'm currently teaching in South Korea.With regards to public vs private schools I work for a great private school and have had no problems at all. I work 3-7 Mon - Fri. However, there are many private schools there that make you work horrible split shifts and are notorious for not paying on time so do your research. Public schools are more reliable with pay etc, however the hours are longer and the kids won't have a great standard of English. Plus, the classes can be three times or more the size of a private school class.

Icheon is probably about 2 hours subway journey outside of Seoul so realistically you'd only get to visit at weekends and you couldn't really go out in Seoul unless you planned on staying the night there. I've never been to Icheon but I live in Gyeonggi do and it's a great area - more rural than Seoul but not totally isolated.

There'll probably be a few other foreign teachers around - and a western bar or two but personally if I was going over on my own I'd choose to live in Seoul especially around Itaewon as that's where the vast majority of foreigners live.

elaine_d85

Thanks for the info. The job offer I have is from a private school and its says the hours are 9.30am to 6pm. Is that usual, it seems pretty long. I thought private schools in Korea only opened in the afternoons....does anyone know?

tannytantans

That's a VERY long day. You'd be surprised how wrecked you'll be after just a few hours. Maybe the school has adult or kindergarten classes in the mornings. Most contracts I've seen are for 30 hours per week ie. 5 hours per day so I'd be looking for something like that if I were you.

chipsbebo

How did you find Tiger English to work with? Are they reliable (i.e do they hook u up wit a job) and do you have to pay them? Dyin to go to South Korea, are jobs that easy get?

tannytantans

Jobs here are REALLY easy to get to be honest. Every public school has at least one and most public schools have at least 2. Usually a lot more. Just a word of advice- look at your contract carefully and make sure the job sounds good. If you don't like the job when you get here there's not much you can do. Its extremely difficult to get a new job on the same visa - you'd normally have to leave the country and go through the whole visa process again.

RATM

Op if you want info on teaching in Korea ( or anywhere for that matter ) there's few better sites than Dave's Cafe www.eslcafe.com Loads of forums there on various countries which give the complete lowdown on teaching english abroad.