Teaching English In Korea

Having experienced living and working in 3 different cities in Asia, I feel that I owe it to all those out there who are hesitating about whether or not to take that chance and move half way around the world. 

Everything I’ve written about here is based on my own experiences and beliefs.  It worked for me and I was able to gain much out of this experience with this outlook.   Here are some things to consider:

1. Mindset and attitude – This is by far the most important aspect of deciding whether or not to move overseas. Are you ready for the challenge?  Are you ready to handle the frustration of not having anyone understand you, not knowing who to go to for help?  Are you ready to experience a new culture?  Are you ready to meet new friends and possibly learn a new language?  I’ve always been the type to adapt pretty easily and I had traveled a bit prior to moving, but nothing could fully prepare me for the first 48 hours after landing in Korea.  Those were probably the most difficult 48 hours I’ve ever had to deal with.  Things do get easier and soon enough, I found my routine and that was when I started to really enjoy myself and the experience.

2. Community – It is so important to find good support for yourself while overseas. I noticed a big difference between when I first arrived in Korea and when I left.  There were under 10 Native English teachers living in Paju when I arrived.  I made it a point to try and get to know each and every one of them and since it was a small town, it really wasn’t too difficult to figure out who was at which school.  By the time I left, there were probably almost 40-50 of us.  Of course, with 40-50 new friends introducing you to their friends, your contact list just grew and grew.  Sooner or later, you end up with friends in all the areas surrounding the city you’re living in.

3. Food – I remember going out for lunch with two British colleagues and one of them told the other that it was very important to be able to recognize the characters for beef, pork, chicken and fish in the local language. Part of living overseas is to immerse yourself in the “every day lives” of the locals – shop where they do, and eat what they do.  Well, the problem is, many Westerners have dietary restrictions that include not eating certain kinds of foods.  Asians aren’t as familiar with this concept.  Although China and Korea are both booming nowadays, many of its citizens are still from the poorer rural towns.  You eat what you can get your hands on.  It’s unlikely that they can afford the luxury of being picky with food.   So with this in mind, many Asians are often surprised when they meet Westerners who are vegetarians or who only eat white meat.  With this in mind, I realized that my colleague was right and it would be very helpful to learn the basic characters for beef, pork, chicken and fish.  If you’re a vegetarian, just don’t choose menu items with these words and you should be fine.

4. Korean Hierarchy System – This came as one of the biggest surprises to me when I first moved to Korea. The Korean Hierarchy system is deeply embedded into the culture and it is highly frowned upon if you do not respect it.  The hierarchy system is in place for every part of Korean lives.  They have “formal” and “informal” speech and you obviously need to use formal speech to those that are older and of a higher position than themselves, but I didn’t realize how intricate it was until I moved there.  A student in 5^th grade needs to use formal speech with a student in the 6^th grade, but can “talk down” to someone in 4^th  A teacher must use formal speech with the principal, but cannot necessary use informal speech with a colleague because the colleague may have one year of seniority on them.  Basically, anyone with seniority in the work place or in age needs to be spoken to with formal speech.  Due to this culture, it is very common for people to always expose their ages when introducing themselves.  This is so that people can know how to address each other.

5. Language Barrier – The Korean language is influenced heavily by English due to many different reasons, including the fact that there’s been an American presence in the country ever since the Korean War.  Koreans also enjoy a number of different forms of American entertainment avenues – music, tv shows, movies; this all adds up to an influx of English words being added into the Korean vocabulary.  Although you may not recognize it at first, but many of the words used in South Korea are actually just a “Koreanized” version of the English word.  For example, the word Party is pronounced “pa ti” in Korean.  Another example is the word restaurant which has been “Koreanized” to “res toe rang”.  After becoming more familiar with the Korean alphabet and language, “Koreanizing” English words just becomes second nature.  There are several sounds that exist in English that don’t exist in Korean (ie. F and V) and once you realize that F sounds are also substituted by Ps and V sounds are substituted by Bs, you are on your way to mastering the very first level of Korean.

6. Learn to read Hangul – This was probably the smartest thing that I did in Korea and it helped me immensely once I learned how to read and write Hangul.  What is Hangul you ask?  It is the Korean alphabet developed in the 15^thcentury one of Korean’s most famous historical figures – King Sejong.  Prior to Hangul, Koreans were using Chinese characters, but King Sejong had the foresight to realize that a better system was required, as Chinese and Korean are dramatically different and functionality just wasn’t being maximized.  Basic hangul is probably one of the easiest alphabets to learn.  14 consonants and 21 vowel combinations later, you are ready to start making groupings and words.  I won’t get into the details of it here, but as a basic example:

          호      =        H
          ㅏ      =        A                     
          ㄴ      =        N        
          ㄱ      =        G
          ㅜ      =        U
          ㄹ      =        L

    Put the first 3 characters together and you get 한 (Han)
    Put the next 3 characters together and you get굴 (Gul)
    Put both words together and you get한굴 (Hangul)

All Korean words are a combination of between 2-4 letters.  Imagine if every     English word was only between 2-4 letters long.  How easy would it be to learn to read English?  I remember meeting 4 year old Korean kids that were already able to read basic words.  By 5, many of them could read fluently.

7. Co-teachers – Depending on where you choose to teach, many places use a co-teaching system and again, depending on the co-teacher you work with, this can mean a couple of different things. My first co-teacher was very active with the lessons and I basically acted as his assistant throughout his lessons.  I was the human tape recorder, used for my pronunciation and not much else.  My second co-teacher was much more willing to share the load and she would start the lesson and then I would take over and she would only step in if the students were confused and needed a Korean explanation.  I’ve heard of other co-teachers who completely leave the room and allow the Native Teacher to run the entire lesson, so go in there with an open mind and just talk to your co-teacher if you have ideas on how you would like to run the lessons.  However, keep the Korean hierarchy system in mind when speaking with your co-teacher.

This is some basic advice on how to adapt more quickly into a new environment. Hopefully some of these tips will better equip you in making your decision on whether to take the leap into experiencing a different culture and country.