Disposable Teachers

Native English teachers are and will always be disposable to EPIK, GEPIK, SMOE, and any other teaching program in Korea.

Native teachers do not have rights as long as Korean schools dangle everything over native teachers' heads and hint at mistreatment down the line. They control too much about your contract; they will use the ambiguous contract wording and lack of actual contract checks and balances to their advantage. So much for decency; you're a pawn to be pushed at their whim.

Isn't it strange that most countries around the world strictly follow contractual obligations, yet many of Korea's schools still seem to think it is still mere child's play. I would easily say there are many who have been mistreated at the hands of their employers and co-workers; It's not as if there is any REAL way of getting help without retaliation from your school in the future.

Too much power is in the wrong hands.
Too little is there to support native English teachers.
Too much of the native English teaching contract is designed to quickly dispose of and replace teachers.

When I say native English teachers, I mean people who have the potential to be good teachers, but are surrounded by an environment that says, "Leave, we don't want you here." You won't get training, you might get a caring Korean teacher that might do some actual work (but it's highly unlikely), you will get a large majority of students and Korean English teachers that see you as irrelevant (there is no important standardized test for verbal speaking), you will get mistreated and forgotten daily.

Do not go to Korea to teach English, no matter how much money they dangle in front of you. They haven't put any real thought into protecting you from the corruption that still prevails in Korea's mismanagement of resources, workers, and, of course, you.

One day this may all change, but until then the misconduct continues...

[Video] Typical Co-teaching

So, you want to teach in Korea? These are some very typical videos of how Korean co-teachers "work together" with native English teachers. Their slogan should be "Teach in Korea: Get Screwed."

I highly recommend everyone video tape their co-teachers in action (in-action or lack thereof). Maybe a lot of the Korean English teachers would actually do what they're supposed to do.

Letting people know about it sure doesn't do anything. I notified the co-teachers, the principal, Gepik reps. Most people would rather allow it to go on, that try to fix it.

Korean English Teacher 1

Korean English Teacher 2

Just keep in mind, these videos are roughly 7-9 minutes of a 45 minute class; these were made in the beginning of the 2nd half of the school year / contract year. There are 20+ classes exactly like this in a week; the contracts go for a year. Let me repeat that, every class that you have will be like this. The Korean co-teachers exert minimal effort across the board and use the excuse that all the other schools do it that same way. This means that Korea has one hell of a problem with it's English education and fulfilling contractual obligations. It's widespread, won't be fixed anytime soon, and there is very little a native English teacher can do to stop it.

One major lesson the Korean English teachers need to learn: as a teacher you're supposed to actually try to teach and serve the students needs, not serve your own selfish desires to be lazy.

[Demonstration Video] [Will be added at a later date...]

This is a video of my demonstration. It is a demonstration that is made to be an extravagant. It is made to pretend to be a depiction of how native English teachers and Korean English teachers work together as they are supposed to. I already wrote a lengthy prose about this situation [Link].

I will say that I, like most native teachers, ended up making the majority of it myself. The Korean co-teacher, for the first time ever, when watched by others, pretends to work together. She ended up forcing herself into more of a dominant role in the demonstration, but was criticized by Korean teachers from other schools because the demonstration is supposed to be about how we teach and how the Korean teachers support us, not the other way around (which still doesn't follow the contract, since we're supposed to be the assistant teachers...). But, it's very easy to see the extreme difference in what they pretend goes on in the classrooms and what actually goes on in the classrooms based on comparing this video to the ones above.

It is a clear example of how Korean English teachers will use and manipulate native teachers for their own personal gain / to look better in their own careers. They will only pretend to do what they are supposed to when others are watching. At all other times, they will do nothing at all.

A typical school class 'co-teaching' with a Korean English teacher.

Korean co-teacher
67+% standing/sitting doing nothing
2 % talking in korean
0 % talking in English
0 % actual teaching or effort

Native co-teacher (Me)
100% Powerpoint creation
100% finding/photocopying worksheets
100% lesson planning
100% actual teaching / class lecture
90+% constant movement around the classroom
90+% talking to students in English

The top two videos were an end of 2009 video of English as a second language "co-teaching" with Korean teachers in Korea at a public middle school (GEPIK). According to contract, native English speakers are supposed to be the assistant teachers and Korean teachers are supposed to help us make lesson plans which also never happens. The Korean teacher stands absolutely still typically more than 2/3rds of the class time and almost never talk. This scenario, albeit very unjust, is fairly common.

Do not trust Korean contracts regarding teaching ESL in Korea. They are vague, not worth the paper they are written on, and are purposely made to leave out numerous minor and important details. Contracts are a bait and switch scam to get you to Korea and then mistreat you after you have invested your time and effort and gone past the point of no return. There are no checks and balances to ensure your well-being.

English native teachers are disposable in Korea. DO NOT think you will be treated fairly. DO NOT teach English in Korea. They will not treat you with respect behind the closed doors of the still very individually managed schools. Korea is still knee-deep in its archaic, male-dominated, and hierarchical system of management.

Korean co-teachers will try very hard to hide their laziness. Just to remind you, they get a college degree and teaching certificate in teaching English, they get to go to numerous seminars, and have many years of hands on practice. What do they do with all this experience and training? Absolutely nothing. I even had Korean co-teachers that wouldn't hand out papers unless I forced them to.

You, meanwhile, have none and have come to Korea to teach because supposedly you don't need any experience and they will train you (not). Teachers are still highly regarded in Korean society without any concept of what actually goes on.

These videos were made with veteran Korean co-teachers after many months of being together. I had six Korean co-teachers; all were fairly similar in their lack of usefulness/effort. All efforts made to try to fix the obvious unbalance of work are met with organizational resistance which will inevitably label you an outcast by the co-teachers that are supposed to help you, but usually don't. There are no places to speak out about this injustice since those that you turn to will tell you to "grin and bear it."

Public ideology

When I went to the Danoje festival in Korea after a few months being here, a woman that was participating in the event helping people paint masks tried to ask a few questions in Korean. I, knowing some of the basics tried to answer as I could.

Inevitably the generic questions led to the question of what do you do. Because, often we will be confused as college students. By the way, there are college students that do attend schools in Korea.

I said, "we are English teachers." This seems to set most Koreans back in confusion. Not only her, but also a hair stylist, and others as well. The reasoning is because the ability of native teachers to speak Korean is non-existent for the most part. Recruiters and Korea prefer that you don't speak any Korean before you come.

Then, they ask, "How?"

So, we end up giving the simplest answer, "we work together with Korean teachers," thereby helping to propagate a lie. We don't mean to lie in this fashion, but it is much easier to explain the real truth. The truth that people don't want to hear.

The Korean teacher is just a ruse and we have to do everything. If only they knew the truth.

Blog Negativity

Why is it so hard to find sites like this?

There are many sites that talk about their experiences in Korea. Many paint a picture of balance - some have managed to find some niche where the pros and cons balance; some have not. People can only tolerate so much. Some, like my girlfriend, don't want to sound negative.

Many sites mix the social life aspect of Korea with the work life. Some mix popular news with the ins and outs. I focused on teaching and all that it entails; it's the thing we were contractually hired and tricked into doing. So, yes, my site is negative. I don't like to be messed with; I don't think anyone does.

The thoughts that run through my mind are: Who will read this? Will it help someone? Will people think these stories are made up? I wish I could have made more videos, since, in Korea, things don't exist unless you have proof. Will there be repercussions of saying my story down the line? Will I be blacklisted from Korea which is still fairly common? - Link. When will the cycle of maltreatment end? Will people just think I'm a bad person? (I'm happy-go-lucky and social to those that know me and I held my own in teaching; I just get peeved at the bait and switch techniques used to hire and manipulate English teachers.)

Will I get labeled as a troublemaker, a Korea image-breaker, a propagandist's example of a bad native English teacher, while the horrendous Korean teachers I was supposed to work with, and those scattered around Korea, continue on their merry way?

Will anything change?

People don't want to be labeled whiners, gripers, flamers. They just want to speak up about their problems, the problems that weren't stated up front, the problems that are unjust and continuing. Korea teaches native teachers to bite their lip till it bleeds. People are sick and tired of their mistreatment, their inability to get help when needed, the inability to speak out against injustice. Even if you did manage to speak out, who would listen, what would change? It would be your word against theirs and the scales-of-trust don't lean far on your end; it's not as if you have a voice here, they would actually prefer that you didn't. If someone does listen, no effort is made to fix it, no one cares. Teaching English is a facade that must be maintained at all costs.

Many lived and worked here by teaching English in Korea and they share many similar problems; they close their eyes and wait to leave with money in hand.

Question & Answer

Why did you make this website?

In America, I would be considered a whistle blower for revealing gross misconduct. In Korea, I am considered a nonconformist. Only in Korea am I treated as a miscreant because I choose to speak out about injustice. I often felt the need to write about my experiences and what I saw occurring to me and others on a constant basis; it was my outlet when Korea provided no other way to cope.

I wrote this to tell others, lest they find out the hard way, like most. People have to be warned.

When and how did you begin the blog?

I was writing randomly throughout the year as a way of de-stressing. I probably began around the 3 month point; that’s when the newness wears off and the realization kicks in. It is also when the stresses begin to overwhelm you. It’s not culture-shock, mind you; it’s how everything is so deceptive and illogical when working at a school in Korea.

The blogging began as a letter to the next native English teacher at my school and grew into two separate blogs. I think that writing a letter to the next teacher is such a simple gesture, hell, any introduction is better than none when you first come to Korea.

Nothing says welcome to Korea than being thrown into teaching a classroom, without any preparation, while you’re still jet lagged. Orientation is worthless, not to mention the fact that it should given soon after you arrive not at the 4 or 8 month, or even later, mark – by then, it’s even more useless.

It shouldn’t be Korean teachers meeting you when you first get off the plane, it should be the last native teacher at your school. But, schools would rather hide their inadequacies than correct them. They’d rather have their teachers ignorant than knowledgeable; new people will work hard when they first arrive, until the realization hits them – nothing matters here. Teaching English in Korea is a vicious cycle.

Are all schools bad in Korea?

No. Some are better, but spinning the wheel of misfortune is not a great way to spend the next year of your life. Many differ in various ways, but a lot of similarities exist in the mistreatment of native teachers.

Are you well educated?

Yes. I have a B.A. and a M.S.

Would you suggest coming to Korea?

No. Go teach somewhere else, where your efforts might actually be valued, where people are true to their word, where you are treated well, where you might be trained, to a country that is diverse. You will be happier elsewhere even if you have less money to show for it.

Do you think Korea will get better?

No. Not in my lifetime. It will take a very long time for Korea to change for the better. That’s not just my opinion, that’s the opinion of my mother who is full Korean.

Why didn’t you leave earlier if you hated it so much?

I came here with someone and wasn’t going to leave without them. They disliked their job as well, not as much as me, but that’s not saying much. I came to mainly pay off student loans, in a poor U.S. job market, and I managed to do that albeit at a cost. Even if I wanted to leave, leaving your job mid-contract in Korea is not easy or recommended; it’s similar to running for the border – don’t get caught, don’t come back. Who wouldn’t want to leave their sweatshop though?

Like most people, although it’s traumatic, the thought is generally one of “well, I’ve gotten this far and there’s only so much left to endure before I get my end-of-contract bonus.” There are a bunch of ‘native teachers’ that are just ‘vegging’ in Korea. They don’t have any growth prospects here, they don’t gain any skills, they don’t find Korea to be that interesting, they are purposefully kept idle (seat-warming for at least half of your workday), they aren’t acknowledged, and they don’t exist in Korea; they can’t wait to leave. Korea is successfully promoting its anti-tourism campaign through the mistreatment of native teachers.

Did you research about teaching English in Korea before you left America?

Yes. But, it was, apparently, not nearly enough. Good blogs detailing the ins and outs of teaching ESL in Korea are barely starting to appear. There are many disgruntled people that post on Dave’s ESL, but they don’t seem to have cohesion – I wish they would each create a blog about their experiences instead of letting their ideas and thoughts vanish within the depths of a forum or possibly censored therein. It’s one thing to flame a forum, it’s another thing entirely to create a blog explaining various details.

Korea is Great(ly Confused)

This mistreatment of native teachers in various ways is too widespread, too undocumented, and too distressing for words to express fully.

Not only is it unethical. It is also a striking example of a lingering paternalism that is still all-too-present in Korean culture – this notion that “certain people do things however they want and the details are no one else’s business.”

What else can be expected when you put all the power: the money, the contract, the visa, the work, the rules, the overall treatment, of a native teacher into the hands of a few people without any way of checking to make sure those people are being true to their word?

It’s definitely the parents’ business to know who teaches what, and how it is taught, to their children. It is definitely a native teacher’s right as a person to be treated with equal and just rights, and not be demoralized and disregarded by traditional Korean methods of tyranny. Such methods should not persist in modern society, or at least in a country that pretends to be one.

How can Korea, or the Ministry of Education, continue to allow or promote such malevolence? How can education take on such a grotesquely underdeveloped shape even after years of time, money, and effort? How can bad schools be allowed to continue and the native teachers, within them, have so little they can do to reach out for help?

It’s time for Korea to shed its cloak of invincibility; it is not as great as it has pretended for so long.

Korea is not, nor has it ever been, ready to take care of native teachers. There is no real system of trust.

Quantity vs Quality

I see this time and time again. Education in Korea is not about quality, it is about quantity. If there are 800 students in a school, those 800 students must all have English education – the same English education. This flies in the face of logic, since the large majority doesn’t want to learn and have been taught to not care since an early age.

When I was teaching the first level of middle school which is like the U.S. equivalent of 7th grade, I was told (a few times) to try to make the lessons more fun. Now, I can understand having an entertaining and interactive lesson, but I can’t understand the practice of continuing to use the English classroom and native English teacher as a source of games.

This practice is started at an early age. Students are taught that English class is a time for fun, not a time for real learning… When they get to middle school, it has already been deeply ingrained into their minds and they don’t want to learn.

The native English teacher is here to ‘play’ with the students. It is not so much of an English class as it is a cultural awareness class. Hence, why native teachers are here in Korea; they prefer people without skills. They want more pawns to do their bidding. The younger and less educated the native teachers, the more ripe for manipulation they are.

The standards for teaching in Korea have slowly been reducing over time. It once was a four year degree (in anything) was all that was necessary. Now, even that one restriction has been whittled down to two years. An example of this is the TALK (Teach and Learn in Korea) program that tries to target college students. Also, recent pay scales have been allowing people with two years to ‘teach’ with lower pay.

Korea has been relying on the influx of job seekers coming from other countries to fill its native teacher ranks. Due to the economic rut, Korea had, recently for the first time, an over abundance of applicants. Korea is still doing what it does well – throw money in the air.

Why No Change?

Why hasn’t it been fixed? Why do the horror stories continue?

The current system benefits the Korean English teacher. They get held in high regard for ‘helping’ to provide the English education to Korea’s children that it desperately wants. They don’t want anyone to see the dark underbelly, what happens behind closed doors. Native teachers don’t ask for unfair advantage, they ask for transparency. Even just saying things upfront without withholding issues until the last minute would be a step in the right direction. Native teachers want what they were promised.

The schools retain ‘power’ over the native English teachers under the grossly false assumption that they will use their leeway for the greater good. The native teachers remain ‘powerless’ against the machine that whispers, “this is how it’s done at all the schools, this is how it will always be done.” We, the native English teachers either submit to their gross negligence or become an unwitting foe to their machinations.

Where do you turn to when you want to change any part of it? What is your lifeline when you want to speak out about the oppression? The Ministry of Education (MOE)? GEPIK / EPIC / SMOE? The school? Your Korean co-teachers? All of the above? They don’t want to change, they fear change. Right now, they’re cozy; they might actually have to do what they’re supposed to for the first time ever. They’ll try to shut you up, cover up anything that makes them seem dysfunctional. They don’t want to look bad or appear to not be able to handle their subordinates in front of their superiors. They want to pretend that everything is fine and dandy.

After each semester, I was asked to submit the lesson plans/worksheets/etc that I had used to teach. I refused – I lost them spontaneously. It wasn’t in the contract that I had to submit ‘my’ ideas/lesson plans to some unknown source (possibly the MOE) for them to do who knows what with it. I wouldn’t just hand over my stuff to Korean co-teacher for them to hoard and later pretend was their own creation. I wouldn’t roll over and play dumb to their flawed system in which corruption was a way of life.

I’m pretty sure the Korean co-teachers submitted something because they had to, which had nothing to do with what I actually taught. But, that’s how it goes here, if things aren’t right, make it seem right on the surface. It’s a common motif in Korea to pretend the problems don’t exist. Korean people are happy in the illusion that their kids are getting the ‘best’ education. The public knows virtually nothing about what actually occurs in the classroom. Even if they did see a demonstration, it has almost no real bearing on what actually occurs from day to day.

No one wants to admit they aren’t capable of doing their job correctly. With billions of USD spent and almost 20 years of trying, Korea had better have results. The education system mirrors the human stem cell research disaster that occurred in 2005.

Results are wanted so badly, at any cost, in Korea that the head of the stem cell research in Korea thought it prudent to fake stem cell research results favorably so that he could bring fame and large funding his way. Even before this horrendous situation was brought to light, the Korean government’s stance as said by the 16th President of Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, "it is not possible nor desirable to prohibit research, just because there are concerns that it may lead to a direction that is deemed unethical." This still mantra holds true in every facet of Korean society.

There is no reason to stop, or fix, the English education program even if it is unethical.