FAQ's about teaching in Korea

In the past couple of years I've had countless messages from friends and friends of friends asking questions about teaching and living in Korea. When I first came I remember most people were confused as to why I was going to Korea but now it seems to be a very popular choice.

Here I want to answer the general questions that people may have about living and working here. (I live in a smaller city, so it is quite a different experience from those living in Seoul)

The first and most commonly asked question is:

 What type of school should I work in?

Let me start off by telling you that there are 3 main types of schools that a foreigner can teach in here in Korea. The first of these is a hagwon. I taught in a hagwon for my first year in Korea, there are thousands upon thousands of hagwons in Korea so getting a job in one of these is easier than the other two.

What is a Hagwon?

A hagwon is basically a private language school. Parents go a little crazy here trying to get their kids to be the best at everything and English is no different. There are hagwons for every different age group (including adults). But The most common hagwons are for kindergartens, elementary and middle schools.
My hagwon was actually a kindergarten so I taught five 20 minute kindergarten classes before lunch then two after school kindergarten classes and then 3 after school elementary classes.

Keep in mind that the kids have been in regular school all day and then have to come to these after school classes so they can be quite hyper/tired.

Some signs for hagwons…not what you'd expect a private school to look like.
I taught is a hagwon with a kindergarten attached to it so mine was a little fancier.
What are the other types of jobs? 

The next type of job that you can get is at a public school. I've been teaching at a public school for the last three years and absolutely love it. You could be teaching at an elementary or middle school, but rarely some teachers teach at high schools.

Teaching in public school has many benefits over teaching in a hagwon. Mainly because you are employed by a program, not an individual school so you have a contract that won't be broken, set holidays that can't be taken away from you and you always get paid on time.

The final job is teaching at a university. This is a great job if you can get it, low working hours and long vacations but it means teaching students that don't want to be there

Should I only look for jobs in Seoul?

This is an interesting question and only you can answer this one. Personally, before I came here I had wanted to work in Seoul but I was told by my recruiter that it would be unlikely because I'm Irish (American/Canadian accents are preferred here)
But now I'm so happy that I didn't live in Seoul. I know people that lived in Seoul and for their entire time there never left Seoul!
I can't imagine coming to Korea and not seeing the local life. Many people living in Seoul don't eat Korean food much because there are so many foreign options.
So to answer this question, if you are worried that there won't be many foreigners in the small city that you are looking at, don't be. I spent my first year in a tiny town that still had about 20 foreigners, where there are schools there are foreigners!

How do I go about looking for jobs?

If you do a quick google search for teaching in Korea, you'll find thousands of recruiters wanting to help you. You can choose any one of them as long as you don't pay any money...you should never have to pay a recruiter to find you a job in Korea!

What's the pay like?

Most schools start at about 2.1 million won a month (about $2,100) If you have previous experience you might be able to start at a higher rate.

What are the apartments like?

They are small! You will usually get a one room apartment which consists of a bedroom/living room and kitchen all in one room, a bathroom and then maybe a balcony. I honestly enjoyed living in a one room because it meant that I couldn't buy many things and clutter the apartment and it only took about 30 minutes to clean. Now that myself and Jason are a couple living together (some schools will only allow married couples to live together, luckily that wasn't the case for us)  we have a 2 bedroom apartment. But I do know some couples that lived in one room apartments together (I don't know how they did it!)


My first apartment…it was tiny!



Sleeping area.

Kitchen and bathroom.

The outside, it's the beige one.

But, whatever you choose you'll have a lot of fun!


If you have any other questions that haven't been answered here, please let me know and I'll try my best to answer them for you :)

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