In your Home Country or in Asia?

For all you teachers out there, I need to know from your experiences working in your home countries and working
in Korea or elsewhere in East Asia.

Do you find it easier to work in Asia (or Korea) or do you find it easier to work in your home countries?

Why is it easier for you to work in Asia (Korea) or in your home country?

Easier?

Work is work.

To be good at it, you've got to work at it.

Alternate question: Is work more satisfying here or there? (In the rain or on a train? In a box or with a fox?) Anywhere or everywhere?

Do you find it easier to work in Asia (or Korea) or do you find it easier to work in your home countries?

Its hard to answer because you can't compare two vastly different jobs. I worked in advertising and now I teach.

If you're talking about work culture, its hard to comment once again because the expectations are different. In the UK I'm a Brit amongst Brits, in Korea I'm regarded as a temporary outsider.

100% better and easier but highly demanding intellectually. Also, you are constantly being formally evaluated and your job performance is assessed yearly. That being said, upward mobility is great (management retiring by droves) and the market demand for fully certified teachers of English is insane. The best thing is that I feel valued by colleagues and highly respected by parents and students. But, as discussed in another thread with marty, might be highly dependent on your own stance in life and educational vision and philosophy.

Korea was frustratingly soul-deafening. Students were wonderful and I had a great principal but I often felt inconsequential  Once I got to understand what Koreans were saying about EFL teachers and foreigners in general, I left. IMO Korea does not deserve us caring, idealistic teachers; instead let them spew out and regurgitate inexperienced, young grads fresh out of Montana each year as karma dictates their circle of futility in hunting for that blonde 16-year-old, doe-eyed miguk saram. If you are serious about teaching, come home to us. <3

That's a really hard question to answer. I'm a high school teacher back in my home country. I had more responsibility, paper work and behavioral management was entirely up to me. But on the flip side, I was able make friends with colleagues, the work culture was better (everyone was on the same page) and I had more holidays. A lot more stressful though.

Here in Korea, the work isn't has bad but I'm isolated from everyone else in the school, I can't make friends with my co teachers (Korean women gossip and I avoid that) but the students are somewhat better. I don't have to deal with the complexity of a student's family issues that may disrupt their learning etc. And there's less holidays and dirty air.

I agree with doradevi above.

I didn't really enjoy my job back home but I loved feeling like I was part of the team and I really miss that.  I think isolation here is a huge issue and can creep up on you and become a big problem 

It is piss-easy to get a job in South Korea with just a BA in basket-weaving. And teaching is piss-easy too. And you make a massive salary and get free housing.

Hagwon teachers in Korea complain about having to work 40 hours a week, but teachers in most Western countries work like 10-12 hour days and make less money and have to pay for housing.

I'm living in New Zealand and I cannot work as a teacher here, unlike Korea where I could walk into a job simply because I had a BA. I'm doing a degree program which is pretty intense, and when I graduate and become a fully qualified teacher I earn the honored privilege of making far less money than I did in South Korea, and having to pay rent on top of that. And I'll have to work way harder than I ever did at hagwon or public school jobs in Korea, and do a ton of paperwork that I never had to worry about in Korea.

I'm fine with leaving South Korea because it's a genuinely awful place to live, but the idea that ESL teachers in Korea are underpaid and overworked is completely laughable. People really need to stop lying about this. If you make 2.1m a month and have free rent in Korea, you're making more money than a LOT of people in countries in the West, and you're definitely earning more per month and working way less than most teachers. At a Korean public school you're basically shouting slogans for half the day and watching youtube the rest of the day. At a hagwon you're sitting on your butt doing nothing most of the day while your students do written exercises or read out loud.

It is piss-easy to get a job in South Korea with just a BA in basket-weaving. And teaching is piss-easy too. And you make a massive salary and get free housing.

Hagwon teachers in Korea complain about having to work 40 hours a week, but teachers in most Western countries work like 10-12 hour days and make less money and have to pay for housing.

I'm living in New Zealand and I cannot work as a teacher here, unlike Korea where I could walk into a job simply because I had a BA. I'm doing a degree program which is pretty intense, and when I graduate and become a fully qualified teacher I earn the honored privilege of making far less money than I did in South Korea, and having to pay rent on top of that. And I'll have to work way harder than I ever did at hagwon or public school jobs in Korea, and do a ton of paperwork that I never had to worry about in Korea.

I'm fine with leaving South Korea because it's a genuinely awful place to live, but the idea that ESL teachers in Korea are underpaid and overworked is completely laughable. People really need to stop lying about this. If you make 2.1m a month and have free rent in Korea, you're making more money than a LOT of people in countries in the West, and you're definitely earning more per month and working way less than most teachers. At a Korean public school you're basically shouting slogans for half the day and watching youtube the rest of the day. At a hagwon you're sitting on your butt doing nothing most of the day while your students do written exercises or read out loud.

Sounds like someone was a really bad teacher.... I don't know anyone like that at public or hagwon.

 

Sounds like someone was a really bad teacher.... I don't know anyone like that at public or hagwon.

Yeah, some of the shit I hear on here, just makes me think

  Damn son, I must be in the top 10% of teachers in this country. 

It is piss-easy to get a job in South Korea with just a BA in basket-weaving. And teaching is piss-easy too. And you make a massive salary and get free housing.

Hagwon teachers in Korea complain about having to work 40 hours a week, but teachers in most Western countries work like 10-12 hour days and make less money and have to pay for housing.

I'm living in New Zealand and I cannot work as a teacher here, unlike Korea where I could walk into a job simply because I had a BA. I'm doing a degree program which is pretty intense, and when I graduate and become a fully qualified teacher I earn the honored privilege of making far less money than I did in South Korea, and having to pay rent on top of that. And I'll have to work way harder than I ever did at hagwon or public school jobs in Korea, and do a ton of paperwork that I never had to worry about in Korea.

I'm fine with leaving South Korea because it's a genuinely awful place to live, but the idea that ESL teachers in Korea are underpaid and overworked is completely laughable. People really need to stop lying about this. If you make 2.1m a month and have free rent in Korea, you're making more money than a LOT of people in countries in the West, and you're definitely earning more per month and working way less than most teachers. At a Korean public school you're basically shouting slogans for half the day and watching youtube the rest of the day. At a hagwon you're sitting on your butt doing nothing most of the day while your students do written exercises or read out loud.

Yes, I mentioned this before that a UK teacher takes home 1,598 a month which is 2379134.08 won. So probably less when you take into account accommodation costs. And yes UK teachers work longer hours and do more work. However, they are on a much better sliding scale, have more prospects for promotion, longer holidays and better pensions.

At a Korean public school you're basically shouting slogans for half the day and watching youtube the rest of the day. At a hagwon you're sitting on your butt doing nothing most of the day while your students do written exercises or read out loud.

He's not wrong, though. Perhaps a bit overcharged but it was 1000x easier teaching in Korea to me as well. I make much more here.

At a Korean public school you're basically shouting slogans for half the day and watching youtube the rest of the day. At a hagwon you're sitting on your butt doing nothing most of the day while your students do written exercises or read out loud.

He's not wrong, though. Perhaps a bit overcharged but it was 1000x easier teaching in Korea to me as well. I make much more here.

Yeah my point isn't that you can be lazy and get away with doing nothing in Korea, just that it's incredibly easy to teach ESL in public school jobs or hagwons.

Ironically, teaching kids, or adults is often easier when you don't know what you're doing

Actually, I agree with the point too. Im not sure there is much in this world that is easier than getting a free place to live and teaching a language that you have spoken from birth (assuming you have the leadership/social/interpersonal skills to control class behavior).