(upbeat music)
- Hey, my name is Ben.
I teach English in South Korea.
My wife and I just got back from a week of vacation,
so we have no food in the house. So come with me.
So quick phone change
because there was something weird going on with my mike,
but we're headed to the market.
I'm gonna put my Instagram handle up here
and I'm gonna put a question box right here,
so you can ask me all those great questions.
This is one of our local markets.
Traditional South Korean breakfast is more like a soup,
so we tend to go a little bit more American-style
for breakfast, we'll eat some good Korean food later.
Just grab some Korean frosted flakes.
(no sound)
Alright, so we're awake, we've had breakfast,
we're getting back into the daily school routine.
This is my wife Alyson and we are in Gumi, South Korea,
we work at a private academy.
I'm excited for all the new folks watching,
we've gotten a lot of questions already, that's fantastic,
we'll start answering those.
We did do a takeover a couple of months ago
and I put the link to that in my bio
so that we'll try to answer different questions this time.
- For any of the ladies who are watching,
if you have any female-specific questions,
feel free to reach out to me.
You can do that on my personal account
or maybe Ben will put a special-
- Question box right here
- Okay
- So we just got back from vacation like I said
and we actually traveled within South Korea
to Jeju Island for a week. It was fantastic.
The question was 'How much vacation do you get?'
Usually about two weeks and all of the national holidays.
Some folks were wondering about weekend travel.
100% possible.
We've so much of Korea either through public transit
or bikes or motorcycles and we've been able to jump out
to other countries as well.
(no sound)
- Stopped by our local coffee shop, grabbed some lattes.
Alyson, take away the question.
- Okay, so private or public school,
really no matter where you teach in Korea,
whether it's Seoul or a more rural area,
it's totally up to you
and what makes the most sense for you.
- So both are great
and we've just found that the hours of private school,
so you teach in the afternoons, is better for us
so that we get to explore more of Korea in the mornings.
'Did you feel comfortable teaching grammar concepts?'
Well for us, we don't actually teach grammar.
We teach listening, reading, and writing classes.
All within that, a little bit of grammar,
but nothing you shouldn't be able to handle.
- If you feel like you've gotten a little rusty
on your grammar, don't worry,
TEFL does a great job of-kind of a crash-course
of things that you will need to know and feel confident in.
- So I used to be a full-time photographer
before I came here and started teaching,
the question is do I also work as a photographer here.
Short answer: no.
They do not allow you to have a supplementary source
of income with the E2 visa, but being a ITA ambassador
a photo ambassador, and also volunteering,
I was able to keep my photo skills sharp,
while also working on some personal projects
in an area of the world that I may have never been to.
- Do I know of any dance classes, like Ballet?
There are so many academies for different activities
like ballet, dance,
you just might have a better chance finding those
in English in a larger city.
So we were able to find a yoga class through our gym.
Which was really great. It was not in English,
but we have a little yoga experience,
so we didn't have any trouble following along
with the other students in the class.
We did get our TEFL certificate online
and we started applying for jobs before we finished,
but maybe, all in all, once we started applying,
and went through the interview process,
I would say less than a month?
- Definitely less than a month. I mean,
we both had jobs in the US before moving to Korea,
so we needed to make sure the timing worked out between
quitting our US jobs and getting Korean jobs.
So in order for that to go kind of flawlessly,
we applied while we were already in classes.
- For me, personally, since we live in a smaller city
of about half a million people,
there are not so many English speakers here.
So I wish I would have learned a bit more Korean
before moving here.
- I'll definitely piggy-back on that with Alyson.
I wish we had learned more Korean,
I think we kinda started to crunch right before we left,
but being here just made a lot more sense.
Learning just a little bit of reading and speaking-
learning a little bit more speaking and reading
will help you kinda transition so smoothly.
In our city, there aren't a lot of English speakers,
so we had to step-up our Korean really fast
if we wanted to get anything done,
but we also could rely on some folks at our school
and some great teachers when we ran into something
that we couldn't speak Korean about.
- I will say traveling to bigger cities,
we did not run into this problem.
They're much more English speakers in Seoul and-
- Here's your Korean crash-course
- The most useful phrase I've learned is (Speaking Korean)
it means 'it's okay', also you can phrase it as a question
(speaking Korean) Are you okay? Is it okay?
- Korean lesson, Part 2
- It's so important in Korea if you like chicken
to know how to say 'boneless' and you would say
(speaking Korean)
It is no bones in your chicken.
- Alyson does not like bone-in chicken,
so that was a big one for her to learn.
Korean lesson, Part 3
A lot of people might ask you if you speak Korean.
So you might hear some variation of (speaking Korean)
Which means 'Do you speak Korean'
and you can say (Korean word), which is 'no'
or you can say (Korean word), which is 'a little bit'
which is what we said.
So with varying degrees of success,
if you need a little Korean
to jolt your students into listening to you.
You can say (Korean word) which is like,
the informal version of 'hey you'
or you can say (Korean words) which is
- (in unison) 'Don't do that!'
(no sound)
- Okay, where did we complete our 20 hour practicum?
The city we lived in before we moved to Korea
had a university that offered ESL classes,
so we were able to volunteer there and they were super open
to letting us help out.
- Yeah we also looked at doing it at-
We also looked at doing our practicum at some local
elementary schools, but they just needed some paperwork
that we couldn't fill out on time.
So volunteering at a local university is usually pretty easy
So speaking of housing, this is where we live.
It's got a great Korean place on the bottom,
also a chicken delivery place.
It was provided the night that we came in,
partially because they were going from two single teachers
to a married couple, so they had to-
So they were going from two single teachers
to a married couple, which just changes from a
one bedroom apartment to we have a two-bedroom apartment.
It should be in your contract, just check and make sure.
They might put you in a hotel a night or two before.
- [Ben] So Thursday is our market day.
Looks like some of the vendors are gone,
probably because of the heat,
but we'll usually come here and grab some snacks,
grab some fruit, grab some lunch,
and then have a little picnic.
So this is our market
and it goes all the way down the street.
Third floor is our academy and this is our little picnic.
A little pavilion like this, great for naps.
Just remember to take off your shoes.
Alyson, what do we have?
- [Alyson] We have some grapes, we have some dumplings,
in Korea they call these Mandu
- [Ben] Fresh, so good and-
so these are triangle kimbaps,
you can get them at your convenience store.
As opposed to the rolled kimbaps,
but these are just a quick option and very popular.
They cost a dollar,
but Alyson is going to show us how to open them.
3-step process
- Okay, 1 go down and around,
then 2, slide out.
Then number 3.
So you take it apart in order
because it keeps the seaweed separate
so it doesn't get soggy. Now we can eat it.
- [Ben] So inside the kimbap, we have rice and meat,
but you can get it with many things.
Inside the mandu, the dumplings, you can have kimchi
and usually some noodles and vegetables,
and the other ones, these are pork.
Korea has a nationally sponsored healthcare system.
You pay a little bit from your paycheck every month,
but it's not very much at all.
Your employer and the state kicks in the rest.
Both of us have had the flu
and so we've used our insurance for that
and just normal seasonal colds,
but everything has been extraordinarily inexpensive
and very easy.
Speaking of healthcare and cost and things like that,
I'll give you a quick run-down of our monthly income
and expenses.
So basically we each make about $2,000/month.
So that number is after taxes,
after insurance,
and after pension because we pay in for our pension.
From that because we have no housing expenses
and minimal electricity bills,
we tend to save half of that for travel or for the future.
So with half or our combined income, $2000,
set aside for the future and future travel,
we take the remaining $2000 and half of that, $1000
on immediate travel, so the remaining $1000
is what we actually spend every month.
We tithe first and then we do groceries and clothes
and fun.
Anything that is not out-of-the-city travel.
While the cost of living isn't that different
between the US and South Korea.
Some things are definitely cheaper,
but the great part is it's easy to prioritize
with a lot of your big bills being taken care of
by your employer.
Basically we're living on about $600/month
and living comfortably. Eating out a lot, having fun,
taking trips, and it's pretty easy to do.
(electronic music)
So we started our day around 2 p.m., went to work
taught 6 classes
and ended our day around 8-8:15
and are just walking home.
We're headed to go get some Korean barbeque
and show you how delicious that is.
We got a few more questions that we need to answer.
We'll do that at the restaurant
and also if you haven't asked a question
and you want to, I'll put another box here
and we'll answer those as well.
- [Ben] So this is Korean barbeque.
You got a lot of banchan, which are free side dishes.
Bean sprouts, egg, pasta, fish, cucumbers, onions, salad,
and you have your ssam, which is your leaf wraps.
Alyson is going to tell you how to make the perfect
Sammbap wrap.
So you dip the meat and sauce
and you put it on the lettuce, Add a little kimchi,
she adds a little onion, a little garlic,
and then kinda wrap it all up in a messy wrap
and you have to pop the whole thing in your mouth.
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