Tefl in South Korea

cloneslad

DamienH wrote: »

I should be over in Korea in about 3 weeks if I send off the documents asap. I've had a look on Google maps and they say I could get to Busan in an hour and a half so I could always do that. I was talking to interviewer today and he asked me if I'd be alright in a small city, 1mil people isn't small in my book

There are 7 foreign teachers working there already so I asked if he could get one of them to contact me. Do you think it'd be advisable to sign before I get to talk to them? Time is pretty tight like.

It is sounding a lot more appealing now and I think I should just jump in.

Don't sign yet, you have all weekend before you have to do anything and a few days won't hurt you, it will only take 1 day to get your documents to korea, about 5 for them to process it and I think 4 for the embassey in dublin to stick the visa in your passport.

Wait and see what your other teachers say. I'm sure if they have 7 teachers it won't be too bad as they can't afford to fúck one around and lose the other 6.

what are your hours / pay etc like in the place?

I seen your thread in daves as well, should get a good number of responsed there.

DamienH

sry it's taken me so long to reply, just saw your message now. I've been given a guy's email address who's job I would be taking, can you think of any good questions to ask? Apart from the obvious city/employer questions. I'd like to just list them out instead of exchanging emails as it'd take less time.

Teaching hours are are 3pm-10pm with a 30hr max.
2.1 mil won, 18k/hr for any overtime.

I'm happy enough with the hours. I used to work in a bar so I'm more of a late finish, late start fella.

cloneslad

DamienH wrote: »

sry it's taken me so long to reply, just saw your message now. I've been given a guy's email address who's job I would be taking, can you think of any good questions to ask? Apart from the obvious city/employer questions. I'd like to just list them out instead of exchanging emails as it'd take less time.

Teaching hours are are 3pm-10pm with a 30hr max.
2.1 mil won, 18k/hr for any overtime.

I'm happy enough with the hours. I used to work in a bar so I'm more of a late finish, late start fella.

That's a good enough schedule and it's pretty good money for a first timer, I'm sure if you held out a while you could get 2.e or 2.3 somewhere else but it's not worth the hassle sitting on your ass in Ireland waiting and waiting for what would only amount to an extra 30euro a week anyway.

Ask him the usual:

whats apartment like?

Who pays the apartment management fees?

If you pay them how much are they?

Are the bills expensive?

Paid on time?

Any problems with the school/boss/students/parents?

What are the other teachers like?

Anything you recommend bringing over?

what's the city like?

you live far from work?

Live far from a good night life/entertainment?

Where do they go for fun at weekends?

I'm sure if they have given you someone's e-mail then the job must be okay and they guy/girl must be gonna get their severance and have been paid on time too.

DamienH

Thanks for the reply. I sent him of an email asking a good few of the questions above. I agree though that if I have the email it must be alright. I was told in the interview that bills are about €20 a week I think. That's the net, electricity, gas and upkeep. I'm going to sign the contract Monday, even if I don't get the email by then.

It says that I need a medical history form, do I get this from my doctor here?

You've really put my mind at ease man, I owe you big time!

cloneslad

DamienH wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I sent him of an email asking a good few of the questions above. I agree though that if I have the email it must be alright. I was told in the interview that bills are about €20 a week I think. That's the net, electricity, gas and upkeep. I'm going to sign the contract Monday, even if I don't get the email by then.

It says that I need a medical history form, do I get this from my doctor here?

You've really put my mind at ease man, I owe you big time!

Do it, even if it turns out to be a cráppy job, as long s you get paid at the end of the month you can have a great time at the weekend....it sure beats doing a shít job in Ireland.

Don't go to your doctor, here is the form you need (it's the second link on the page called 'E2 visa health form')
http://www.teachaway.com/content/visa-korea

when you get here you will have to do a medical, make sure your school pays for it, it's them sponsoring your visa so they need to pay for it. it will cost about 60,000won, although not massive it's still their cost, not yours....you have already paid for the visa, stamps, petrol/buses to dublin and fed ex.

Be sure to have all your documents in order too, check out the post I made on page 10 of this thread (i know you thanked it, but be sure to have all checked and verified before sending) this is especially important if you are sending a copy of your degree (it should be notarised by a commissioner of oathes, stamped and signed by the office of supreme court and finally apostilled by the dept of foreign affairs).....don't forget to get the gardai check apostilled by the dept of foregin affairs before sending it too.


When you get your visa number from your school / recruiter ring the embassy and tell them your name / visa number etc, they will have to arrange an interview for you as it's your first time coming over here, then it will typically take 4 days from the interview until you get your number and don't book any flights till you are certain when you will get the visa back.

I know you prob know all this but it's best to remind you as it will cost you about 60 euro to send it to korea via fedex (don't use an post) the last thing you will be needing is to have to send it all again and waste another 3-4 days and 60euro in the process.


About 80-100 a month sounds about right for a one roomed apartment (just so your not shocked, a one bedroomed apartment generally means just one room plus a bathroom) it's pretty much a bed sit: kitchen, bedromm, living room are all in the one small room.

DamienH

I got a reply from one of the guys who I sent the email to and he's basically said he's had the time of his life. The company seems like it's really good to work for, everyone paid on time and severance pay etc. Sent all my docs off by courier yesterday so it should take about a week until I get my visa number, can't wait!

Cloneslad, if you're ever in Ulsan I owe you your weight in drink!

cloneslad

DamienH wrote: »

I got a reply from one of the guys who I sent the email to and he's basically said he's had the time of his life. The company seems like it's really good to work for, everyone paid on time and severance pay etc. Sent all my docs off by courier yesterday so it should take about a week until I get my visa number, can't wait!

Cloneslad, if you're ever in Ulsan I owe you your weight in drink!

you are on for a cheap night.....I'm light as fook and only drink water!!

DamienH

Boo urns, maybe just the cash then

DamienH

Oh just remembered a question I had, how are christmas holidays handled? Are they usually given to you as your normal 5 day winter holiday or are they extra?

cloneslad

DamienH wrote: »

Oh just remembered a question I had, how are christmas holidays handled? Are they usually given to you as your normal 5 day winter holiday or are they extra?

In general your christmas hols are included in the batch of holidays they allocate (12 days per year etc)

Christmas this year is on a saturday, most national holidays fall on a weekend this year, which if you are in a hagwon that just goes monday to friday without a schedule leaves you with few hols.

Luckily for me, our kids get 12 classes per monthly schedule so if all the holidays fall on a saturday it works out well for us because instead of having off a day here and a day there with very short hols for summer and christmas, we have our days grouped together for longer holidays so we have 6 days off in may (another day off on the 21st too), 9 days off in july/august, 6 days off in september and another 9/10 days off for christmas. This is good for us, I'm heading to the philippines in august, thailand in december and possibly back to beijing in sept...might just travel around korea for december.

I think it will all depend on your school, in my first year christmas fell on a tuesday so i was off sat/sun/mon/tue and back in on the 26th and then the same again for new year so I was actually only off for 2 weekdays for xmas and 2 weekdays for newyear. (i worked sat at the time so it felt like a long time off).

You could ask your school when you get there how long your holidays are in each period, maybe ask one of the foreign teachers first so it doesn't look like you are mad for a holiday already.

Alessandra

I am a trainee Primary Teacher in the UK. I am seriously considering a position in Korea for a year when I finish this summer. I am wondering have any other qualified primary teachers on boards worked there?
What is the pay like? I see that flights and accomodation are covered but do you earn enough to save/pay off debts? Is 2.1-2.4million won standard?

Interested to hear your experiences!

cloneslad

Alessandra wrote: »

I am a trainee Primary Teacher in the UK. I am seriously considering a position in Korea for a year when I finish this summer. I am wondering have any other qualified primary teachers on boards worked there?
What is the pay like? I see that flights and accomodation are covered but do you earn enough to save/pay off debts? Is 2.1-2.4million won standard?

Interested to hear your experiences!

if you go to a public school you would receive extra money if you had a teaching degree, but dubai, UAE and places like that would prob offer you a much better salary (I say prob cos I'm not sure if it's the same for primary teachers)

I don't have a teaching degree myself, I have a masters which bumps my pay up a bit and I am considering the pgde or pgce for next year.

2.1 to 2.4 is the normal wage, and if you read back into the previous pages I discussed how much of that you could save. I saved over 10k in 18months when I was earning 2million basic for 12 months (plus 320,00per month overtime) after 12 months I stopped the overtime and just took a basic salary or 2.1million.


I could have saved about 8* grand more but spent about 5 travelling.

*lost out on 3k when the price of the won fell from 1million being worth €890 or so when I arrive to being worth €605 when I left.

it's all to do with yourself really and how good you are at saving, what your spending habits are, if you want to travel and how long you want to work here......plus the small point of your school, how much they pay and if they pay you on time, with bonuses etc.

Alessandra

That's really helpful cloneslad. I have been reading over your posts. Great to hear from someone with experience.

How did you find life in Korea? Are there many ex-pats? Would it be lonely as a twenty something year old over there for a year?

cloneslad

Alessandra wrote: »

That's really helpful cloneslad. I have been reading over your posts. Great to hear from someone with experience.

No problem at all. If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask.

Alessandra wrote: »

How did you find life in Korea? Are there many ex-pats? Would it be lonely as a twenty something year old over there for a year?

I found it awesome the first time and this time it's probably better, something I didn't expect as I figured this was just going to be a year away to try and hide out the lack of jobs at home.

It definitely will not be lonely for you, there are loads of ex-pats with more and more coming everyday. for example, I live on a small island on the south east coast, it's the 2nd largest island in korea and has a populaion of aroun 200,000 (which is tiny for any city in korea...and this population is for the entire island) on friday night we went out after work and there was about 15 or 16 of us all out together, perhaps even more than that with people turning up and others leaving the whole way throughout the night.

If you were to land a place in somewhere like seoul, busan or daegu, each popular nightspot would be filled with ex-pats in the hundreds, it's just a matter of befriending them and arranging meet ups.

It is nice though to also make friends with some koreans too, it's great to do things that ex-pats on a year or two out would never hear about. I have visited some great places, hiked hidden away mountains with jaw dropping views and eaten in some of the nicest restaurants in the whole town thanks to my former tae kwon do master....he and his family are wonderful and even just yesterday he brought me to a festival taking place up a mountain about 20 minutes drive from my house.

I have yet to meet anyone who has been treated well (or even just paid on time) that hasn't enjoyed their time here.

blackalicious

quick question.. can you get stuff from amazon or ebay shipped to you when living in Korea? thanks

ARGINITE

I bought stuff of ebay while I was in Korea. Never had a problem with getting it.

cloneslad

I bought underarmour off a guy in seoul when I was back home in Ireland at the start of January, the stuff still hadn't been delivered last weekend so I got in touch with him to tell him I was making a complaint as it had been over 2 months since I paid him.

He insisted that he sent the items but he is going to resend them to my address here in Korea, which is sweet for me (even if it's getting to hot now to need the tops when I go running )

I'd imagine you can get it as long as the seller ships worldwide and you have the address saved on your paypal account.

** Edit - hadn't seen the reply above, turns out it is no problem.

ARGINITE

I'd imagine you can get it as long as the seller ships worldwide and you have the address saved on your paypal account.

Actually the paypal and ebay address thingy can be a problem, thanks for reminding me!

You could also give gmarket a try, Korean ebay.

DamienH

I'm after getting my issuance number so I've to go to the embassy on Tuesday for the interview. Does anyone know what this entails? I presume it can't be too much on the heavy side.

ARGINITE

A few questions regarding your health and history of any health problems. Then a few more questions regarding why you chose Korea to teach English in.
That was all I was asked, very easy and straight forward.

Jamie Starr

Hey, at the moment I'm in the first year of my degree(I know, I've got a long way to go!) but I was thinking about teaching English over-seas when I finish my degree, and I find South Korea very interesting. I have a couple of questions and it would be great if you could shed some light on them.

1) I'm doing English and New Media - not a totally dedicated English degree - how would this work with regards to jobs chances (i.e does it have to be specifically English, as I've seen here?)
2) What level of English do you guys teach - is it just basic grammar and so on like that, and are their opportunities to move to high levels of English (the kind of standard's we'd expect in Irish secondary schools for example)

Thanks very much for reading!

ARGINITE

Agnostic Mantis wrote: »

Hey, at the moment I'm in the first year of my degree(I know, I've got a long way to go!) but I was thinking about teaching English over-seas when I finish my degree, and I find South Korea very interesting. I have a couple of questions and it would be great if you could shed some light on them.

1) I'm doing English and New Media - not a totally dedicated English degree - how would this work with regards to jobs chances (i.e does it have to be specifically English, as I've seen here?)
2) What level of English do you guys teach - is it just basic grammar and so on like that, and are their opportunities to move to high levels of English (the kind of standard's we'd expect in Irish secondary schools for example)

Thanks very much for reading!

1. I have a B. Eng and am crap at English, I found it very easy to get a job. No need for English degrees, etc.

2. I just taught basic grammar, not a clue about moving up to teach higher levels of English though.

cloneslad

Agnostic Mantis wrote: »

Hey, at the moment I'm in the first year of my degree(I know, I've got a long way to go!) but I was thinking about teaching English over-seas when I finish my degree, and I find South Korea very interesting. I have a couple of questions and it would be great if you could shed some light on them.

1) I'm doing English and New Media - not a totally dedicated English degree - how would this work with regards to jobs chances (i.e does it have to be specifically English, as I've seen here?)
2) What level of English do you guys teach - is it just basic grammar and so on like that, and are their opportunities to move to high levels of English (the kind of standard's we'd expect in Irish secondary schools for example)

Thanks very much for reading!

All my degrees are in business related subjects, schools don't care what your degree is in, Immigration just requires you to have one to obtain the visa.

I mostly teach basic grammar, sentence structure etc etc etc but I do have some advanced speaking classes too. We use a toefl book and work on public speaking, writing speeches, debates and that sort of thing.

To make the class more interesting I print out stories relating to south korea from various English news sites, we then read them and debate them / talk about it / spin off into different topics from it. I do this to also improve their casual speaking ability. With it being from an English site there are often words the kids woud never have known so it also helps improve their vocab too.

cloneslad

DamienH wrote: »

I'm after getting my issuance number so I've to go to the embassy on Tuesday for the interview. Does anyone know what this entails? I presume it can't be too much on the heavy side.

Good luck with the interview and the travel over here. Have you looked for flights yet? what prices are they looking to be?

I never had to do an interview to come over, it wasn't brought in when I first came over and I never needed to do one when renewing my visa.

fcussen

DamienH wrote: »

I'm after getting my issuance number so I've to go to the embassy on Tuesday for the interview. Does anyone know what this entails? I presume it can't be too much on the heavy side.

Don't stress about it too much. They just wanted two passport photoes and asked me a few details about the job I had lined up, e.g. what city and "Why did you pick Korea?". I was wearing smart casual clothes.

JJayoo

Hiya guys

Whats life like in South Korea?

cloneslad

JJayoo wrote: »

Hiya guys

Whats life like in South Korea?

AWESOME!!!!!





However if you have any specific questions I will be more than happy to answer them as I'm sure some of the other guys would!!

fcussen

JJayoo wrote: »

Hiya guys

Whats life like in South Korea?

Bring a lot of deodorant.

livinginkorea

fcussen wrote: »

Bring a lot of deodorant.

G-Market my friend is the way to go!

Looking for some advice!

I wanted to go to Korea in 2008 but decided to get my Masters instead and my boyfriend went over on his own. I visited him over there a few times and loved the country and am now seriously considering going over myself once I've done my Masters. I have the CELTA cert and almost 2 years experience of teaching English. What's stopping me is the idea I might be a bit old for it but that's probably silly (I'll be 25 this year) and that it might be seen as another year of escaping reality - I did a 4 year degree, a J1 after college, wasted a year in silly dead end reception jobs and then taught English abroad for 6 months before coming to do my Masters. I sort of feel like I should be looking to get a proper career together now. On the other hand, a year in Korea could help me bide my time until the economy picks up again, and enable me to save a substantial amount - from what I've heard and read here, it isn't difficult to save upwards of 10,000 euro over the year while still enjoying yourself. If I stayed here, I'd be living paycheck to paycheck with all the rent I have to pay. I would maybe be getting experience in my field, but would have no savings at all for deposits, driving lessons, all the stuff I want to do in the next while.

My BF reckons I wouldn't like the job, as it can be stressful and disorganised, but I have seen a few classes being taught so I have a very good idea of what it's like, I wouldn't be going into it blind or naive as I would have before. I love that you have a group of ready made expat friends most of the time, and I found the Korean people I met really lovely and helpful. I loved how safe and clean it was over there compared to here, I love Korean food, loved pretty much everything, but perhaps it's different when you actually live there as opposed to being on holiday. Another concern I'd have would be the health care - I have some long term health issues (gynecological and digestive tract related) and I'd need to get a few smear tests done as well as investigations and regular appointments. I'm sure it's be fine but I'm a bit worried about the doctors not understanding me or me them etc! Went to the doctor with my bf a couple of times and there were a good few misunderstandings. Would this be a real concern?