Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 03:01:50 -0700 From: the_dojang-request@martialartsresource.net Subject: The_Dojang digest, Vol 11 #269 - 2 msgs X-Mailer: Mailman v2.0.13.cisto1 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Errors-To: the_dojang-admin@martialartsresource.net X-BeenThere: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.13.cisto1 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Subscribed-Address: kma@martialartsresource.com List-Id: The Internet's premier discussion forum on Korean Martial Arts. 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Working in Korea - requirements and conditions (A. Boyd) 2. Ohio seminar (Rudy Timmerman) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 21:24:54 -0400 (EDT) From: "A. Boyd" To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] Working in Korea - requirements and conditions Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net My experience with working in Korea has been limited to teaching English so I will only comment on that and the E2 and H1 visas. I currently work as the Academic Supervisor for the English Department for a branch of the largest language instruction company in Korea. One of my major duties is hiring teachers. It's a pretty basic system but there are usually challenges to each hire. The requirements for obtaining an E2 visa or adding a temporary E2 visa to the H1 (working holiday) visa are as follows: 1) A signed contract prepared according to Korean labour laws 2) A copy of your resume 3) Your original diploma in any subject (If you are applying with a Bachelors Degree, a 4 year program is required. If you have TESL or CELTA certification the certificate also needs to be supplied) If you would prefer to not use your original diploma, you may subsitute a copy prepared and certified by your local Korean Embassy. Do not bother using copies certified or notarized anywhere else or by anyone else - they will be rejected.) 4) Sealed transcripts from your university 5) Four or more passport-sized photographs of your kind, loving, intelligent, nice, face As the E2 visa has a 1 year duration, contracts are for 1 year. If you leave the country your visa will be invalidated. To allow travel while under contract you will need a single or multiple re-entry addition to your visa. These are only valid until your visa expires - a year or less in most cases. Americans are supposed to get an automatic multiple re-entry with their visa, but accidents happen. Canadians do not get this as standard. Standard contracts include 1-way ticket to Korea and 1-way ticket home on completion , some kind of accomodation agreement (supplied, or subsidized housing, health insurance (50/50 cost sharing), clearly outlined duties and pay structure (keep in mind these positions are salaried not pay per hour), severance payment, and description of any holidays or other extra benefits. [NB: As the employer is contracting employees for 1 year of work, vacations are not typically available. Some companies, like mine, offer a month of unpaid leave and provide several long weekends throughout the year. Others offer nothing but national holidays. Vacation time is not considered to be a reasonable request.] If a contract is missing any of these elements, I wouldn't accept it. Housing comes in three flavours: none, supplied, and subsidized. If no housing is provided and you accept that you will have to live in a motel (600,000W/ month min), boarding house (varies wildly), find a landlord who accepts a rent only lease (rare), or come prepared to lay down a minimum of 7,000,000 won as a key deposit in addition to monthly rent. Supplied housing is the cheapest the school can find and they will often expect teachers to live together. Personality and personal habits are not a part of deciding who lives with whom, only the number of bodies and gender. The teacher is expected to pay all bills and a damage deposit is usually taken. Supplied housing is rent-free but salaries are lower or the type of work far less desireable than what is offered elsewhere. Kiddie schools outside of Seoul usually offer the best salaries and free housing. This is the carrot. The kids are all armed with the stick... Subsidized housing means the teacher chooses an apartment within a set price-range and the school leases it, requiring the teacher to pay all or part of the rent, plus utilities. Experienced teachers generally prefer this to getting an apartment the boss thinks is good enough. Salaries vary fairly significantly from region to region in Korea. The lowest salaries are in Seoul. As you should expect, the harder it is to find teachers to work in a place, the better the salary and benefits will be. The industry standard is 2 million won per month for a teacher with relevent experience. Teachers with better qualifications can expect a little more. I'd be suspicious if I found a school offering 2.5 million or better. This rule does not apply to universities as there are status issues at work there in addition to the factors I have already described. Conditions are basically the same wherever you go. Kids schools have a lot of short classes with kids ranging in age from 3 to 18 and the odd adult student now and again. These places are often guilty of over-working teachers and failing to provide sufficient source material for classes. Any program that exists is ineffective in teaching English and can lead to poor job satisfaction. People who choose to see themselves as 'foreign baby-sitters' and who truly love children have a better survival rate at these schools than those who see themselves as ESL instructors. Skilled youth instructors can flourish here if they are allowed to operate according to the real needs of the students but this is rarely possible. Shifts are usually straight and can either be 5 or 6 days per week. Chains are a safer bet than MomNPop ventures in terms of getting paid and getting all your benefits. Schools for adults pay less, and are typically organized into split shifts unless they are really, really big. This is a smaller and more difficult demographic so standards and conditions are better for teachers. Overtime expectations are less of a burden and there are more chances to bond with locals during your stay. Most people spend their first year teaching kids and then do their best to find an adults only school. A six-hour teaching day, plus preparation time, plus seasonal overtime of 1 or 2 hours per day is to be expected as normal - likely in a split shift. For the martial artist, a split shift can be ideal. There are lots of horror stories (primarily about not getting paid and working ridiculous amounts of overtime). In fact, most stories posted on the internet are horror stories with the rare, barely convincing rebuttal from a hippie-wannabe. That is to be expected as more conversations revolve around complaints than compliments. There are a lot of problems. It is common for independent employers to take advantage of their positions. It is common for contracts to be ignored. In my almost 7 years in this occupation, I suffered for the first three. My third year was the worst by far. I quit that job and lost out on more thousands of dollars than I could afford. I don't think I have met more than a handful of long-term teachers here who don't have a tale of woe to tell. Still, people stay. One thing to keep in mind is that employers at home screw people too. At the worst point in my time in Korea I was "teaching" for 10 hours, preparing for class for an additional 1-2 hours, studying HDGD before work and HKD during my afternoon break. Only the MA classes kept me from quitting. I was exhausted, got really sick really often, was freakishly in the best shape of my entire life, and ended up injuring myself apparently permanently. These days, I have a good job, work sensible hours, train in a sane fashion, and eat my veggies. (All signs of premature aging I am sure). The key to life here is two-fold. The first part is to find a good company. The only way to do that is through research and contact with current and past employees. If a place cannot put you in touch with employees and former employees, there is a problem. The second part is to remember to find a way to do one of your old hobbies, and to try to embrace one from Korea. MA students have a *ahem* a leg up on this one... ===== Anthony Boyd: Swordsman and English Teacher www.stormpages.com/haidonggumdo ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 22:09:41 -0400 From: Rudy Timmerman To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] Ohio seminar Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Hello all: I will be in Norwalk, Ohio on June 18th and 19th to teach a seminar at Master John Orndorff's school on 100 Main street. For more information, please contact me at kwanjang@nkmaa.ca. I'd love to see some of my friends from the Mid West there. I also urge all NKMAA members who are in the Texas area to get on the mat with our good friend Master West when he does his seminar in Houston on the 12th. Rudy W. Timmerman National Korean Martial Arts Association Inc. --__--__-- _______________________________________________ The_Dojang mailing list The_Dojang@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/the_dojang http://the-dojang.net Old digest issues @ ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com/pub/the_dojang Copyright 1994-2004: Ray Terry and http://MartialArtsResource.com Standard disclaimers apply. Remember September 11. End of The_Dojang Digest