Tuesday, July 17, 2012

How to Teach English in South Korea

I wrote this in response to a message on Couchsurfing.com, and thought I'd post it here in case anyone else finds it useful:

Hi David,

South Korea is a great place to teach English.  The cost of living is low outside of Seoul, and the jobs are plentiful and pay the highest in Asia.  You'll need a bachelor's degree in any subject, and you'll also need to get a special visa for English teachers.  To do that, you'll have to get a notarized FBI background check, and then get it apostilled by the State department.  You'll also need to get your diploma (we ordered extra ones from our university) apostilled by your state's secretary of state.  Then you have to submit all of the documents to the nearest South Korean consulate, and have a brief interview with an official.  Of course, you'll also need a valid passport. 

Actually getting a job in South Korea is fairly easy, if you go the hagwon (after-school academy) route.  Just check to make sure that the hagwon is a reputable one, and insist on speaking with a current foreign teacher.  Realize that they may sugar coat everything about the school, because they want someone to be hired (or else they will have to fill in for those classes until someone is hired). 

Jobs in Korea typically pay for your flight there and back, and you get an extra month's salary at the end as a bonus.  As an American citizen, you'll also get all of your taxes back, which will equal about another month's pay.  The school should pay 50% of the cost for your nationalized health insurance.  Housing is often provided by the school, or you should be given a housing allowance.  Now, it'll usually just be a small one-room studio apartment, but in all probability you won't spend much time there anyway.  Ask for pictures to make sure the apartment is livable.

Dave's ESL Cafe is the best site to quickly find a job in Korea.
Pusanweb is a good site for finding jobs in Busan (a city that I highly recommend).
Koreabridge and Waygook are two other good sites.
For which schools to avoid, try the Hagwon Blacklist and the Korean Black List.

It might be a good idea to use a recruiter, as you can tell them exactly what kind of job you're looking for, and they can find it for you.  Just realize that all recruiters are paid commission for each teacher they place, so they may not have your best interests in mind.  Take everything they say with a grain of salt, and really check into your school.  We taught at a hagwon in Busan, and had a good experience.  However we also know plenty of teachers who got burned by their hagwons.  Also, don't take a job where you have to work Saturdays (you can find something better), and stay away from huge chains.  They typically don't treat their teachers well. 

If you're careful about which job you take, you can have a really great experience in Korea and save up a lot of money.  I know I've used many words of caution in this message, but my husband and I had a great experience and plan to return to Korea as soon as we can.  It's just that we also heard plenty of stories about shady hagwons that jilted their teachers.  The best jobs are *usually* public school jobs, so try to get one of those if you can.  It might be tough as the program has been drastically cut.  There should be more in-depth information on the forums of the websites I've linked you to.  I hope I didn't overwhelm you with all of this information!

Good luck, and feel free to message me with any more questions.

Brandi

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Making Kimchi

If you like Korean food, and you haven't been to maangchi.com yet, do your self a favor and take a look.  Maangchi has great recipes for all kinds of Korean food.  I've tried several, and they've all been good so far.  Today, I decided to try making some kimchi!  I made mak kimchi (the kind that is cut into pieces vs. whole cabbage.  It turned out pretty well.  Here are some pictures from my attempt:

First, I salted the Nappa cabbage.










Next, I made the sweet rice porridge:










Then, I made the sauce and mixed in the rice porridge:










After that, I chopped the veggies:










Next, I mixed the sauce and veggies:










Then, I rinsed the cabbage:










Finally, I mixed it all up!










And ate some for dinner, yum!










We even had some boongabang (뿡아빵) for dessert!











The kimchi turned out well.  However, make sure not to put in more onion than Maangchi advises.  I found out the hard way that too much onion will make the kimchi a little bitter.

Here's here recipe; I omitted the squid.  Delicious!