The government has released the details of its plan to hire gyopo students and students in Korea-related majors as English teachers for rural districts.
Under the program, called Teach and Learn in Korea (TaLK), led by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the government plans to hire about 500 teachers among ethnic Koreans and students studying overseas. They can stay for six months or one year.
Applicants are required to complete two or more years of university education. Foreign students staying in Korea cannot apply for the program due to visa transfer issues, the ministry official said.
In addition applicants should hold citizenship or resident cards from the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand or Britain. The program, starting this July, will exclude South Africa, unlike general English-teaching visas.
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The participants will have round-trip airfare and allowances of about 1.5 million won ($ 1,500) per month as well as a monthly accommodation of 400,000 won.After four to six weeks of orientation about Korea and basic teaching skills, they will teach after-school classes by forming one-to-one working partnerships with Korean university students. The ministry will select their Korean counterparts after completing applications from overseas.
Check out the TaLK website for more info.
It’s a shame rural districts are having such a tough time getting teachers. I really enjoyed my time in the countryside, and consider myself quite fortunate that my first three years in Korea were spent in a small rural town rather than Seoul. In fact, as much as I really like Seoul now, I wonder if I’d stayed in Korea as long as I have if my introduction to the country had been the big city.
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As I said before, and in reply to your earlier thread, I don’t know if there is actually a shortage of teachers. It comes down to a few things, as I see it:
(1) At least in Jeollanam-do, the foreign elementary school teachers are being moved to English Towns, meaning the individual schools won’t have foreign teachers but will rather send each class to the town once a semester for an immersion class, mini camp thing. I know last year in my town they began teaching classes without a foreign teacher in most of the schools that actually had one, and browsing around some websites of rural schools with English Towns, I see no signs of foreign teachers (on the roster or in pictures of open classes). Thus, with the foreign teachers in one place, there are fewer people available to teach these after-school programs (15 hours a week).
(2) Rural elementary schools are small and rather isolated, meaning it’s not efficient to have a native speaker there full time. Normally one will visit a smaller school once a week. In my experience rural teachers were placed at a main school, where they spent most of their time, and to a tiny school once a week. But there were far more schools than were foreign teachers, so many went without.
So it seems partly a case of mixed signals. Some counties and towns are still using foreigners in the elementary schools, while others are using foreign teachers exclusively in the English Towns. Looks like they’ll be hiring lower-wage foreigners to run these after school programs, not “normal” classes, in order to meet some of the demand for English classes that would otherwise be handled at hagwon, and which many families wouldn’t have access to.
I posted a little more here: http://briandeutsch.blogspot.c.....-lure.html
I’d be curious to hear from recruiters if they’re having trouble finding teachers. I know the schools down here have a steady supply, and even the hagwons can get teachers. The rural areas usually offer better money and longer vacation, and those are big incentives for a lot of people (me included).
It’s kind of a shame about the foreign students already studying in Korea, since by signing up for their courses they have already expressed an eagerness to learn about the place…
I always had this hare-brained idea that Korea should offer to sponsor a Hallowed Nation highschool kid to come over here and just study. I obviously haven’t done any research on this, but I figure that one kid in a large highschool can’t undermine English education any worse that some of us professionals do, myself included.
I wish Korea would stop promoting itself as some kind of thought experiment in futurism from the 1960’s and just make some kind of slogan that reads: “Hey. This is Korea. We’re alllll right.”
As for the incentives of rural enclaves, well, they offer rural employers, usually. Which means discussing things over tea, and not under fire.
Well, they should start by investing in a competent proofreader for their website. Check the FAQ for a good laugh.
Does anyone know if the Irish qualify?
I arrived in Seoul intending to stay only one year; the city grew on me and before I knew it, nearly a decade had passed.
Here in the States, I prefer small cities, but overseas, I need the diversity and cultural amenities of a large urban area. A small town is fine for a young man, but it’s no place for a single woman over thirty.
Small towns in Korea are only a hop and a step away from major urban centres.
You can enjoy the benefits of the countryside with occasional weekend sojourn to the pick some western creature comforts and indulge in city life. City or country doesn’t matter too much to a young undergrad. But I think the country side exposes one more easily to Korea’s culture and tradition.
I am confused, I what way is this a scholarship, where is the educational programme for these scholars when they’re not teaching?
Why can’t the Korean government let the market decide? Let in all qualified EFL teachers, doesn’t matter what nation, and give them a visa that they own and not their employer. Keep the drug and criminal checks too. It’s simple, and let’s see what happens.
The local thinking is that if the EFL teachers benefit, then the locals must be losing somehow. Instead, they make regulations of such paternalism, near serfdom, that the teachers lose, and the locals then lose too. Instead of a win-win situation, you get a lose-lose situation. Not letting the foreigner have job advancement within the Korean management structure is a symptom of all this.
FREE THE MARKET!
Sounds like the Fulbright English Teaching Program (ETA), which the Korean government used as the template for the KORETA/EPIK program from 1995, which was created after Fulbright Korea turned down the Korean government’s proposal (made through the auspices of the Korean Education Development Institute (KEDI) to expand the ETA program to “2000 by 2000″ to match the size of the JET program at the time.
The organization of the KORETA program was a legendary failure, mostly because the government didn’t see the importance of an extensive orientation program (I believe one week or something ludicrously short before sending these young kids into the countryside), and with regard to exploitation or bad behavior by the schools, the program wasn’t an advocate for the foreign teacher, but rather in cahoots with the overall goal of exploiting maximally.
But at the time, there were no foreigners in schools, and the laws only allowed them to (via cities, do’s and then individual schools being allowed to hire foreigners directly) from the late 90’s, if memory serves.
So given the state of the market, and the fact that Koreams, at least, tend to have inside news or connections on some tutoring or at least know how much there is to be made, it might be hard to recruit.
Even Fulbright won’t expand past the 70’s or so when it comes to numbers, since the applicant pool doesn’t get above the few hundreds, and logistically, handling that many new foreigners’ visa issues, travel plans, dietary needs, problems that crop up, medical issues, and on and on… that headache is pretty minor at around 30, but rises exponentially, it seems, after around 50 or 60.
After being through or assisting in several ETA orientations purposely held in sequestered Kangwon National University in Chuncheon from 1994 to now, I’ll say that whomever gets hired to be staff for that first orientation of 500 Americans being shipped off to the countryside — whew. As Billy from my favorite movie, Predator, lamented: “I wouldn’t wish that on a broke-dick dog.”
And if they have the orientation program in Seoul? God help them. Seoul has enough modern delights to bring down morning workshop attendance to around 1/4 of total capacity. And if the Korean administrative tendency to not plan or think ahead is any indication, along with the disastrous beginning of the KORETA/EPIK program (which started with only around 200), this is going to be a disaster of legendary proportions.
Still, perhaps there has been some instititutional knowledge gained from the mistakes of the past with EPIK (unlikely, though), or the simple fact that I doubt they can even fill 100 spots might make this entire question moot.
So, a Kyopo is expected to take a break from university and come here to work for 1.5?
I don’t think there will be a mad rush towards those positions.
Songai - I’m curious about your remark “A small town is fine for a young man, but it’s no place for a single woman over thirty.” Can you explain further?
Even in a small town in Korea, a young man can easily make friends and find a companion if the man is heterosexual. If the man is older, he can still find friends because married men go out in the evenings to socialize, and he can find a girlfriend because Korean women willing to date foreign men are more flexible about age differences. A single woman regardless of sexual preference, on the other hand, will have difficulty forming close friendships with Korean women since most of them will be busy taking care of their families. I lost touch with several Korean women friends after they got married. They didn’t have time to go out for a cup of coffee or a movie, let alone take a weekend trip out of Seoul.
Finding a companion will be extremely challenging as most Korean men around the same age or older are married and the ones that aren’t probably aren’t a good fit for a Western woman. I and other foreign women who lived in Seoul did date younger men, but we had to search through a large haystack; foreign men definitely have more choices.
Thanks for the explanation, Songagi (and sorry for misspelling your name in my earlier post). I’ve applied for a one-month program teaching English in a rural area. I’m not single, so I won’t be looking to date : - ). I would be more interested in just meeting guys and girls for social and conversational reasons, so I take it that there’s no real concerns with that?
Not at all. Even in small towns, you will find Koreans keen to interact with people from other countries and practice their English. I think you and the hubby will enjoy your stay immensely and bring home amazing experiences to share with friends.
I don’t recall you posting before. Are you a lurker or did you google upon this blog?
And BTW, you misspelled my username again.
It’s Sonagi. It is a Korean weather word for a sudden downpour of rain. It is also the name of a novel that is included in Korean secondary school anthologies.
Good grief . . . I am the queen of typos, no? Sonagi, apologies again!
I am a bit of a lurker. My son was adopted from Korea, so I have a personal interest in Korean culture. We have not yet traveled to Korea as a family, but plan to do so in a few more years. I recently learned about the opportunity to teach English at a one of the language-immersion summer camps in Jeollandam-do. I’m hoping that I’ll be selected through my grad school and will get to experience the Korean culture and people, as well as teaching.
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[...] More on Rural English Teacher Program Hire 500 ethnic Koreans and students studying overseas (but not currently in Korea). Must have completed two years of university education. Stay six months to a year. Includes round-trip airfare, 1.5 million won a month, monthly accommodation of 400,000 won a month. Excludes South Africans. [...]