So You Wanna Teach In English In Korea Pt. 2

Last time I covered the initial stages of your application up until the part where you’re actually accepted. Now comes the hard and tedious bit; getting your documentation in order. You’re gonna want a convenient place to photocopy or print for this step because you’ll be going through a lot of paper and copying everything in triplicate. 

These are the documents that you’ll need to get:

1) Copy of birth certificate

2) Police background check

3) Copy of degree conferred

4) Sealed university transcripts that show your GPA/WAM 

5) TESOL/TEFL/CELTA certificate

6) All the documents EPIK needs you to fill out and sign

 This is the vital part. Documents 1-3 need to be notarised, that’s notarised, not certified but notarised by a notary official. A JP is not sufficient here. If you Google “notaries (location)” you’ll find a list (they’re all solicitors) and they should be charging you about $50 per document. If you live in the North Shore I can recommend a nice Korean solicitor. 

Once you have these three documents notarised, you’ll need to then make a trip to your nearest apostille department. For Sydney, this is the Department of Foreign Affairs. You will need to give them more money for this service. In the end, documents 1-3 alone will probably cost you in the area of $300 in total. Hope you’ve got money saved up somewhere!

For document 4), my university (UNSW) didn’t offer transcripts that featured a WAM on them. Thanks a lot for nothing UNSW you motherf….ahem. I had to get faculty specific transcripts that showed my WAM and convince my coordinator that they could be correctly cross referenced with my sealed transcripts. Oh yeah, a copy of your transcripts will cost money too, oh joy.

Meanwhile, while you’re doing all this, it’s time to start finding a place that can give you a TESOL/TEFL/CELTA. You can go cheap, you can go expensive. My personal belief is that I may want to do this as a job back home in Sydney so I want a decent, nationally recognised award. A friend I know found her course on Groupon for $60. Personally I think that’s a little too cheap but hey, whatever you need to get the job done for EPIK.

Once you’ve gathered your pack of documents, and believe me, there will be a lot of paper everywhere so have paperclips and bulldog clips and folders and sleeves ready to sort everything out, it’s time to mail them to Seoul. I wouldn’t cheap out here, especially after all the hard work you’ve done to get these documents in order. You don’t want them to be lost enroute to Korea. Pay for courier/next day delivery and inform your coordinator as to when they can expect the paperwork.

If all goes well and they like the look of all your paperwork, it’s time to start looking for flights (once orientation dates have been confirmed) and to start packing and saying goodbye to everyone.

So that’s it! Whilst I’m sure this might sound simple, there are many pitfalls along the way, some obvious, some not obvious at all. Luckily EPIK will give you about 2 months to get everything sorted out so you will have plenty of time to sort out any issues. 

If you’re interested in getting to Korea to teach, EPIK is probably one of the most straight forward and legitimate ways to get here. Good luck!

So You Wanna Teach English In Korea Pt. 1

It seems like it’s every foreign teacher’s duty to start a blog and go over all aspects of applying to teach English in Korea. This is a good and bad thing. It’s good because you can read fresh perspectives each year on how the “scene” is changing from year to year. It’s bad because you find yourself reading the same stuff over and over again without really learning anything new. Also the blogs never really seem to answer your exact questions because they all seem to be “hi I’m X and this was my experience within the first week/month here in Korea” without stating any real objective facts so I’ll try and keep this as snappy and as factual as possible and cover all the stages of the application process, the interim period between getting appointed and getting on the plane and finally when your feet set down on Korean soil.

Step 0: Practical Considerations

First thing’s first. Do you have the time, patience, money, and drive to actually undertake this journey? I’ll break down each of these factors.

Time: The period from when you first start filling in the “name” section of the first form to when you finally land at Incheon Airport can be about 4-5 months. You’ll also need to be able to visit places during business hours so you can get your affairs sorted. If you’re working a full time job, it can be hard to find the time to go anywhere else.

Patience: And you’re gonna need all those months because you’re gonna be obtaining a lot of documents in the meantime if you’ve never taught before like me. A Criminal Background Check, Birth Certificate and your degree all need to be obtained, notarised and then apostilled. You will also need to pay for a TESOL course. All these documents take time to produce. If your vocabulary is currently being expanded as you read this, don’t worry, all these things will be explained.

Money: I hope you’ve got some savings or you’re in a job that you can leave at short notice once you know that you’ve been accepted because you’re gonna need a bit of it in order to finance these documents not to mention pay for all the associated bits and bobs that comes with having to move overseas.

Drive: Finally, you’ve got to have the drive to see things through once you commit to it. Even after you’ve gotten the congratulatory email there are still many pitfalls to fall into and it can be as innocuous as losing your passport after you’ve obtained your visa and thus making you ineligible to come because even though you can expedite a passport reprint, you can’t expedite the visa process.

Ok, ready to go into more detail?

Step 1: The Application Form

For help with the application form, Google is your best helper here. Everything is pretty self-explanatory up until the personal essay and the sample lesson plan.

Personal Essay: Be honest, write succinctly but write passionately and make them believe that you are actually committed to teaching, especially if you’re coming from a field that isn’t related to teaching. Talking about any previous visits to a foreign country can help here.

Sample Lesson Plan: Google and find an outline online but apply your own subject idea and exercises. Also, justify why you do what you do at each step. A line or two will suffice and it shows that you are thinking critically about what the students gain from the game or vocabulary you are planning to teach.

Step 2: The Skype Video Interview

Hopefully your application passed muster and you were invited to do a Skype video interview. This is definitely the biggest make or break moment in the whole process because you’re gonna have to say enough and be articulate enough in order to convince the interviewer that you’re great for the job. All the usual tips for how to conduct a video interview apply here so I won’t bother rehashing them (if you don’t know, Youtube for some tips). You can also find quite a few example questions online too if you Google “EPIK Interview Questions”. Two questions that I got asked will be highlighted here as they certainly required me to be on my toes and actually articulate my reasons for doing this.

I noticed that you graduated/worked as a (insert non-teaching related field here). Why do you want to be a teacher?

I can’t answer this one for you. Just make sure your thoughts are in order and your reasons are fairly good i.e. don’t say you’re doing it just so you can have a paid holiday.

So because you graduated/worked as a (insert non-teaching related field here), what do you think you can bring that makes you a better choice over the other people who are applying and do have teaching qualifications and experience already?

This is definitely a tough one and so you’ll need to highlight something about your job that can be applicable to teaching. Because I am/was an engineer and was aware that when teaching in Korea, the expat is usually joined by a Korean co-teacher, I pointed out that as an engineer, I was used to working in a team in order to achieve an end goal whereas other regular teachers would be more used to working alone and not used to having a partner to teach the class with. I think my answer had quite a good point and my interviewer probably agreed with me cause otherwise I wouldn’t be here typing this.

Hopefully your interview goes well and after a few weeks (this is where the patience bit comes in) you’ll get a nice shiny email in your inbox saying you actually passed and can start the gruelling and expensive process of getting your documentation in order…but those details can wait for Pt. 2 of this series of posts.

A New Adventure Begins!

If you have come from my other blog, Man Goes To Eat then allow me to extend to you the warmest of welcomes. Unfortunately my first person will be a slight rehash of the other post as a) it’s 1am right now and b) I’m lazy. 

If you stumbled here from god knows where on the internet then by all means, you’re also welcome to stay. This blog will be used to chronicle the adventures of this man as he attempts to eke out an existence in Korea for a year. There will be lessons learned, customs questioned and posts about children saying the darndest things as they learn English. 

Here are the top questions I seem to inevitably get when they first find out that I’ll be doing this.

Q: Where will you be teaching?

A: In Seoul but I won’t know until I get there. Seoul is a big city and it’s like me saying that I’m going to be teaching in Sydney which might mean anywhere between Campbelltown and Bondi Junction.

Q: Will you have your own place?

A: Yes, a studio apartment all to myself.

Q: What years are you teaching?

A: Elementary (my dear Watson).

Q: Are you excited/nervous/sad/happy?

A: I do, on occasion, express the aforementioned emotions.

Q: I hear Korea is very hot/cold.

A: Whilst that is not a question, a quick trip to Wikipedia can turn your hearsay into actual fact so yes, Korea can be very hot or very cold.

Q: You should totally blog about the food there!

A: Again, not a question but you’re right, I should and will be blogging about the food there! Korean food blog posts will be published both here and back on Man Goes to Eat.

Q: Can I stay at your place?

A: Do I know you? If so, yes, come by and visit! You can sleep on my floor. If not, get to know me first and then I’ll think about it.

Right now I’m two days away from flying so stay tuned for many more updates as they happen.