Even from 2004...nothing has really changed...except..

It's not my area but from what I've heard schools that don't require qualified teacher status, like yours, are usually classified by those in the business as 'fake' international schools. In order to work at a 'real' international school you have to have QTS and usually a couple of years' expereince in your home country. They don't teach EFL at these 'real' internatioal schools, or if they do they employ a teacher already teaching a subject at the school. As I said, international school reddits can give you more info about this.  If you're teaching EFL full time you're an EFL teacher, so your job would be considered part of the TEFL industry in Korea.

Yes, exactly this.  The difference between being a "TEFL" teacher in Korea, and being able to work at an international school is all about teacher qualifications. If you are qualified to be a career teacher at a public school back home in the US/ Canada/ the UK etc then you can pretty much apply to teach at international schools in Korea, and the work experience is easily transferable back home in case the international school teacher wanted to return back home and continue to teach there. On the other hand, it doesn't take much to be a TEFL teacher in Korea as the requirements are just being a Native speaker from the 7 English Speaking countries, holding a 4 year B.A degree, and a 120-hour TESL certificate. As a TEFL teacher you will be limited to either teaching in the EPIK program as an assistant language teacher, or working at Hakwons, and if you have a Master's Degree, you can try to apply to work at universities.

Wow these guys sound... uhh... "fun."

Yes, unsurprisingly they greatly look down on everyone working in the TEFL industry. A few of them pop up on rtefl fairly regularly, doing similar kind of schtick as Koreaboo.

I don't think teaching only foreign children is a requirement to be an international school. That doesn't really sound industry-standard, and I wouldn't take a SubReddit as an authoritative source. Someone posted a list of the top international schools in China. A lot of them have a lot of Chinese citizens attending, and some international schools, even the ones that are foreigners-only, still require TEFL teachers because not everyone speaks English as a first language. For me, I've always taken the curriculum as the definition. The nationality of the students, in my opinion, is superficial. Guess I have a SubReddit to troll 

https://youtu.be/Zp2VQ4SIRWM

As the reddit post said, there are several definitions (and licensing) of international schools, depending on the country and situation. Korea and China are similar in that they both have very strict legal requirements for any institution looking to call itself a school first and foremost, and even more restrictions for those that want to call themselves international schools.  And for international schools specifically...

*all students attending MUST have at least one parent who is a foreign passport holder and foreign residency (due to low student numbers, the Korean government allows a certain number of Korean students to attend these schools)

*because these schools cater essentially to "non-citizen" children, they are exempt from having to follow the national curriculum in these countries.

*even though these rules are pretty stringent, there are loopholes to get around them...for example it is common for wealthy parents who can easily afford these fees to "purchase" citizenships abroad for themselves and their families through immigration investment schemes...hence why these schools will still have a high amount of local kids attending.

Other schools that are not "international" in name and licensing are allowed to and do run international programs, either throughout the whole school or one or more departments. These are the schools that will allow local passport holders to attend.

Look at the various lists in the links below and notice how the schools are named (lists of schools for Chinese passport holders and non-Chinese passport holders). Virtually none of the former are actually called "international school"...just variations of "international division", "foreign Language School" etc.

https://www.hurun.net/en-US/Info/Detail?num=WO7GMLBMJQCU

Yes, unsurprisingly they greatly look down on everyone working in the TEFL industry. A few of them pop up on rtefl fairly regularly, doing similar kind of schtick as Koreaboo.

Odd because teachers in general are pretty dumb and have no right to look down on anyone.

International school teachers aren't smarter than TEFLers. They just study some theories, most of which will be abandoned in the next 10-20 years.

It's always sad when folks decide to flaunt their inferiority complexes.

Just make sure you don't work at an "International School" that isn't actually an international school. These places want to hire native English teachers who aren't going to be fluent in Korean legalese or familar with the reputation of a place in a country they've never been to before.

https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170709000269

Just make sure you don't work at an "International School" that isn't actually an international school. These places want to hire native English teachers who aren't going to be fluent in Korean legalese or familar with the reputation of a place in a country they've never been to before.

https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170709000269

There are plenty of these soddy dealers on Craigslist, ESL Cafe and accoassinaly ESL ROK.

I really wonder these websites don't do any vetting....(cough, cough..Waygook.org), or, make sure job descriptions don't align with legal requirements.  It seems the overall narrative, is similar to the article when it mentions "no response" from Seoul immigration and inferring to nobody taking responsiblity.


..cough, cough.

What happened to those teachers is so messed up. Kimmi looked at their papers and approved it.