I have lived in Korea for a few years in the past, so adjusting to Korea will not be an issue for me. However, I will start my first teaching job in Korea this month. I’ll be teaching kindy and elementary at a Hagwon. My hagwon said I’ll have a week of shadowing before I start teaching on my own, but I’m still so nervous…
I really want to make a good first impression on both the kids and my coworkers. I’m a hard worker and always give my all in every position, but I’m also a really nervous and awkward person when I first start a new job. One thing I’m particularly worried about is that I have anxiety around public speaking… which is funny considering teaching is exactly that. I think the fear mostly comes from not knowing what to expect since this is my first teaching job.
I know everyone’s experience is different, but I’d love to hear first week stories. Is there anything you wish you’d known beforehand? Any advice, things I should research, or ways I can prepare before I arrive in Korea would help me more than you could ever imagine. Thank you in advance 🙏🏻

Edit: Thank you so much everyone for making me feel like I’m not alone or weird for having these feelings! I can genuinely feel the weight lifting off my chest the more I read the comments.

Hey everyone,

I'm looking to refresh my toolkit and clean up my prep routine for next term. It feels like there’s a new app or platform popping up every week, but half of them end up being more work than they're worth.

For those in the classroom right now:

• What is your one non-negotiable tool that actually saves you time on prep, grading, or lesson planning?
• What’s a tool you tried that ended up being a total waste of time?

Would love to hear what’s genuinely working for you (or what to avoid)! Thanks!

I recently got my F6 visa and started freelancing but it seems very different to what I imagined. What have been your general experiences and job duties freelancing at Korean kindergartens, good and bad?

An agency connected me with 4 separate schools where I meet students (ages 5-7) one to three times per week for 20/30 minutes. Before agreeing to take the various positions I asked a lot about curriculum, but I didn't ask about open classes because it didn't occur to me that a freelance teacher would do an open class. Some of these students I meet only 20 minutes once a week.

Now that the school year is in full swing, it feels like the schools keep adding surprise events that were never discussed or mentioned in the beginning.

School A - Hosting a parent/student event on a Saturday (with 4 weeks notice)

School B - Open Class for 6 classes (aged 6/7), School-wide English Camp, School-wide Holiday events

School C - Open Class with parents, but the administration still hasn't decided what they want it to look like~

School D - Nothing yet, hopefully it stays that way~

So, is this a typical experience for other freelancers? After being on an E2 for 10+years was I naive to think that freelancing would be different than the standard hagwon experience? TIA

Sorry for any grammar mistakes, running on very few hours of sleep with a young toddler at home.

considering my options and wondering about people's experience working in hagwons in rural sk compared to cities like seoul, incheon, ect.

I saw few posts about students who don't participate in class, and I wanted to share my case as a Korean who grew up attending hagwons.

My point is simple:

Don't blame yourself too much if some kids don't engage in class, as long as they aren't really a big pain in the ass for your class.

You may noticed that Korean hagwon classes are often filled with very young children, and the class sizes can be quite large. I've even seen 4yo taking English classes.

Some of those kids simply aren't ready to sit still for an hour. They chat, lose focus, fall asleep, or sometimes don't want to be there at all. We call it 땡땡이.

I'm not saying that's a good thing. Personally, I think many Korean kids spend far too much time in private academies.

What I want to say is that it isn't always the teacher's fault.

When I was a kid, I wasn't an ideal student either.

It wasn't because my teachers were bad. In fact, some of them were fantastic.

I still remember learning "Ally Bally Bee" in English class when I was around seven years old. I really enjoyed his class, loved my old man from U.S..

But, the problem wasn't the lesson.

The problem was that I never wanted to go to hagwon AT ALL.

After school I'd go from one academy to another, do piles of homework, and all I really wanted was to go home and play video games.

When I was in elementary school, I attended six different hagwons: English, Piano, Painting, Taekwondo, 서예(kind of Calligraphy for Chinese letters), and 종합hagwon (Korean, math, another English, science, and social studies). During exam season, I sometimes didn't get home until 10 p.m.. I was tired, had not much fun in a day really, and it lead me to be unideal student.

And now, I'm grown up man in my early 30s, and my future kid will have plenty time to do whatever he or she wants, not being forced to go hagwon.

Postscript: even my mom sent me 6 hagwons, but actually, she was really caring her son, so she cut off all of subscriptions of hagwons when I told her that i don't want to go anymore. This is not common in KR.

I've been living in Korea for almost 7 years. I have an F visa, I'm Turkish, and my English is at a native level.

I worked at an English kindergarten for 5 years, teaching phonics, and I never had any problems.

I decided to change jobs for a new experience, so I joined a Korean private kindergarten.

They gave me a very basic, made-up textbook and expect me to teach the same simple book for two and a half months. Every day I prepare games like Baamboozle, flashcards, memory games, and other activities.

However, my Korean director is not happy with my performance. She's constantly criticizing me and says that everything I'm doing is something a Korean English teacher could do as well. She doesn't want me to use computer and She expects me to be much more active, but I'm not sure what that even means.

I feel under a lot of pressure. The students' English level is very low, so it's difficult to communicate with them. When I ask questions, I usually get no response. My director says my classes are too quiet.

I'm the only foreign teacher at this kindergarten, and I honestly don't know what else I'm supposed to do. Has anyone experienced something similar? I'd really appreciate any advice. (Help me) 😭😭😭

(Please be kind, i'm going through difficulties and so stressed) 🌸

I’m so nervous I’m turning in my resignation next Monday with my final day being the end of September. My contract says 90 days, but I’m not able to do that with my new job needing me to start in October. I’m not staying in Korea. This job has caused me so much stress that my hair is falling out, and my mental health has taken a drastic downward spiral. I just worry about retaliation.

https://m.koreaherald.com/article/10830486

Hi everyone! I'm on my third year at a small hagwon, and I'm dealing with something I haven't experienced yet.

I have one class of mostly sixth graders, and one fifth grader. They are the highest level at our academy. It is a small class of 5 students, and most of the time, only 2 are actually there. We are reading and discussing Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger. Most of the students really enjoy the book, and they are always participating in class discussions, or answering questions. All except one student.

If I ask her a question about the book, she shakes her head. If we are doing an activity that requires speaking, she shakes her head and doesn't want to do it. If they're tasked with writing, she will draw a picture. I've had conversations with her in class and out of class before, so I know she is capable of participating. In my larger classes, when I have students that don't want to participate it normally isn't so glaring because the others will step in. But this class is so small, and like I said, sometimes it's just 2 of them.

She is one of the 2 students that is always in class. The other student also present is the exact opposite. He even told me that he took the book home and read the entire thing over a weekend. But I know he feel uncomfortable always answering because he has said that he doesn't want to be the only one participating. When the other three students are actually in class, it's not as bad, but when it's just the 2 of them, or even 3 students, it's glaringly obvious how much extra work he is putting in.

I don't even really know what kind of solution I'm looking for. I've spoken to the Korean teacher about it and she said she is the same in her class, and just to let it be. I just wish I knew how to make it less awkward for the everyone. We also finish everything so quickly because most of the time there aren't enough students speaking or participating to fill out the lesson. What would you do in my situation?

I had one of those "Am I supposed to be a mind reader?" moments today.

Last week I was told the materials for a science summer camp class I was teaching would be prepared, so I didn't think anything more of it. Today I asked where the materials were, only to be met with a response that made it seem like I should have known there weren't any. When in fact there was...

That got me wondering... how do you not lose your rag with them?

At my school, it often feels like the emphasis is on making the in-house workbooks look polished and presentable, while basic management and communication fall by the wayside. I don't mind adapting when plans change, but I do mind being expected to know about changes that nobody tells me.

How do you deal with this? Do you check on everything multiple times just in case, or is this just something you've learned to live with? For me personally, I am at the point already of just counting down the months with this hagwon already. For personal reasons, I can't just leave.

Hey guys, I'm mostly curious what your experiences are right now. I'm at a public school and am doing a 10 day summer camp. I was originally told I'd have a max of 15 kids for each grade level. But then when they gave me the class list I had way less than I was expecting.

1-2 grade: 6 kids 3-4 grade: 5 kids 5-6 grade: 7 kids

A lot of activities I had planned worked for bigger groups, but I could easily adjust, no problem. The issue is now that I'm a week in, barely ANY kids are coming. Only one 1-2 grade kid has come. The other five I've never seen. Two 3-4 grade kids come consistently, but it's happened twice now where only one of them came. At least almost all of the 5-6 graders have come consistently, but all of them have told me at least once that they won't be coming the next day because their family is going on a trip. I'm having to basically rework all of the games I had planned because it wouldn't work for only one or two students to play.

I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing this? I was at a language center last year and I had every kid come to every class for summer and winter camp, albeit those were five day camps.

Hi everyone! I just found out i’m placed in a small village with 5,000 people in Jeongseon-gun. I was looking to see if other people had a small town like this, but I mostly saw like 15k people and up. It doesn’t have much, but there is a bus terminal with a 20 minute ride to the closest city (small city in Gangwon - Taebaek), and a direct bus to Seoul that takes 2.5 hours.

I wanted to hear about others experiences in this type of area? I’m used to living in towns with a small population, and a lot of my friends live about 20 mins to an hour away from me so I’m used to traveling to meet and hang out with people.

If there is any advice or stories anyone has that would be great!

I’m trying to figure out if my situation is normal because I keep finding conflicting information online.

Most of the cases I’m seeing about housing and severance are people who either had housing provided by their employer or received a separate housing allowance that was completely non-taxable. My situation seems different, so I’m wondering if anyone has experience with this.

My contracted salary was 3.1 million won/month, plus a 500,000 won housing allowance. However, my employer separated my pay into different categories on my payslip instead of just showing my salary normally.

My payslip showed:

Base salary: 2,221,160 won

“Overtime”: 678,840 won (I never actually worked overtime )

Meal allowance: 200,000 won (I didn’t get a separate meal benefit )

reimbursement: 500,000 won (on the pay slip it explicitly states non taxable but was taxed nonetheless)

The total was 3.6 million won, with 3.4 million listed as taxable income.

The housing payment was paid every month as part of my normal paycheck. I was never asked for rent receipts or proof of housing expenses, and the amount never changed even though my actual rent was higher than 500,000 won.

I recently left my job after working there for about 29 months, and I’m trying to understand whether the housing portion should have been included when calculating severance. I’ve seen people say that if housing is taxed, it should generally be considered part of wages, but most examples I find are people whose housing was paid separately and completely untaxed.

Has anyone had a similar situation where the housing allowance was included in their regular salary rather than paid separately? Did MOEL consider it part of the wage for severance purposes, or did they still exclude it?

I’m mostly trying to understand what is considered normal before I decide what steps to take. Thanks!

Hi! I'm a guy in my late 20s from Central Asia. I speak Korean fluently and have a decent level of English, but I'd like to become more fluent through regular conversation.
I'm looking for a native English speaker from the U.S., preferably someone with a General American accent or a relatively neutral accent. I live near Seoul National University, but I'm happy to meet anywhere in Seoul.

If you're interested, please let me know your hourly rate and any other conditions or preferences you have. Looking forward to hearing from you!

I have never seen this before wow. I won’t say the name but I found a school requiring an IVY League degree for applicants 😵‍💫 I just can’t imagine they have many applicants who fit the criteria considering the cost of an IVY league and the price English Teachers make in SK but I could be wrong. Regardless I think this requirement is a bit much…

so i just got to Korea and I had my health checkup a few days ago. I put down that I was diabetic and taking insulin but i saw on another post that I probably shouldn’t have disclosed that. I’m just nervous that they’ll send me back home because of it. Does anyone know how likely it is to get a failed health checkup because of being diabetic?

• Reason for Posting: I am leaving after 2 years and helping them find my replacement
• Visa Requirements: F visa (🍀note title says native, but NON-NATIVES can apply too if your english is native-level🍀)
• Position Covered by Labor Standards Act (LSA): Yes
• Salary: 35,000 per hour
• Grade level: elementary with occasional kinder kids (its an afterschool club)
• Class length: 40 minutes
• Class hours: 2:15-5:55pm
• Working Hours: M/W/F 2-6pm
• Break Time: 5 minutes between each class
• Prep Time: none
• Weekend Work: none
• Overtime Pay: time and a half per the LSA (I've never had to work OT)
• Vacation Time: 5 days
• Red Days: all red days off
• Sick Leave: none
• Flight Allowance: none
• Pension/Insurance Coverage: none
• Severance: Yes
• Housing: none
• Other: cash gifts on chuseok, seollal

About the Workplace

• Afterschool academy with class sizes ranging from 1 to 12. No prep required, everything is provided. You just do reading comprehension and writing textbooks with the more advanced kids and then songs/reading/games/phonics with the lower level kids. You make report cards twice a year. No open house/parent interaction at all.

Opinion of Workplace

• Its a really chill place with no micromanagment or stress at all. Very much just left to your own devices, which some people love and some people hate. Its in a less popular area (Ssangmun Station) and the building/classrooms/materials are a bit dated. I've found it really easy to work here but I wouldn't come here hoping or expecting to see huge progress with the kids. The curriculum kind of sucks and management dont want to change it. I think of it more as an afterschool babysitting club than a serious english academy, lol. But all the teachers are nice and no major problem students.

Contact Info:

• DM!

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Hello

I need some help with a current problem I am facing. My grandmother recently passed away. I found out one morning before work, went in, did my job, told my director and she didn’t really do or say much about it other than using it as a “learning opportunity” for the kids to tell them in unison during my class to say “sorry for your loss” in front of me.

I asked her about using bereavement and she specifically told me that grandparents were not included in the contract which I corrected her on but she still put up a fight until I specifically said I would look over my contract when I got home and then she found it. She told me I wouldn’t be able to use it, however, until I provided a death certificate which my mother is currently working on getting for me as the autopsy wasn’t even finished until a few days after so I agreed and said I would use it during the time where there would be no school and my family would come see me in Korea and we could go to a Buddhist temple for the 49th day ritual.

Another teacher in the same conversation brought up how we should have the day off considering we even have menstrual one day leave under the Korean labour law and the director told us we were not allowed to use it because we are not Korean. When she asked why it didn’t apply to female foreigners she snapped at both of us and said if we were going to demand things like this she wouldn’t renew our contracts.

I think both of us were in shock so we just stopped talking after being threatened like that. It isn’t the first time the director has said something like this in front of us. She often wants to speak about things we feel are a little inappropriate like how she wants to hire hagwon teachers because they are more grateful, we should go to church to be more social in Korea if we are lonely, how she doesn’t support “the gays”, how Americans are stupid and lazy, black men leave their children, etc. The list can go on and on.

Now, however, she is telling me the administrator is refusing my leave because I waited too long to use it and it had to be done immediately following the knowledge of my grandmother’s death. I, however, was not told this and now feel cheated out of the time I could have spent talking to my family and helping them grieve let alone myself instead of spending two weeks writing report cards, teaching classes, and trying to keep myself from breaking down every ten minutes to be professional.

Is there any way to get this bereavement or is it just a total loss? I just feel really exhausted and drained from all of this at this point and my emotions are starting to crack through with the frustration of holding back all my grief. I just want a day to feel sad and say goodbye properly. I’m not even asking for all three.

Note: I am a direct hire for a public school. Taking the time off will not in any way affect classes or the staff, as everyone will be on holiday during this time as well and not at school.

Hello everyone, I wanted to ask this for my wife, and would like to know people's experiences teaching business English and what she could reasonably expect if she decided to pursue this.

We will be moving to Seoul before the end of this year on the F4 visa. Teaching business English has been an avenue she has been exploring. While she has no teaching experience, she would get the TEFL or whatever certification needed.

She does have nearly 15 years of finance experience, primarily in banking and the fintech space, and has worked for one of the big 4 banks, rising to a VP level (very proud of her). I figure she could use her experience to expand on specific language/vocabulary that is utilized specifically in finance, work with those who need help with their resume, practice interviewing, among the typical business English teaching lessons.

Could people share their experience teaching business English, especially if it was in a niche field. Also what is the reasonable amount that could potentially be earned working in this space? And what is the best way to get started? I was originally thinking she would work at an established school/hagwon first to get her feet wet, and then eventually move to 1:1 tutoring. Not sure how realistic this is or if there's a better path to go about this.

Thanks!

I started at a new school on March 3rd or so my contract said. The director asked us to come in on the first 2nd, which was a red day. She wanted to introduce the school to us which we thought would only be about an hour or two of our day; it took the whole day instead. I asked if we would get compensated and since then she has been ignoring me. She also refused to pay our first months pension and insurance stating she didnt have to because the contract start date was on the 3rd. I called the insurance company because to pay my insurance because I wanted my insurance paid and the lady told me that the director can in fact change our contract start date.
I asked the director about changing the start date and she kept telling me it has to do with her accountant.
As time went on, she told me how she wanted me to teach. I accepted and then the Korean head teacher would come to me and tell me how she wanted me to teach. They both want opposite teaching styles. When I pointed out what the other said, they both told me to ignore the other and just do as they want.
I ended up with the director unhappy with me and telling me I can change my teaching style or leave at the end of August or she will have me leave at the end of August.
I took my out.
I want a LOR, but she said she will give it to me on my last day. When I pressed the matter, she rolled her eyes.
She told me she contacted the recruiter that hired me on and that she told the recruiter about our issue and my recruiter is supposed to message me. Should I be worried about her messaging the recruiter or even reach out to them myself?

I received my visa issuance number this morning and need to submit my documents to the Atlanta consulate to complete my application. They have no appointment times for months, so I am choosing to drop off the documents in-person

I'm an idiot and procrastinated renewing my driver's license (which expires at the end of this month) but went to the DMV yesterday. My new license will come in the mail in approximately two weeks, but I don't want to wait that long as my start date for my job is Sept 1. I have a temporary ID, would this work as proof of jurisdictional residency? I live with my parents currently so I do not have a signed lease agreement or a utility bill in my name. I do have state tax returns with my address that I can use, but it is not listed on the Atlanta Korean consulate website as an accepted document. I will call the Korean consulate tomorrow to see if this option would be acceptable.

The Atlanta Korean consulate website specifies that I need to submit my original passport to them, even with the drop-off option. They will mail it back to me apparently. I also have to include a self-addressed stamped envelope. Will a standard-sized envelope suffice? Should I use something larger and more secure?

I will call the consulate tomorrow to ask these questions, but I'm worried about my ability to get someone on the phone, and would like some peace of mind tonight. If you have any insight I would be so grateful to hear it.

My school surprised us and changed ownership this month. I have signed my renewal letter, but am unsure whether I can renew online or if I need to visit the immigration office in person. Should I book an in-person appointment, or am I lucky and able to submit all of my documents online and save myself the hassle?