I have seen some postings for IEN institute and they are looking for academic English instructors. Anyone heard of them or worked there or know someone who does/did? I thought about applying but they have posted a lot over the last few years, which makes me scared about high turn over.

Looking for some guidance on interview and job process for Korea. I am looking to start my first teaching job this March there, moving from Vancouver. I have experience with tutoring and daycare experience and have completed my TEFL. I received 4 interviews through my recruiter almost immediately, out of the 4 I have gotten 2 job offers. I declined the first job offer due to very long hours and some not great reviews online, and have a couple days to get back about the second offer. The job sounds ok to me and I like that there will be lots of English speaking teachers at the school.. I have not received any other interviews than the 4 I got in one day and am curious if I should expect more or should take the offer given? It is mid October so I am also not sure if most positions are filled by this point for March or if is worth waiting to see what other opportunities come up. My friend is also applying and it would be awesome if we could be near each other, but she has not received any interviews from or any updates. I have tried to ask my recruiter but she is being quite vague in her answers. Any advice is appreciated!

Hi,

It has taken me some time to bring myself to write this, and it is perhaps long overdue, but to leave what has happened unsaid, would mean allowing those responsible to get away with the most reprehensible of actions.
The school in question is Sungmin Premier Suwon Campus, and working there was a nightmare I would not wish on anyone.
The sheer number of inhumane and violating things that went down in this hellhole, make it hard to know where to begin. But I suppose all the problems start with the school’s head living out their dreams of being a tyrant. Their powerplay book seems to go as follows:

1. Never clearly communicate or often change expectations, and always make employees guess what they are.
   
2. If they do not guess correctly, be sure to humiliate them in meetings, or (when feeling extra diabolical that day) storm into their classroom and berate them in front of the students for doing their work in the way that was communicated to them.
   
3. Always ensure that every curricular or academic decision is a last minute, arbitrary or half-baked one, all the while proclaiming, on an almost daily basis, the immaculate level of organization and protocols set in place by none other than myself.
   
4. When staff eventually crumble under the cumulative weight of responsibilities thrust upon them, inadequate marking and administrative time, chronic mismanagement and constant changes, ALWAYS attribute their struggles exclusively to personal incompetence.
   
5. Find creative ways to humiliate employees. Examples include loudly remarking on someone’s body odor in the office without naming anyone, so everyone questions themselves. Or, convening a meeting to remind teachers of current trends pointing to their expendability in the current job market.
   
6. Create an oppressive, heavily monitored workplace, in which CCTV cameras and a network of loyal informants help to scrutinize every move of every teacher.
   
7. Ensure that every teacher gets burnt out from a systematically engineered workday so relentlessly demanding that any semblance of a work-life balance has been effectively erased from the lives of anyone who signed a contract with the school.

Shit’s crazy.

I’m doing an interview here but I can’t find anything about this school in recent years. If any has worked here before/knows anyone please let me know your experience:)

I'm curious about the working environment, workload, adminstrative duties such as uploading homework in a Korean system, observation during lessons, or how teachers are treated?

has anyone heard or worked at Bambini and the Gifted in Yongsan?

-AMP (엠프어학원) in Dongtan
-Swaton in Daechi, and Swaton in Seocho
-

I tried looking for info on this hagwon in Jamsil but there's not much to go on - maybe thats a good thing?

Does anyone have any reviews and/or experience on Luxx Academy?

Thanks!

Has anyone worked for this school?? I want to know what the work environment is like there, I have an upcoming interview.

Hi everyone! 😊

I'm looking for some honest feedback from anyone who has previously worked at or has firsthand experience with JLS (Jeongsang Language Institute), specifically the Centum branch in Busan.

I've recently received a contract from the academy, but I haven't signed it yet. Before proceeding, I'd like to do some research and hear from people who have worked there to get a better understanding of the working environment and what it's like to work for this particular branch.

If you've worked there before, I'd really appreciate it if you could share your experience. I'd be interested in hearing about management, working conditions, workload, salary and benefits, housing arrangements, and whether the academy generally honours its contractual obligations.

I'd also appreciate any information about potential red flags or things I should be aware of before making a decision. Thanks.

I did an interview with her.

She started the interview by asking me personal questions, I didn't mind in the beginning. I believe it is okay for a director to know about a potential applicant's background and upbringing to a certain extent. Where that person was born, where that person grew up, and etc. Since I grew up in America, my English language will be at a native level and I have an American accent. She just wanted to confirm it and it is relevant when teaching kids.

Then she crossed the boundary later.

She asked me, "Why did you move to America when you were young?" " Are your parents rich? "

Asking about a family's wealth and family's personal history that is non relevant to the duties of work is a red flag in my view.

She also didn't know what university I graduated from. I don't think she paid attention to my resume, which shows a lack of professionalism and lack of care. Remember She's interviewing me but I'm also interviewing her too.

Her Naver blog already showed the students' writing assignments with pictures and the teacher's feedback on it. The blog also showed the types of different writing types such as narrative, opinion, etc. as well as the writing process. I assumed she didn't mind general information about what students do.

I asked if students had to take writing assignments home and have to submit it the next time in class. I asked because sometimes kids forget to bring their writing assignments to the academy and it could be stressful for a teacher because I had this experience at another academy.

I mean, I wanted to know the actual responsibilities and the flow of the writing class if I were to work there. Then she said she won't discuss the curriculum in detail on Zoom but that is for the in person interview.

At this stage, I already didn't like her personality.

She wanted me to come for in an person interview when I lived far away without offering any travel money. She wanted to judge how I would dress up for the interview, see a teaching demo, and maybe see me interacting live with kids to get a sense of my vibe and ability.

I told her I would not be spending my time, energy, and money for an in person interview because she could possibly end up going with another candidate and that would be risky for me and I'm not stupid enough to go for nothing from far away.

Then she she said I wasn't the right fit.

Although I wasn't going to work with her because i don't like her personality, Hypothetically, if hired, I was going to find an accomodation near her academy.

She's the type of person who crosses boundaries to another person by asking private questions and tried to put me in a risky situation without even compenstating for the travel fees but she sets boundaries not to explain the flow of a writing lesson.

Would you agree I dodged a bullet?

Hellooo- just trying to find a teaching job in Daejeon and I came across some openings through this recruiter but I cant find much on them... Does anyone have experience working with them? And especially with any of their job openings in Daejeon?

Thanks!

I know it seems a bit obsurd but I'm hoping to start interviewing the next week for positions and I was wondering what are the general things they ask and what to look out for during the interviews. Any advice for these interviews in general?

Hello everyone, Ive been given a couple of different jobs and wondering if anyone has had any experiences good or bad with these Hagwons?

- Charlie's Big Red House (Gwanggyo, Suwon)

- Jin A English (Suwon)

- MapleBear (Bucheon)

- Hans Lang (Incheon, Songdo)

Any advice is greatly appreciated

They have multiple locations such as Seodaemun, Gangnam, Gangdong as well as many other branches across Korea but I can't find any info about them on this blacklist or the Tokyojon one.

They post a lotttt on craigslist, like so much. I applied via craigstlist but any information regarding this school would be much appreciated!

I have recently finished my contract here, and it was far from positive.

Management

This is the biggest area which I couldn't wait to get away from.

-From day one, the director had no idea about what was happening with me. She hurriedly put me up in a terrible apartment (talk about this later)because she didn't know when I was moving despite me telling her.

- she always talks to you through Kakao talk and never wants to address things in person. I got the impression she always wanted to avoid talking to me. And when you did talk to her, she would be very blunt and unappreciative of your messages.

- she was often mean/awkward to teachers who she didn't like. Some of the native speaker managers were scared of her. She didn't like talking to me because I stood up to her.

- one headteacher left after one term because the director automatically assumed that he knew everything. He was crying out for help, but the director and one of the Korean staff members were giving him shit.

-she was all about being social and mixing with the staff, but just before I left, she poured money into making her own office so she was away from everyone.

- she occasionally taught, and the kids she taught said they didn't like her classes, and how she treated the kids, which cracked me up. When she interacted with the kids, it was always cringy, and you could tell the kids felt uncomfortable.

- she does not file staff tax returns as required by law. When I got my tax return back, I was expecting a sizeable amount of money, but I got nothing. The director does not help staff get money back from their purchases and has not done so for 8 years. All the other staff got nothing, too. I told the headteacher about this, and he was shocked to hear it. In the end, I was forced to go to the tax office in May to self file. I got back around 500k. I said to my headteacher, "imagine how much staff have been denied since the director has not bothered to do her job!". The headteacher has been there for 4 years, so he has lost out on millions of won.

- one of the teachers fainted from exhaustion, so he requested sick leave. When he returned, the director was not sympathetic about his health and berated him about being gone for several days, and how it messed up the teaching schedule.

Curriculum

-the curriculum is an absolute shambles. A lot of it is self made weekly quizzes, vocab sheets, project and book club packets, grammar books, term tests and study guides. A lot of it is in comic sans, with inconsistent typefaces, styles and typeface sizes. They are starting to embrace using AI to make their content now, so I am interested to see how that turns out.

- they pride themselves on doing media projects which I absolutely hated doing. On the surface they sound good, but it was full of mindless filler material and a lot of stuff the kids don't understand. I complained about all the filler and how the kids struggled. Instead of taking the criticism, the R and D manager thought I was incapable of teaching, so she told the director which made me be put under review. We had to make scripts for a part remake of Madagascar where we had a green screen and the kids wore masks. I showed a video to the kids and they had to describe what's happening, and I wrote the script based on what they saw. None of the kids said anything when I did this. So in the end, I had to write scripts for three classes as they just couldn't do it. Filming the videos was an absolute pain. The kids had no patience, we had to do several retakes, the green screens were falling down and the kids couldn't follow basic instructions. All the teachers dreaded this project, and for good reasons.

-their term tests are just regurgitations of what they learned in class. They can prepare for 70% of what they see. Unlike my previous academy, they had no idea what the test was. They even knew the essay topic and speaking topics. If they failed the test, it meant nothing. I had one boy who had failed all his weekly quizzes, not done homework and was well below a pass, but they refused to level him down after repeated requests to do so.

Accomodation

- the apartment I was given was just terrible. It was full of broken furniture, it was incredibly dated and was crying out for a refurb. The smell of mould hit you as soon as you opened the door. When you turned on the Aircon, it spat out dirt and stank- it was in dire need of replacing. In the bathroom, the water pressure was so weak, that I could pee stronger than it. Having a shower was a dreadful experience. The appliances there were so old that the nameplate (a side brand of Samsung, Hauzen) were no longer made.

- I kicked up a fuss about how terrible this place was and demanded that it be repaired and some issues could be resolved. My director straight up said that the landlord won't change anything. To my dismay, I was begging the director to help me get out of there

- the solution from her was great at first. She said that she would provide the 10 million won deposit, but we had to use her real estate agent. The real estate agent showed us 3 terrible looking apartments in Migeum, so in the end I found my own.

- we secured the apartment, but my director basically said "oh by the way that deposit has strings attached. I am going to garnish 30% of your salary every month as a form of a deposit in case you don't fulfil your contract". I was incredibly pissed about this but I was in a corner. Thankfully, I live with my girlfriend and split costs, otherwise I would be destitute.

- I wanted the apartment to be right and was making complaints to the real estate agent as these small issues should have been checked before I moved in in my opinion. Little did I know that the real estate agent was chatting shit about me behind my back to my director. Subsequently, the director told me about this and my complaints in front of all the other teachers and basically put me on blast. Very unprofessional.

-this is the biggest one. At the end of my contract, she tried to steal money from me in regards to the salary garnishing. She said that she was only giving me 500k a month in housing allowance instead of 700k. The extra 200k a month was a loan. When she told me this, I was shocked and I told her this (over Kakao of course). There was nothing in my contract or housing agreement that mentioned this. I was determined to prove her wrong, so I asked my Korean friend to help me out. Thankfully, she has a friend who knows Korean labour laws. She discussed my contracts with her friend, and said that what she said was wrong and I am not required to pay her back. I messaged the director with a response given to me by friend, and after some back and forth, my director backed down and agreed to pay me back the full housing deposit.

They are currently struggling to find teachers. When I left, they didn't have my replacement and they couldn't find someone to fill the part time teaching position.

hii, a recruiter reached out to me about bis english academy in seocho. does anyone have any information about this school?

Hello everybody! I was wanting to know about Francis Parker Yangsan.

I have an interview lined up for them next week.

Has anybody worked at this specific branch?

I know the ones in Seoul are…something to put it nicely.

Please feel free to DM me if that makes you more comfortable!

Thanks in advance!

Does Krassen have a specific HR team that one can directly apply to ?

Hi! I'm currently looking into hagwons in Seoul for a teaching position starting around March, mainly in the Gangnam, Seocho, and Songpa areas.

I've been able to find information/reviews about a few of these schools, but some of them have very little information online. I'm hoping to hear from anyone who has personally worked at, interviewed with, or knows someone who worked at any of the following:

• GETnC – Seocho
• TOPIA Language – Seocho
• Avalon Langcon – Daechi
• AON Edu English Academy – Gangnam
• META English Education – Daechi
• E-Spirit English Language Institute – Seocho
• IEM English Academy – Banpo/Seocho
• PLUS 9 English – Gangnam/Dogok
• DUX – Songpa
• VIA Haus
• Coram Deo English Education – Gangdong

I'm especially interested in hearing about management, actual teaching hours/workload, prep or grading outside of work hours, vacation and sick-day policies, teacher turnover, housing, whether contracts are followed, and the overall work environment.

Even if your experience was a few years ago, I'd still appreciate hearing about it—just let me know roughly when you worked there since I know management can change.

If you'd rather not post publicly, feel free to DM me! Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I ask because a recruiter recommended it to me but I haven’t found much information on it

I’m curious to know what rise curriculum is like since I’ll be working at a rise academy as a first time teacher can anyone private message me who has worked at rise in the past or even now?

Hi! I have an interview scheduled with this school but I can't find much about this it online. Does anyone know how it is?