(upbeat music)
- Hey guys,
just wanna say a quick hello before I get started.
I'm Michaela, I'm taking over ITA's Instagram today.
I am currently an English teacher
in Pyeongtaek, South Korea.
I have been here for almost 11 months now,
so almost a full year.
And I am from Washington, D.C. so let's get started.
Okay, so let's get to the apartment tour.
This is the entrance to my apartment.
There's a little shelf for some storage space,
usually just to put some shoes and purses, stuff like that.
And all of this is also storage space, like closet.
And then I have a couch, a TV that I never use
because it is in Korean
and I can't get it to change it to English.
And then we have the laundry room right here.
So in Korea, there aren't dryers.
We have our washer but no dryer.
So we just hang our clothes, which is actually really nice.
It's good for the environment,
and it keeps your clothes in way better condition.
And then here's the kitchen.
We have the fridge, microwave, toaster oven.
There are no actual ovens in our apartments here in Korea.
Little stove and all that good stuff.
Okay, two more rooms to show you guys
even though my apartment is tiny.
So this is my bedroom.
Very nice bedroom.
I love it, actually.
I love my bed too.
(giggling)
It's bigger than a twin
but not quite a queen size, but so it's perfect.
And here is the bathroom.
So the bathroom, this took me some time to get used to
because it is a wet room, which is very common in Asia.
As you can see, there's no separation
between the shower and everything else.
So I would basically suggest if you do come to Korea,
sometimes you might get lucky
because I have friends that have actual showers.
But I would suggest to bring a caddy or something
so your stuff doesn't get wet.
And I know I will get questions about this,
but I do live alone, luckily.
All right, something happened with the last clip
to ask me anything, so I'm going to refilm it again.
Basically before we get too far into this,
and I throw all of this information at you
because moving abroad is a process, we all know that.
I'm going to leave the little ask me anything box
somewhere on the screen for you guys,
so you can literally ask me any question.
Seriously, any question I can help you.
Okay, so unfortunately I can not take pictures
or videos of anything in my school.
I signed something in my contract,
just something with privacy and confidentiality.
So I will not be able to give you a tour of my school.
And besides the fact that my students
aren't there right now, we're teaching all on Zoom classes.
So no students are showing up.
But today is actually my last day of school,
because we have the Korean holiday called Chuseok
which is kind of like their Thanksgiving.
I might've pronounced that wrong, so please forgive me.
But anyway, with my school,
I know I'll be getting questions about this as well.
Okay, as I have already mentioned
I cannot show you my school, or anything.
I really wish I could.
But what I will do now is explain where I work,
how many students I teach, all that good stuff.
Okay, so in Korea you have two options where you can teach.
You have the option of a private academy
or also known as a hagwon.
And then the other is doing
any number of public school programs, the most popular,
and I'm sure the only one
that everybody has ever heard of is EPIK.
Now I'm not going to dive too deep into EPIK
because I'm not a public school teacher.
I don't wanna spread false information,
you know, things like that.
What I do know about EPIK is you really don't have a choice
on where you are placed.
And EPIK I know that I think the number
of students that you're teaching is probably 30 at a time.
Okay, guys, let's talk about hagwons.
So a hagwon, or a private academy, which is what I work in,
is basically an afterschool program
if you teach the older kids,
but also there's kindergarten hagwons.
A lot of my friends work in the kindergarten hagwon,
so they're the nine to five people.
But me, I do elementary to high school,
so it's a very large age range I know.
Very large learning range so it's kind of,
it's difficult to get used to.
My kids range from ages seven to maybe 15, or 16.
There's only about eight students in each of my classes.
Well, not all of them but I teach from anywhere
from two to eight students
so it's actually pretty manageable, which is nice.
But if you like to I would say, get up in the morning,
early in the morning, get your day started right away,
I'd definitely suggest working in kindergarten even though.
Okay, so I just wanted to talk a little bit
about working at a hagwon, things to expect at a hagwon.
So hagwon they'll take you
with absolutely zero teaching experience,
as long as you have your bachelor's,
that is the number one.
Some hagwons you don't even
have to have a TEFL certification,
but I highly recommend getting one through ITA of course.
But definitely get a TEFL certification
before you even think about coming here
because honestly TEFL certification,
it opens doors for you,
opens so many doors for you in so many places.
But working in a hagwon, it's definitely a lot
harder than working in public school, a lot more work.
For me, my responsibilities,
there's a lot more administrative work
than actual teaching and stuff.
So it's a lot of keeping up with paperwork,
tests, homework, all that kinda stuff.
So with working in a hagwon,
you're definitely gonna be a lot busier
than you would be versus public school.
Hey, hello everyone I hope that you can hear me
because I'm wearing my mask right now.
As we all know the world is currently
going through a pandemic,
so wearing your face mask is absolutely required anywhere.
So we have to wear it out outside, inside,
we have to wear it in schools and things like that.
So this where I live currently.
(upbeat music)
I live in a relatively small area.
I won't say the name of the area,
but it is a suburb outside of a bigger city.
Pyeongtaek is about an hour and a half away from Seoul,
I think.
But public transportation is so good here
that it doesn't feel like you live far away from anywhere.
And you know, you have all the typical stuff.
You have a bakery, you have a gym,
and there's very loud K-pop music playing.
(laughing)
As I mentioned before I mean,
where I live it isn't much,
it's kind of just a small town.
But conveniently the grocery store
is located right over there,
so it's only like a 10 minute walk from my apartment,
which is awesome.
You literally do not need a car in Korea,
and that's what I love about it,
'cause that cuts your cost down so much.
But yeah, this is where all the convenience stores
and everything else is located,
so convenient to get anywhere.
You can get to a clothing store, grocery store, the dentist,
the gym, everything's like less than a 15 minute walk.
Okay this is a really good question.
I did not buy a Korean phone.
What I did was I took my American phone
and I guess it was already unlocked,
and the phone company which I have, KT,
more on the expensive side,
they just inserted a Korean SIM card and now--
My biggest culture shock has definitely been
the lack of personal space.
I don't really enjoy it
because people stand very close to me.
And it's like an invasion of my personal space,
so that's definitely something that I've had to get used to.
Okay, so to work in a hagwon
you usually go through a recruitment agency,
which there are so many in Korea.
So many, you have so many options.
I can recommend anybody who wants my recruiting agency.
I can DM you that information.
And my school provided my apartment,
so I didn't have to worry about any of that.
So average salary for a private academy
or a hagwon teacher is between 1.9
to maybe 2.3 million Korean won.
It just depends on your experience and things like that.
Okay guys, so I am officially off to work.
I will be back later today
to answer the rest of everybody's questions regarding visas,
the recruiting company's,
and any other questions that you have
so please, please be sure to leave the questions
and I will respond to them later.
Okay, so I definitely recommend
taking the apartment provided
because they're paying the rent anyway.
The only time that you will have to find an apartment
on your own is with some public schools
they'll end up doing that,
and maybe some hagwons will provide a stipend.
Okay, great question.
Because I know that not everybody goes to college
and college isn't for everyone,
but based on getting a TEFL,
in basically in Asia it's almost required
for you to have a bachelor's,
and to finish this question
the other places that you can teach
in the world without a bachelor's degree
are in countries like Latin America.
So like Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, those kinda places.
Yes I can absolutely DM you the information
for my recruiter.
If you want to know who I went through
for my recruiting agency
you can message me directly on my personal account.
Okay, so now since we're home
I have time to give you a little more information
about how I found my job,
and just things about working in a hagwon.
And I want to also bring up the visa situation.
Okay, so first I got a lot of questions
about how I found my job working in a hagwon.
And how you do that is you have to go
through a recruiting agency,
and that recruiting agency will send out your resume
to prospective schools, yada, yada, yada, it's a process.
But what I did to begin that process is I posted my resume
on Dave's ESL Cafe and they ended up finding me.
So that is definitely one way you could go about it.
You can always email the recruiting agencies,
but I find it way better when,
it works out way better
when you just post your own resume on there.
So like I said if you want to know
who my recruiting agency was you can DM me
on my personal account, which I will have my username
somewhere on screen.
All right, so let's talk visas.
So when you come to Korea,
you're on an E2 teaching visa.
Please make sure that your contract for your school
says E2 teaching visa.
'Cause a lot of times to get away
with not giving you health insurance,
or pension, or your severance,
which are super important in any contract,
they'll put you as you're here as a contractor,
which is illegal, so be sure to watch out for that.
So an E2 teaching visa is essentially
what every teacher here is on an E2 teaching visa.
And the E2 teaching visa is really only provided
for people that are from English speaking countries.
So for example, the U.S., South Africa,
the UK, Australia, and Canada.
So that is what I'm on,
I'm on an E2 teaching visa.
And the process for that, it well--
Let's talk the things with contract with hagwons.
So most hagwons as I mentioned way earlier,
you're gonna be looking at hours
between 30 and 40 hours a week.
For me, I teach around five to seven classes per day.
Every hagwon is different honestly.
So I can't give you an exact blueprint
of what your schedule is gonna be like.
Also as for vacations and time off,
for hagwons we get all Korean red days off,
which are public holidays here.
We actually are starting one today, Chuseok,
so we have about five days off.
For vacation you get five days in summer,
and five days in winter,
and then the red days
just sprinkle in between your contract.
So we do get less time off than public school does,
but it's still a pretty good deal if you ask me.
It's not enough time that if you wanted to li--
Okay, so I think I'm about to finish up,
I'm almost done.
So please, please, please ask me any more questions,
if you do, you can ask me on here,
or you can DM me on my personal account.
So one of the questions I was looking through
that I do want to address is the ITA course that I took.
So I ended up going with the online one
because it was the most convenient
and affordable option for me.
And it took about 11 weeks,
so it was a little more slowed down.
I didn't get it to work on my own pace,
but I got to do self study so,
and that's the best way that I learn.
So I really enjoyed doing the 11 week course online.
And I recommend that if you do have a little time
on your hands, or it's a great option
if you want to save money and work before you go abroad.
Okay, so there was actually another question
that I wanted to address
that I actually forgot to do.
So based on transportation here.
So I do not have a car here at all
because I don't need one.
Everything, I actually mentioned way earlier in the story.
Everything is either in walking distance,
or just a short bus ride away.
Or if you wanna go to another province, another city,
you can take buses, you can take the KTX
which is Korea's version of the bullet train.
But public transportation here is awesome.
It's so cheap.
I mean, sometimes the bus drivers are a little bit crazy
because of the way people drive here,
but you do not need a car at all.
And basically public transportation,
always cheap, always safe, always reliable.
Okay, so there was something about the visa
that I definitely forgot to mention
because of the fact that there's a pandemic going on.
So getting visas here to South Korea
is a little more difficult than it was
when I first came here, pre pandemic.
So I know that when you come here as an English teacher
all of this stuff is gonna be taken care of
with your schools.
So I don't a hundred percent have exact information.
But what I do know is that when you come here
a two week quarantine is absolutely mandatory.
So you will be doing a two week quarantine
by your school before you can actually start working.
But with that being said, I mean,
I know that they're letting people
in to South Korea right now,
but the visa process is just getting a little bit slower.
Some people are even getting denied,
so just keep that in mind.
All right guys, I guess I think I covered everything.
I think I basically covered everything.
I'm gonna wrap it up.
It was really awesome to take over ITA's Instagram today.
I definitely enjoyed it.
I enjoyed showing where I live,
what my daily life is like, that kinda thing,
even though I'm sorry I couldn't show anybody my school.
But I hope this does encourage you to travel the world,
come to Korea, or anywhere in that case to teach English
because I'm saying it's going to be an awesome experience.
Like it's completely unforgettable,
I don't regret it, best decision I've ever made.
And if you have any more questions
please DM me on my personal account.
Okay, bye everyone.
(upbeat music)