It is 2003, again!

Yep, it definitely gets old fast.  Speaking as a 15 year vet.

maybe they just liked the decent money they made from it then :p

IELTS can be soul destroying if you’re teaching at beginner level...especially teaching ielts academic to someone with elementary level English - which you shouldn’t even be doing in the first place (I made that mistake once...NEVER again!).

However, teaching someone at intermediate level or higher IELTS can be a pleasant and refreshing experience, especially if you can manage to get them to understand it’s not a knowledge or opinion test per say (too many try to say what they think is the right thing i.e. trying to regurgitate factual information), but rather a test of one’s ability to express whatever their opinion is or might be in English.

As for the current state of hagwon pay, it will get worse till enough people decide korea isn’t for them anymore. Hagwons have awoken to pay levels and work conditions beyond their wildest dreams thanks to covid-19...they won’t give up those extra profits without a fight.

damn waygook it's been a MINUTE since i saw you around.

idk much about IELTS but i taught a TOEFL class (very briefly) in the US. i got so tired of students not having answers for the prompts (especially the speaking prompts) that i just told them to lie. teaching it wasn't too bad, especially because i had quite a few higher level students, but examining just sounds horrible

idk much about IELTS but i taught a TOEFL class (very briefly) in the US. i got so tired of students not having answers for the prompts (especially the speaking prompts) that i just told them to lie.

I've actually heard this from a few of my language teachers ("just make something up"), and when students are supposed to share their worries or whatever the topic is, I don't mind encouraging them to say something untrue, just to practice the grammar (or if sharing something true - like an actual concern of theirs - might be uncomfortable). I think it can be useful if you actually have no experience to apply, in some cases.

It brings to mind a few speaking test questions I got when I was a student: When I was a high schooler learning Spanish, the teacher asked me what I was doing to save the planet. This hadn't been a topic in the chapter; I was a nerd who absolutely would have prepared some vocab if that was the case. At that point, I just said the words I knew and could think of, whether they were true or not. It isn't a question that I expect to be asked often, and not out of the blue.

The hardest one was when I took the last KIIP test. They asked us what the Korean government could do to increase the birth rate in Korea, and I was like, "THE GOVERNMENT doesn't even know how to solve this (when they care), why should I (who doesn't particularly)?" I just listed what I'd heard, giving breaks on childcare/education and making it easier for mothers to work. But I certainly hadn't expected that question, nor do I ever expect it again.

  nice. when i studied abroad here i had an interview to place me into the right level. one of the first questions was "whatre you going to do this weekend?" and i guess i was too nervous (or too dumb) to lie so i said "i'm gonna go out and party" and the look on the old korean woman's face was priceless.

lying is definitely the better strat

IELTS can be soul destroying if you’re teaching at beginner level...especially teaching ielts academic to someone with elementary level English - which you shouldn’t even be doing in the first place (I made that mistake once...NEVER again!).

However, teaching someone at intermediate level or higher IELTS can be a pleasant and refreshing experience, especially if you can manage to get them to understand it’s not a knowledge or opinion test per say (too many try to say what they think is the right thing i.e. trying to regurgitate factual information), but rather a test of one’s ability to express whatever their opinion is or might be in English.

As for the current state of hagwon pay, it will get worse till enough people decide korea isn’t for them anymore. Hagwons have awoken to pay levels and work conditions beyond their wildest dreams thanks to covid-19...they won’t give up those extra profits without a fight.

why the hell are elementary students learning IELTS? i've never taught it below upper intermediate- in fact you couldn't join the IELTS class in my old work place unless you were upper int+

Yep, There's no real point until they get to 4.5-5 level. Before that you might as well just teach general English.

damn waygook it's been a MINUTE since i saw you around.

idk much about IELTS but i taught a TOEFL class (very briefly) in the US. i got so tired of students not having answers for the prompts (especially the speaking prompts) that i just told them to lie. teaching it wasn't too bad, especially because i had quite a few higher level students, but examining just sounds horrible

I’m out of Korea for good...unless a nice intl school position on Jeju arrives on my lap 

I encouraged my students to give examples related to the topic being discussed in the speaking section. Personal examples work best, followed by examples of someone else’s (family or friend) experience close behind, followed by an example they came across through tv/movies/books/word of mouth...and then talk about how those examples made them feel and what they think they learned from it.
That way they could blabber away without worrying about long pauses or saying something wrong/disagreeable.

why the hell are elementary students learning IELTS? i've never taught it below upper intermediate- in fact you couldn't join the IELTS class in my old work place unless you were upper int+

The first time was to help a relative of a friend. I tried to tell them to improve their English for at least a year before attempting to start IELTS, but they were insistent they could do both at the same time because they had a high TOEIC score and got a place at a US uni the following semester.
The second time was at work, your typical ajumma who insisted she was ready for that level of English even though she’d been memorising words and sentences on her own for God knows how many years. After the second time I explicitly told my boss at the time I wouldn’t be doing any IELTS classes with anyone I thought was not ready.

I'm so done with recruiters and this industry as a whole. I spoke to a recruiter the other day and he gave a pity excuse for the poor hagwons who have low attendance numbers and that they can only pay 2.1 or 2.2 million  a month. I asked about the teacher that referred me to them and she is currently making 2.2 mil a month but the contract is nearly a year old. So before the situation they were paying crap wages and now they have more of an excuse to pay nearly minimum wage. When hagwons were making insane profits and have enough money to open up multiple locations they still waned to lowball teachers. I have f6 visa and I'm trying to stay here so my wife can be near her family but if I wanted to work minimum wage I could do that in the states and at least go somewhere with clean air.

if I wanted to work minimum wage

I think the USA is the last place you want to be right now job-wise. 40 million unemployed? That's hard to fight against. You will have thousands of over-qualified people now applying for any type of work.

"The 40 million might even be a low estimate, as it doesn’t include gig-economy and self-employed workers receiving first-time unemployment benefits"

I think the USA is the last place you want to be right now job-wise. 40 million unemployed? That's hard to fight against. You will have thousands of over-qualified people now applying for any type of work.

"The 40 million might even be a low estimate, as it doesn’t include gig-economy and self-employed workers receiving first-time unemployment benefits"

 I ain't new to being broke. I'm  tired of trying to grind out a living just to stay afloat in this country. I would rather be broke back home than broke here. The whole point of me coming to Korea was to make more money than what I potentially could make here but now things have tilted too far in the other direction. It's kind of nonsense to be away from my family for so long and barely be making more than what I would be making back home.  And having overqualified people fight for wages isn't exactly unique to America.  Here in Korea we have people  with BA degrees or higher fighting over 15 dollar an hour jobs as well. I have seen people with Masters fighting for those same jobs. The difference is that here there isn't as much upward mobility in the job market. Get outside the teaching profession in this country and you are competing with a labor force that has 75% of the people with a BA degree or above. 

I guess I'm just depressed these days. I had plans to open up a study room and that went to hell and I'm just sick of dealing with sketchy recruiters and shady hagwons.

I get you, but working back home is 100% off the menu. We are heading to a massive round of lay-offs as companies are trying to stave off bankruptcies in the EU and I think in the USA you will soon have utter desperation hit larger parts of society once unemployment expires for those 40 million people around September. Think second wave of corona+ lockdown as well by then.

It has always been a struggle to get some firm footing once back home, but now it might very well be an impossibility to restart your career. Getting paid 2-million-something in far-off Korea is better than standing in long lines waiting for handouts in the US.

40 million unemployed

That figure is the number who have been unemployed at any point during the past nine weeks. Most are / were temporary layoffs. I hate to be pedantic here but it's better to know / give accurate rather than exaggerated / misleading information.

Learn computer programming and you'll never not have a job. Pays $50 an hour. (Less if you're bad at it.) One can do this from home. Western economies aren't done forever (and incidentally if they were English teaching in Korea would go away). People - or at least English teachers abroad (who are referred to by many around the world as losers back home) said in 2009-2010 Europe and America wouldn't bounce back and that there are no good jobs or opportunities there for the rest of eternity. They were wrong.

In 2003 I made 2.1 mill and paid 500 won for a small can of Coke, 3000 won for kimchi stew with rice and side dishes, and 4000 won for a 400 km bus ticket from Geoje off the southeast coast to Seoul, with 25,000 won love motels surrounding the bus station.

Times have changed. I accepted a 2.6 mill hagwon job due to inflation in 2006 (bokbunja jumped from 3800 won to 7000 won overnight!). I worked Saturdays on Jeju for 7 years and got OT so pay was 3.1-3.3 mill a month at the hagwon yet still i only registered a 35-38 hour work week.

Now? I have accepted much less pay due to the times, the hagwon at 40% of enrollment two years ago. I work 22 hours a week with 2 to 3 days off.

This dang COVID-19 has thrown things off kilter.

I have never saved. When a few thousand dollars accumulated in my bank account, I'd just travel (Japan six times, China, Guam, Thailand, New Zealand, many sites in Korea (from Ulleungdo to Hongdo off the southwest coast, Chuncheon for three festivals to Jindo, Wando, beaches and mountain hike destinations).

The only time I regretted not saving was March & April this year when I wasn't working. Things have stabilized.

Still not 2003 good though. Gawd I couldn't burn through a paycheque back then without a concerted effort!

You will have thousands of over-qualified people now applying for any type of work.

Disagree. Unemployment money disincentivizes looking for work.

About 68% of unemployed workers who can collect unemployment will get benefits that top what they previously earned at work

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/low-wage-workers-unemployment-cares-act-earn-more-income/

Democrats in the U.S. House said they want to extend those benefits until January.

Noooooooo! (I agree with the Republicans here.)

The additional $600 per week in jobless benefits drew criticism from Republican senators in March as Congress debated the idea. Senators Tim Scott, Rick Scott, Ben Sasse and Lindsey Graham said some Americans would hold off returning to work because unemployment is a better option.

Delivering expanded unemployment was justifiable 90 days ago, but now anyone who can work should stop relying on that money and rejoin the workforce, said Gary Cohn, President Trump's former chief economic adviser.

"If you get offered a job, you should have to take that job and you should come off of unemployment benefits," Cohn said Sunday on Face the Nation.

Unemployed Americans are pulling way more than American English teachers abroad. The $600 a week alone is over 3.2 million won a month. Jesus, the exchange rate is terrible! Stong dollar, weak won. People want American dollars, they don't want Korean currency.

If thats the case $2400 and unemployment is extended beyond 4 months then droves of ESL teachers should go back right now...

Well, no. You can’t get unemployment if you quit a job, only if you were laid off. (The problem is if someone is laid off and then gets a job offer - maybe their old job they were working before - they can turn it down and keep collecting unemployment money it seems.)

Also, $600 a week = $2,600 a month.

There are more than four weeks in a month.

(52 divided by 12)

If thats the case $2400 and unemployment is extended beyond 4 months then droves of ESL teachers should go back right now...

This is exactly what I am doing.  I was in Korea until until April 3 and came back to the US.  As my employment in Korea fell through due to the virus, I qualified for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance AND the $600 a week (including back pay)

I have socked away that money, every week. 

I can see how folks would rather collect the money while on the public doll, rather than go back to work. It is a dangerous line.  I would rather not be on the doll for too much longer but....I will make use of the money saved up. 

I hope to go back but only on my terms, for the job I want.  Granted, that may never happen again, as it seems Korea has just turned into a spilt bag of phuck...then again, perhaps it always been that way.