http://teachingenglishsucksinkorea.blogspot.com/

For those of you who contemplate teaching English in Korea and maybe Asia in general. Granted, it's highly subjective but still an interesting read.

That entire post could have been condensed into one or two paragraphs. >_>

I didn't like that link at all. He seems bitter for one reason or another besides hardships at the work place. ( no offense if the blog is yours of course ) You can make anything as good or as bad as you want the only thing that matters is how you perceive the world. Korea Japan America London all beautiful and full of lively characters and cool people I want to meet as long as I can offer and get valuable experience from them. I think the guy in the blog just didn't offer enough value in and outside the company for people to respect him and it reflected back to him.

It's not my blog. I couldn't teach English in the first place.

I don't think he speaks Korean which would have a lasting effect on his opinion me thinks.

He sounds very bitter. He probably came in there being very naive about how things work.

The Koreans probably think they are paying him well and that he is a junior and a foreigner so he should do whatever they order him to do. He seems like he wants to behave like he's the one managing things around:

Quote:The afterschool advanced classes may be taught with a co-teacher (2 of mine were). They will more than likely try to make you do the entire lesson planning for the after school classes as well. I did them for the first semester as stressed as I already was. Then, I came to realize that they are also getting paid more to teach the afterschool classes and just show up to translate a few words. So, I made them do the lesson planning for the second semester. It doesn’t make sense and isn’t fair that you make all the lesson plans and they do absolutely nothing but show up and take a pay increase.

His job probably does suck, but not in an exceptional way.

Eikyu Wrote:He sounds very bitter.

My impression, which is mostly based on ALT forums, is that the blog owners' experience is not that uncommon.

In my experience, a lot of ALTs are tremendous whiners who have no grip on reality. Show me someone who gets paid $44,000 a year with 35 days of paid vacation and complains about having 4 hours of free time a day, and I'll show you an ALT.

JimmySeal Wrote:In my experience, a lot of ALTs are tremendous whiners who have no grip on reality.

Hit the nail on the head.

Are you sure the 'in Korea' part is needed in the subject line?

NoSleepTilFluent Wrote:I didn't like that link at all. He seems bitter for one reason or another besides hardships at the work place. ( no offense if the blog is yours of course ) You can make anything as good or as bad as you want the only thing that matters is how you perceive the world. Korea Japan America London all beautiful and full of lively characters and cool people I want to meet as long as I can offer and get valuable experience from them. I think the guy in the blog just didn't offer enough value in and outside the company for people to respect him and it reflected back to him.

but... how can they provide value?

the impression i've got from alts is that they begin wanting to provide value, but find out quickly that their ideas are not partiularly welcome, and their job is just a gesture which, along with general culture shock seems to end up in the kind of whiny misery you see everywhere.

Although yeah, many of them seem to be straight out of college and have no idea what working in a real job is like either...

In order for your value to show at a Job ( i can't speak for English teaching ) I would suggest:

Taking your job seriously. - If you care about what you are doing and not just the paycheck it will show in your work.

Respectful of others. - Especially when your first starting out respect people and observe how it is like working in that particular location. Different locations with the same job can have different people whose expectations are different. Don't compare things like "Well at my last job we did it like this..."

Be Social. - Don't over do it and be a distraction but say hi to your coworkers and be friendly. Nobody wants to talk to the person sulking in the corner on their breaks.


That pretty much should plant the seeds for good relationships at work. There still may be a few people that dislike you regardless and that's fine if they can't realize your an awesome person it's their loss. With good relationships your suggestions would be heard much louder than the guy who starting fighting right from the get go.

JimmySeal Wrote:In my experience, a lot of ALTs are tremendous whiners who have no grip on reality. Show me someone who gets paid $44,000 a year with 35 days of paid vacation and complains about having 4 hours of free time a day, and I'll show you an ALT.

This is a common accusation, but I worked the ALT job for 2 years and it's hard to do something that gives you no job satisfaction. Yes, I got to sit around a lot doing nothing, but it made me feel like I was wasting my time. You may think it sounds like a great thing to have a job where you have to go into the office for 8 hours a day but only have 1-2 hours of actual responsibility, and some may like it, but for me it was terrible.

Icecream:

Quote:the impression i've got from alts is that they begin wanting to provide value, but find out quickly that their ideas are not partiularly welcome, and their job is just a gesture which, along with general culture shock seems to end up in the kind of whiny misery you see everywhere.

This is spot-on; exactly my experience with JET. I enjoyed teaching in the elementary schools to a certain extent -- even though in the end I'm not sure I was able to do much more than just expose them to a foreigner, at least I was in charge of the entire lesson and schedule. I had real responsibilities and was busy most of the time; when I was at elementary schools I had little more than my lunch break free. But at most of the middle schools, the teachers didn't know what to do with me and were too busy preparing the students for the entrance exams to incorporate any suggestions I might have -- I don't blame the teachers for this. The JET program does not fit with Japan's school system very well. So most of the time I spent sitting in the teacher's room.

Just trying to be nice or professional won't change the fact that you really have few relevant skills to offer -- being a native speaker has very little to do with the practical use to which most of the students will be putting their English (i.e. entrance exams). It's not that the teachers dislike you, they just really don't have any need for you.

There are some exceptions to this; some JETs have actual responsibilities. I did not (at least at the middle schools), and there's very little I could have done to change that.

The link was interesting and I think the author had some valid points. However, I must say that some of his problems seems to be caused due to his lack of knowledge in the Korean language, which resulted in having to rely on the english teachers that didn't liked him.

I think that if you ever go to a foreigner country without speaking their language, you will be exploited. It doesn't matter where. It's already hard when you can speak the language (after all, we get cheated even on our own countries) but it's worse when you can't speak it. So even if they don't really require you to be able to speak their language, at least study it enough before going into the country. You will need something to defend yourself when you're living in a foreigner country without friends or family - and in many cases, that thing is the language. He even talked about how nice the principal was and that he could help him when he needed - so I can conclude that, if he had enough knowledge about Korean language and culture (including workplace) beforehand, he could have been able to avoid some of his troubles.

That said, I can sympathize with him especially because I'm a teacher myself and I know that dealing with your own coworkers is sometimes the worst thing ever. Many teachers (and academics in general) have big egos, it's really hard to deal with them... Especially if you teach the same subject. And while I don't have any experiences with ALT or teaching English (I'm not a native), I definitely recommend getting a good grasp of the language before applying to those programs. Not only to avoid trouble but also to help in the socialising aspect.

It's important to remember that what is written on the internet doesn't neccessarily reflect reality. In general people tend to post on forums to complain rather than to say how great their job is. Every job I've worked in there have been plenty of times when people moan about the pay/people/hours/rubbish bosses. It's just that they don't spend all of their time posting about it on internet forums.

Obviously there is some truth though in some of the complaints that are written. Just don't go around thinking all ALTs are bitter about Japan and their jobs.

Hehe, I'm an ALT, leaving in July.

I love Japan. But I hate being an ALT.

But .... it kept me fed while I became fluent in Japanese and I made enough money to grow a serious savings account. I also got to experience some fairly unique things and visit 4 Asian countries while living abroad in my mid-20s, which was awesome. And I think I might have met my future wife here (knock on wood) and I got accepted into business school.

All the quirky experiences aside, I can't imagine why people would consider doing this more than 3 years or as a permanent career.

I didn't read the blog, but if anyone asked me whether it is a good idea to teach English in Korea, I would recommend against it. If someone asked me whether it was a good idea to do it in Japan, I would recommend it.

I think both Japan and Korea have lots of wonderful things. I have a lot of Korean friends who I adore. And, like many, I love the food.

I work as an English teacher in Japan, and many of my friends work as Engish teachers in Korea. I went to visit my friends there, and I'm actually going back tomorrow for a few days.

ALTs in Korea generally get jobs that they don't find motivating. Often they find themselves irked because the other teachers hit the kids at school. They also get treated like shit pretty regularly by people who are xenophobic and nationalistic. A lot of people are also upset by how women (and animals) are treated in Korea.

Just doesn't seem worth it to me. Of course, it's not the fault of Koreans as a whole--mostly just the douchey xenophobic ones--and part of the problem is culture differences that are hard to get over. But either way, a lot of people leave with a very very negative view on their experiences there.

Well teaching english anywhere where it is a required subject i am sure would suck. I never could imagine forcing my own culture onto another countries own children. How some of these people live with themselves thinking they are actually "educating" the kids for teaching them English I will never know. Not to mention the fact they think they are "educating" them is quite racist itself. English Teachers in Asia remind me of the late 1800s and early 1900s when Whites would go to Africa to teach the "unwashed masses" Christianity(and also English).

Zon70 Wrote:English Teachers in Asia remind me of the late 1800s and early 1900s when Whites would go to Africa to teach the "unwashed masses" Christianity(and also English).

There is almost no comparison between them.

Zon70 Wrote:English Teachers in Asia remind me of the late 1800s and early 1900s when Whites would go to Africa to teach the "unwashed masses" Christianity(and also English).

Missionaries even today engage in that unsavory trade the world over. For better or worse, English is the language of international business and teachers are necessary, for now.

JimmySeal Wrote:In my experience, a lot of ALTs are tremendous whiners who have no grip on reality. Show me someone who gets paid $44,000 a year with 35 days of paid vacation and complains about having 4 hours of free time a day, and I'll show you an ALT.

ALT don't make anywhere near that unless they're JET. A haken ALT generally gets 5 paid days off per year and school holidays are unpaid, meaning that they are unpaid for 4 months of the year (no classes during exams). The going rate is now about 22,450 USD per year (23man/month for the months they get paid) before taxes or mandatory healthcare/insurance. Other haken companies will pay you all year but you get less per month, making it about the same total pay. No idea what it pays in Korea though.

That said, it's unskilled labor where you spend most of the day doing whatever you want at your desk (study etc), so still not such a bad deal if you're fresh out of university.

NoSleepTilFluent Wrote:I think the guy in the blog just didn't offer enough value in and outside the company for people to respect him and it reflected back to him.

No one respects foreign English assistants, ever. Would you respect the guy at McDonalds who salts your fries just because he tried really hard and put the perfect amount on? ALT are easily replaced unskilled labor. If someone was a passionate teacher they wouldn't be an ALT, they'd be at a private highschool or a university as a full teacher.

Isn't the point of ALT that you're kind of like a nice cutesy figurehead? It's not to actually teach decently... how could you expect to teach a language if the teacher only speaks english and the students only speak japanese?

thats a rhetorical question by the way these kids are not doing SRS.

Even JETs don't necessarily make that much. When I was there, the salary was 3.6 million yen. At the time, that was about $32K/year -- still pretty good for the work, but not quite $44K. However, if they haven't changed the payment amount, 3.6 million yen is now around $44K, so it's an even better situation.

zachandhobbes: The crux of the problem with the JET program is that the goals of the program are poorly defined.

If I were younger and didn't take my sweet time finishing college, I would love to go over and teach in Korea or China for two years after JET.

But, marriage, career, and making babies is calling out to me.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Even JETs don't necessarily make that much. When I was there, the salary was 3.6 million yen. At the time, that was about $32K/year -- still pretty good for the work, but not quite $44K. However, if they haven't changed the payment amount, 3.6 million yen is now around $44K, so it's an even better situation.

zachandhobbes: The crux of the problem with the JET program is that the goals of the program are poorly defined.

Yeah, I make 3.6 million yen a year with 27 paid vacation days a year (vacation days vary by prefecture), and seperate sick days, time off if you get married, etc.

Also, I don't pay any tax to the IRS, and very little to the Japanese government. That's a damn good deal if you ask me.

Actually, as an ALT you can make a huge difference, but you have to do more than what is absolutely required of you. If you do things like attending club activities, participating in school events, socializing with the kids, attending a homeroom class, attending non-English classes, or speaking Japanese to the other teachers, you can have quite a fulfilling, busy, and engaging job. If you have a boring job and don't improve the situation at your school it's either because you're really a mediocre worker with little ambition, or your school is really not willing to be accepting of you.