— Green Living and Outdoor Travel in Northern Ontario
Working Overseas
Teaching English abroad can be a rewarding experience, though based on what I went through as a second-language English teacher in South Korea, it’s best to be prepared for ups and downs and everything in between! While teaching English was my reason for living abroad in South Korea, it ended up not being a very important part of my experience there. I was unfortunately not at a good school, so there was constant job-related stress.
I was never paid on time, nor in full. I constantly wondered if I would return to my apartment one day to find my stuff piled in the hallway (the school being the renters). It was questionable whether the school would be able to pay for my return flight home, as per my contract. And none of the Korean teachers at the school had been paid in months, so of course they all resented me and weren’t very friendly at all. I don’t blame them! But all this means that I distanced myself emotionally from the situation.
I focused instead on hiking as many of Korea’s national and provincial parks as I could, experiencing local culture, and generally seeing as much of the country as possible. Luckily, it all worked out in the end — for me, at least. Within a year or two of my departure, I heard from some former students with whom I’ve happily kept in touch that the school had closed (frowny face).
But a bad experience is just that. I would certainly consider teaching English abroad again, though I would advise anyone interested in doing it to enquire about the school’s financial health beforehand (winky face).
You can browse the following articles about teaching English abroad.
For a dose of sports and entertainment in Busan, I finally attended a few events over the summer. The soccer game wasn’t at all what I expected, and the movie was way better than I thought it would be. Soccer Match In July, I made it out to a soccer game, Seoul versus Busan. The game was in […]
With only 7.5seven and a half weeks left in Korea, I’m stunned that I’ve never described something that is crucially important: my teaching job here in Busan! After all, teaching is the *primary* reason I’m here. But since you can tell from the post title that I’ve had one of those bad hagweon experiences, I guess I might […]
Getting over the initial culture shock of living in Korea was really hard for me. When I first got here, life was pretty depressing. I was excited to get to a new country and in awe of everything I saw around me. But I was disappointed by Busan — from what I could see, it’s an ugly city. […]
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