A few months ago, the South Korean Board of Education had decided - and related through GEPIK (Gyeonggi English Program of Korea) - that due to budget cuts, they will cease to hire any new people before March 2012. This means that everyone who already has a contract can finish, but renewing with public schools will be a problem Korea-wide until they say otherwise. No one seems to know when they're going to have enough money to hire again; the March 2012 date is tentative and mainly there to stem any further questions.
What does this mean for me personally? Well, my contract is over this coming September 26. My E-2 visa expires October 27, and my corresponding Alien Registration Card expires on the same date. This means that either I find a job here before that time, so a new school will help me acquire a new visa or I'm going back to either the U.S.A. or preparing to go to another country. I decided that I want to stay here for another year, because I have more to learn about teaching, there is more to see in this country and I don't want to immediately leave some of the new friends I've met here.
So the past two weeks have been a mildly feverish rush of contacting recruiters and applying for jobs that way. Two days ago, I had made a list, and realized that I had actually contacted and applied with up to twelve recruiters. They all initially responded to receive my resume and photo, but many of them stopped after that, and around four stayed. I ended up half applying with EPIK, and then talking to a few other people about private academies. Because I am not Korean American, some places were off limits to me - this is because some parents really want a teacher at their academy that they can talk to, and my lack of Korean would be a barrier to that. Other places only want men or white people, sometimes their criteria can be very specific. I even heard that there are sometimes age requirements.
As with choosing between countries when teaching abroad, transitioning between jobs means choosing the ideal setting for me to live in. By now I had tired of the country life and want actual cities with convenience stores nearby, so I looked at my options for large cities. I've already explore a good part of Ansan and Siheung, even though the move to those two places would be easy, so I wanted something new. Seoul is too prestigious, and not being Korean American or having more experience teaching, this city is mainly closed off to me anyway. Incheon might have sounded interesting, but I know more people down south now, so that's where I opted to go. I applied in Suwon, Daejeon, Busan and Daegu. Next is the realization that because my contract ends September 26 - terrible timing! - just after most public schools are done hiring, I would have to take the place of someone who changed their minds, or just go for a private academy.
Private academies are completely different from public schools. The hours are from afternoon to night instead of morning, there are fewer vacation days and shorter breaks, and your supervisors get much more control over your teaching methods and style. I'm hoping the last one won't get me into trouble, because I had to change many things as is even when I was teaching in public school. There's a lot more paperwork to be done, in terms of others' evaluations of you and then your evaluations of the students and having to comment on students' posts on internet sites. I expect to have seven more teaching hours each week. While in public schools, they expect you to create your own curriculum, academies give you a curriculum and you follow that. I also heard that the academy sometimes either doesn't follow the contract or interprets it in such a way that they make it hard for an employee to leave or fine them so much that they ended up with only 20% of their total income.
As a result, whenever I was offered a place to work, I have to research it across a few sites for a good while before concluding whether that place has a bad reputation and whether the posters' complaints have any grounding to them. In fact, I'm still doing that, and one of the methods that people often says works is to call the school directly and ask to speak with one of their English teachers to see whether they are happy there. Either way, I'm expected to move out of my apartment by September 26, so I've begun packing. And the beat goes on.
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