CU Grads Teaching Overseas

Many Concord students are looking for an interesting job experience after graduation, but not many search for an experience overseas. Robert Jessee and Tyler Farley, both Geography major graduates of 2015, decided to try teaching English in South Korea.

    Before choosing South Korea, Robert was considering teaching in Russia, Thailand, and Brazil, while Tyler was looking at South Korea from the start. After a talk with geography professors and a Concord University student from South Korea, they found teaching positions in Gimpo City about twelve miles from Seoul. They both work for Avalon Language Institute - a private school attended by students in addition to their regular schools. Robert and Tyler teach English for students from fourth grade to high school.

    “South Korea is actively recruiting native English speakers to teach English in schools. Our Geography degrees and the international friends we made at Concord helped us find these jobs. But there are recruitment agencies for people with Bachelor’s degrees to find jobs”, says Robert. Tyler and Robert found their job openings online. Tyler had found a job at Avalon Language Institute first, and then Robert looked for openings at the same school and had no problems finding it.  Anyone who is interested in experience of teaching abroad might want to check these two websites: eslcafe.com and eslpark.com because they are the ones Robert and Tyler used to land their jobs.

    Robert finds the job easy, “we just teach English out of a book and do activities with the kids”. However, the work culture in South Korea is very different from the United States. “They expect a lot from the average worker when compared to the U.S.”, says Robert. “You go in early and leave late without extra pay. And if they ask you whether you want to work an extra day or pick up an extra class you are expected to say yes. It’s not hard, far from it. But I don’t have much control or say about what days or hours I work. I have a set schedule but it changes if they ask me to pick up a Saturday class, etc. It’s just an Eastern mentality”. Robert thinks he gets paid for such an unstable schedule rather well.

The most exciting part of the experience for Robert is experiencing a completely different culture every day, and facing the challenges of trying to adapt to it. He believes it is not too difficult once you learned to recognize some Hangul (the alphabet). Living in such a big city is new to Robert, but people are very polite and always ready to help. Robert says that “most of what I’ve seen of Korea though is very similar to the US. People are more polite and the area is generally much safer”. He thinks that the most interesting Korean tradition is learning how to address someone formally and informally and how it has a major interaction on everyday speech patterns. “You need to learn very fast how to address certain people if you don’t want to seem rude”, Robert says.

“My favorite story so far”, recalls Robert, “Is playing cards at a little restaurant that a friend I’ve made owns and with Tyler, and having very drunk non-English speaking Korean and his friend sit down and play cards with us. It was fun trying to communicate with him. We played cards together for about thirty minutes and then he politely got up, tried to order us drinks and then left”.  Robert believes that South Korea is amazing and he is planning to try to renew his visa for one more year. He says he would congratulate anybody on coming there and recommended them to learn some of the alphabet and how to greet and thank people formally and informally. “That is really all you need to get by here”, he concludes.