A New Teacher's Story & More of My Story

It looks like there are still people looking at this blog. I found a post I had not previously seen written by a teacher who worked at Yes. It's not really a horror story, more a short summary of the pros and cons.

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/YES-Youngdo-English-School-Reviews-E338204.htm

The title of this post is "You Could Do Worse." That title wouldn't exactly grab me and make me want to apply to this place! However, it makese sense to teachers who have lived in Korea and heard various stories.

The teacher makes a point about the cameras in classes. I want to say something about that. When I was there I kind of half-knew about that. We couldn't see the camera in the class, but in the office there were TV screens for the classes/hallways/entrance and so on. In class I usually or maybe always forgot about them.

After I'd been given about two weeks notice to leave, one day between classes while I was talking to another teacher the infamous manager rudely called me over to his desk which embarassed me and seemed to confuse the other teacher. He gave me a little info on my visa being cancelled, probably the date it would be, but I can't remember much. That took just a minute. As I walked away another teacher looked at me curiously. I had asked the manager to keep the situation private until after I left. Well there was not only that but a day or so before going a different teacher told me he'd heard the manager saying to some people that I was leaving. Anyway, back to video.

After this happened, I started to teach my next class for a bit and was fed up enough to leave class and go back to the manager telling him that I wanted the owners' contact info so that I could tell them how I had been treated there. The manager smiled through this whole conversation. One thing he said was that he'd videotaped two classes and sent them to the owners. That was kind of a stab in the stomach. As I said I mostly didn't think about the cameras and I never thought that the manager could/would do this. The other main part of that talk I believe I put into another post, but I'll just rewrite it here. The manager went on to say that if I went to the owners he could , I quote: "Make things very bad for me." Again he was smiling through all this.

After leaving I wanted to send a letter to them. They seemed to me to be a reasonable, well-to-do Christian couple in their 40s who unfortunately had little contact with teachers. However, I couldn't see how to get a letter to them only. The hagwon address always included the manager's name. I didn't know the owners' full names. Had I written them in English or in Korean which the staff could see was obviously written by a foreigner...I believe that the manager would have tried to prevent such a letter from reaching the owners.

#1 Best Piece of Advice

Best piece of advice I can give to any teacher in Korea or coming to Korea is to avoid hagwons altogether. If you do work for a hagwon check out a position the same way you'd check out a used car.

If you have time to look for a job, take more time and look for public schools jobs. If you can't start one right away and must wait until the start of the new semester or school year, consider doing that.

I know of a couple who finished two years of teaching in public schools. They taught only about four classes a day, and over the two years they managed to work out about four months vacation. They likely requested to not have winter camp, and to use vacation time at the end so they could leave earlier.

School or university teachers sometimes experience "horror stories" at work but it's a lot less often than hagwon teachers. Black lists and blogs of bad times teaching in Korea may become a thing of the past.

It's a little sad to post this. Hagwons could be so much better than they are. If they were well managed and had certain standards to follow, it would mean a lot.

A Word About Blacklists or Other Sites

One unfortunate thing is that a teacher could post on some site today warning people to never work for a certain hagwon. For example one could write "Never work for Fun Fun Kids Language Institute in Su Mi, Korea (names not real of course)" Readers could take note. More readers would visit the site and see this post over time. And then a year later the hagwon name could be changed. The owner could change. The manager could change. And they could advertise for teachers with their new name. Those who read the post wouldn't realize it's the same place.

Also hagwons can change locations. That could confuse people. Owners, directors, managers, teachers and others can move. A hagwon could keep one name but change management changing it overnight from a good place to work to a bad one or vice versa.

YY is one place that has kept their name for a long time. The ownership I'm pretty sure has been the same since the start. The management and teachers change. Likely they have few of their original employees, possibly none.

Most new teachers in Korea don't know this. Hope this post was helpful.

Update

I'm still here. I love the new templates. I want the blog as comfortable to read and straightforward as possible. Again I welcome comments, I love that we can publish so easily, and I think all teachers in Korea should try blogging about their experiences. Blogging about your work situation can be helpful to others. I hope this blog has been helpful. I hope that hagwons or other workplaces for foreigners in Korea are aware of the ease of blogging one's experience and think carefully about how they treat foreigners.

Recent Posts at Famous Site

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=172591

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=145386&highlight=youngdo

A Recent Story

http://www.eslblacklist.com/research/republic-of-korea/hagwon--language-academies/138-yes-youngdo-gangdong-campus.html

Please click on this link for another story of an unhappy teacher's experience. I copied some of the info below.

Myeongil-dong, Gangdong-gu,
Seoul, Republic of Korea
http://www.yesenglish.com/english/

Review:
•Was poorly managed / organized
•Did Not treat their employees appropriately
Comments:
I was fired from YES Youngdo after only three months there. When I arrived there I received no training or orientation. It was basically, here are the books look at them and you will be teaching the next day. After adjusting to the way things were I thought I was doing ok. Then out of the blue after two months the branch manager pulled me aside and said that I was doing everything wrong and that if I did not fix it I would be fired in a month. Nothing was said to me before hand about my teaching. Some of their reasons for firing me were that I spent too much time on homework, even though we were told to spend more time. I was also getting blamed for some of my students leaving. When I asked my students why they were leaving a couple said because they were moving. The other reason I was being released was because the branch manager felt like they have been too easy on previous teachers and that some that were currently employed there should have been fired so she was trying to set the example with me. They did nothing to help me improve, so I was released. I feel that this campus is particularly bad because of the branch manager. She seems to not know what is going on at all, and have no idea how to run the school. She seems to only function irrationally and mean. So I would recommend that if anyone is thinking of working for YES Youngdo that they stay away from this campus.

Overall, I recommend working for this school: NO
Year of employment: December 2008 - Feburary 2009