Teaching English in Korea: The Party's Over

By Graham Alexander

The much needed book `Teaching English in Korea – The Party’s Over’ gives a voice to the sentiment felt by many if not most of those working in the English teaching industry in Korea.
The book focuses primarily on what draws most people to Korea to teach, and what keeps most people signing contract after contract – MONEY.
Graham Alexander explores whether teaching English in Korea is as good as it used to be and asks whether it will get any better in future?
With an eye on the present circumstances in Korea, the book examines the very fabric of the society in which YOU the foreigner, YOU the waygook live. It is a book that doesn’t pull any punches and examines the economic, social, technological and generational situation from an unemotional standpoint.
Korea is a wonderful country that is full of fascination, intrigue, cultural wonders and amazing people and Graham Alexander acknowledges this but keeps these distractions away from his analysis. While he openly admits that some of the information may shock readers, this book has been written to elicit responses from the ESL community and generate discussion on this very important topic.
Many people come to Korea with a lust for travel but stay for year after year and this becomes a habit. The reader’s focus is repeatedly trained on the very real threats to:
*standard of living
*job quality and prospects
*economic viability of Korea
*the growth of technology
The simple question of `Should I stay or should I go?' is approached from these and many other different angles.
Having spent over twelve years on the peninsula teaching in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do and Mokpo, from hagwon to rural high school to big city university campus, Graham Alexander reached the pinnacle of the profession in Korea – the university professor’s job only to find the view from the top is not quite as rosy as it used to be.
If you are settled into a nice university position, you may be fooled into thinking that this is it for you. That you’ve made it and life is going to be sweet from here on out, this is perhaps one of the biggest problems addressed in the book, and the question asked is simple – `What else can you do?’
By logically analysing the trends that are affecting the world, the peninsula and the ESL /English teaching industry, uncomfortable but necessary truths come to light.
Factors such as:
*the holes in the pension system
*the loss of part time work
*the inevitable fall in wages
*the loss of status for you the foreigner as a teacher in Korea
are just some of the many topics woven into a coherent examination of the changing landscape of the ESL profession.
While `Teaching English in Korea – The Party’s Over’ examines hard truths, Graham Alexander addresses these truths and offers valuable insights into how to stay or go with the most possible power behind you. With sage advice to make yourself indispensible to the profession, Graham Alexander highlights different ways you can improve your employment options in ESL and protect yourself and your family into the future.
If you are thinking about leaving Korea, this book will also help you to start the often long process of decision making and prepare you for life elsewhere in ESL or any other field.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graham Alexander
• Release date: Jan 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311856678

Graham Alexander

I was born in England in 1979 and lived there until 2002. Then with itchy legs ready for travel I left and found South Korea. After 12 years of teaching, travelling and studying it was time to move on. At the end of December 2014 I moved back to the UK with my beautiful wife to begin the next chapter in our lives :)You're doing life wrong if it's all hard work!

Book preview

Teaching English in Korea

–The Party’s Over

Graham Alexander

Copyright 2014 by Jayu Worldwide Ltd

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Introduction

1 The Status Quo

2 Korean families

3 Welfare systems

4 Funding the Welfare System

5 Your Pension

6 The Economy

7 Technology

8 No Longer Special

9 A Change in Legislation

10 Settling Down

11 The Life Cycle of a Product

12 Positive Action

13 Your Own Potential

About the Author

Reference List

Introduction

This book has been written with the express intention of educating readers. Links to all sources quoted are available on:

http://www.galexanderbooks.com/korealinks

It is hoped that this book will serve as an education for the greater public good and health of the ESL community. It is hoped that by reading this book constructive public discourse and action will develop.

This book is for any and every foreign teacher YOU, the waygook in Korea.

Any teacher who has been teaching ESL in Korea for three years or more should read this.

Any teacher looking to marry or who is married to a Korean.

Any long term ESL teacher thinking of leaving Korea.

Anybody considering Korea as a teaching location.

Any teacher thinking of having children.

Any teacher with children.

This book is written to engage the teaching community both inside and outside of South Korea. As a result throughout it refers to You, the waygook primarily meaning teacher of ESL.

Today in 2014, it is very easy to look around at the employment conditions and opportunities and decide that South Korea is a good place to be. I am not going to try and convince you otherwise.

RIGHT NOW Korea is a great place to spend a few years teaching, living, saving, drinking, travelling etc.

However, just because it is a good job right now, this doesn’t mean that it will remain so. As this book outlines, there is a perfect storm brewing on the horizon for the ESL profession in Korea.

Unfortunately, most teachers seem blissfully nonchalant about the problems that will occur over the coming years. I have found that if a serious conversation is raised on the long term problems of ESL in Korea, it is often shunned, ignored, ridiculed or the subject is changed.

These are the easy responses for people to make.

It is far easier to ignore hard truths and to change the subject than it is to address problems and begin to try and find solutions. There are inevitable difficulties that the teaching industry will face in Korea, and they are beginning to show themselves.

Many or most people that read this book can and will agree with the contents. The topics are not difficult to grasp and it is not rocket science. Others will say something similar to `Yeah, I know’ because the concepts are not new to them.

However, knowledge as much as we revere it gets us nowhere.

We have to organize our knowledge and understanding and ACT on it. This I feel is the step missing for most long term teachers in Korea. People would on the whole agree that the ESL profession is in declining health, but still won’t act. Instead they keep on keeping on, taking lower pay and reduced benefits whilst working harder just to keep pace with inflation..

The reason I myself ended up staying in Korea for twelve years was because of these four factors:

Standard of living

Ease of the job

Enjoyment

Pay

(All of these elements are roughly the same today in 2014 as they were in 2002 when I first set foot on the peninsula.)

After several years of ESL in Korea, I found that I felt drawn to signing another contract and staying on for another year. Even though I wanted to leave, to head back home, I didn’t.

I know I was not alone in this paradox of wanting to leave but feeling forced to stay as ESL Korea is comfortable and requires little effort.

This re-signing of contracts is usually done by YOU the waygook for a variety of factors;

- People (myself included) simply outwork their university degree and other qualifications from the western world.

- Your useful and transferable skills are replaced by several years of teaching ESL, years which for the majority of professions are of very little use.

- You are having fun and enjoying the freedom that comes with having more money than you need to pay the bills, save and socialize.

- Making a decision to change jobs, to go home or move to another country takes more effort and is riskier.

The employability of career ESL teachers outside of the teaching profession is almost laughable back home. I have found that people just like myself through a perceived lack of options about their employability feel stuck and almost forced into signing twelve month contract after twelve month contract.

This is not a problem right now (2014) as the money is still reasonable and the standard of living is good. It is easy to justify the choice.

However, there are many cracks beginning to appear that need understanding, considering and responding to before it is too late.

Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.

- George Carlin

A brief analysis of rent, taxes, fuel costs, working conditions, etc. makes the employment decision for you. The drop in the standard of living when returning home is something that the majority of ESL teachers are simply not willing to take on. Worries and doubts about being able to find a job, making enough money to survive and affording the lifestyle that you enjoy in Korea crowd the decision making process.

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

A friend of mine summed it up quite well at a barbeque when he said something to the effect of;

…I thought about it, and staying here means that we know how much money is coming in, we have our friends and our house. If we go home we’ll have to make new friends and start at the bottom. Things won’t be so easy and we’ll struggle to pay the bills…

This is both a common and understandable attitude to the question of moving back home, especially if you have a family. Fears and uncertainties will prompt YOU to stay teaching ESL.

When analysing what they can do back at home, many people decide that they need to retrain and re-qualify to even stand a chance of getting an interview and all of this takes time and money.

You may well need to retrain, but if you don’t do it now, because it will take time and money – when will you do it?

It is for these and other reasons that people get stuck in Korea. They are comfortable and don’t want to sacrifice their comfort now for possible hardships.

However, without proper thoughts about how to grow your career, YOU, the waygook will wake up one day and discover you are obsolete, unemployable and unable to maintain your standard of living.

This book aims to highlight how important it is to consider carefully the events that will naturally unfold over the coming years.

The longer you stay in Korea teaching ESL, the more difficult it becomes to simply go home. This is a problem that is magnified when partners and children are included.

I do not mean to say that you should flee the country.

I don’t mean that at all.

What I hope to do in writing this book is increase awareness and discourse for waygooks. This will make it easier for you to prepare for the inevitable changes that will and must come in Korea for YOU the waygook.

Korea faces huge problems domestically, internationally, socially, economically, politically and culturally. Most of these problems have no solutions in sight and will mean a radical change for the country as a whole. Working conditions and standards of living for all people on the peninsula will be drastically altered and this is especially so for the ESL profession.

This book outlines the main problems Korea faces and examines the long term effects these will have on YOU the waygook, your family and your ability to earn money.

The subjects covered are often intricately interlinked and as a result repetition of ideas is only natural and intentional. I have found that repetition is a very useful teaching tool, it makes people take on new vocabulary and grammar etc.

Repetition also makes people begin to think about new ideas.

In the modern education system we are taught to be logical and scientific. Both of these tools will serve you well.

However, hard truths tend to illicit emotional, rather than logical responses.

Things in this book are stated the way that they are to promote longitudinal thought, rather than the automatic reactions of emotional, jocular dismissal. Things are written with the intention of shocking people a little and developing discourse for you with yourself, your friends and your partner.

No amount of wishful thinking on the part of citizens, politicians, or YOU the waygook will alter the truth of the problems that Korea faces or the inevitable changes which must come.

Old ideas, methods and understandings always fall apart in the light of new, more efficient and less expensive ways of achieving the same outcome. Rage against this change as your emotions will, it still won’t alter the outcome for the ESL profession.

It is essential that you realise that all of these factors will not play out in the next year or perhaps even five years. Some things will take a long time to emerge, others may well happen overnight.

This is not to say that these things will not happen. To wait to see proof before acting could well mean that you are woefully too late to take advantage of the situation.

Your goal should be to remain ahead of the masses and that means you must be proactive rather than passive.

The future for You, the waygook in Korea could well be quite a bleak one, especially if you are wishing to settle down, raise a family or retire whilst relying on state or private pensions to fund your senior years.

It is therefore of the utmost importance that you seriously consider the perfect storm that is brewing for the profession in Korea. With these things considered, you then must ACT.

Anyone who has been teaching in Korea for several years and is intending to leave should use this book to help guide their decision making process.

The old proverb says:

Forewarned is forearmed

And that is the express intention of this book, to warn you and arm you with information relative to your future financial security and standard of living. By seeing the bigger picture it is my sincere hope that you will take steps to ensure:

Your vitality to the workforce

Your employment options

Your comfortable and secure retirement

I am not suggesting that you necessarily have a lack of options, but what became apparent when I’d made the decision to leave was that it was anything but simple. It was both emotionally, physically and mentally draining.

For you as an individual, South Korea may well be the best place for you to