Korea Public Schools

Public schools in South Korea are awesome! They treat you excellent. Free apartment, bonus and round trip airfare, holidays, paid vacations, good pay and more.

The classes per day are around 3-5 depending on the schedule and no more than 22 per week. This gives you lots of time to prepare for class but also do other things such as a hobby, write a book, research whatever you like, do an online course, read or other.

Teachers are very nice, professional and getting along should be fine. You will have co-teachers working in class with you. You lead the class and they help out, some more than others.

Your apartment is usually fairly close to the school and there is great public transportation available as well.

You will most likely be invited to go out for dinner occasionally and maybe a bar or singing room afterwards. Some schools do a hike once or twice a school year as well. This can be great exercise, a chance to know teachers outside of school more and see some of the Korean mountainous view.

35+ students in each class is normal. With the help of a Korean co-teacher and some practice students are usually quite attentive in class.

You may often use text books and your own material. When using text books you usually have some freedom to make the lesson your own and add to the text material. Power points are great.

You will often want students to practice listening and speaking, some reading and writing. Group work and pair work, with some individual work.

Speak loud and clear, and not too fast as well.

Enjoy and relax.

Please contact us anytime for advice or questions via our homepage at Dom's ESL Cafe

By Dom

First time teaching in Korea (part 2)

My very first class. A large classroom, with two long rectangle shaped, knee high tables placed together aligned with orange and blue knee high chairs. The kids, aged 7-9 were also about knee high, though this is a slight exaggeration. They were small and at first quiet. I had the impression this job was going to be easy and that the kids would want to learn.

I stood in front of them next to a white board that sat on a stand. I may have written my name on the white board but I don’t remember. I do remember sitting down at the head of the tables in a knee high, blue chair, and opened a very thin and simple English text book. Things like, “Hello, what’s your name?” “My name is Tom,” were in the book, mostly as a form of bubble speaking from animated characters, like a cat and mouse, some kind of Tom and Jerry look a likes perhaps. A song that went, “busy, busy, busy, everyday, busy on Monday, busy on Tuesday, busy, busy, busy, everyday,” which was played from a small cassette player and may never be removed from my head.

I believe the first class was more or less trying to keep kids from talking too loud, as they had started to pick up the noise a few minutes into class. I may have tried to have them read and repeat some words but that was it. Some kids didn’t have a text book, some began to fight with others, an eraser was thrown and hit a small boy. He cried and yelled and threw it back. Another two knee/waist high kids began a small tug of war over a small plastic toy. The small plastic and seemingly perhaps most insignificant thing in this world, to an adult, was a prize possession and much sought after thing by the two boys, The tug of war went on with a few high pitched shrieks and yells and wining from boy boys and finally one got it away from the other, only to fly backwards onto the floor. This was proceeded with crying and the highly regarded plastic possession was recaptured by the still sitting boy. This became a full on hitting battle.

Other boys talked quietly, and some loudly, some to themselves. One boy may have sang to himself. I believe there were no girls in that first class. I don’t even remember when it finished. It seemed to lag on into a memory of never ending classes and blur for the first two months in Korea before disagreements and my own self doing lead to my dismissal.

Jacob

First day teaching in Korea (part 1)

Hello, just a brief summary of my first day at a small private Hagwan, several years ago. I had never taught before, and arrived at my school the morning after arriving in Korea. For me, it was like the “twilight zone’ episode when the guy wakes up in a place and everyone speaks a different language and no one can understand him. Of course, it is not that bad, as I was walked to school by my Westerner roommate. Also, for many people I met, their first days in Korea seemed somewhat easier than mine. For me, I had no idea how to teach ESL, what to except in the class, or how the kids would behave.

I was introduced to some co-teachers at the school, the owner’s wife and a few students, then literally placed into a class. I may have had a few books handed to me before hand. I recommend getting some info on teaching ESL basics first. It was not that hard once you get used to it. But for me, at that time, I had no real clue what I was doing. Simple things like, ‘listen and repeat’, or speak loud and slow, were not apparent to me. Neither were the 12 loud young students sitting at the rectangle table. My first class was not the greatest, but it did get a lot easier and better.

More to come on this! 

From Jacob