Post: #26

Even though Korea doesn't massive appeal to me as a travel destination let alone somewhere to live the free plane ticket, housing and well paid and easy to find job is tempting because once I'm done teaching there I could take off to China / SE Asia with some of the money I've saved.

What's the typical contract in Korea? Wouldn't mind comitting to 6 months but not a year to begin with.

Are Korean students easy enough to teach and get on with? I imagine them being very studious and quiet but possibly a bit boring to teach. What about the other Korean teachers, generally welcoming on a foreigner or not?

Post: #27

For the most part there is only 1 yr contracts in Korea.

I suppose you could break it though.

Kindergarden can be alil tiring, but the rest is ok.

I cant imagine being in the states for another yr, soo im in the process of getting my documents ready and hired in S. Korea for August.

Post: #28

August is the month when school starts up / best time to get hired?

Post: #29

Is it a must to have a bachelors degree to get a teaching job in Korea?

Post: #30

If you are willing to give up your flight reimbursement and your one month severance pay then you might be able to secure a 6 month contract with some employers. Namely the ones who own your housing and therefore wouldn't need to negotiate a 6 month lease on your behalf.

However, visa's are still a bit of trouble for employers, and so you might have to find one who is advertising for such a position.

You can break a contract early if you want to burn your bridges in Korea. When you break a contract ie: pull a midnight run, I'm pretty sure that you go on some sort of blacklist, at least for working.

Post: #31

(04-12-2011 12:03 AM)JD11 Wrote:  Is it a must to have a bachelors degree to get a teaching job in Korea?

yes

there are countries that are more lax with that but not north Asia, generally.

Try Mexico.

Post: #32

teaching english in south america could be fun and rewarding, but it pays shit. it's very hard to make a living as an english teacher here. in japan and korea pay and conditions are great, but it's a proper career

very few teachers can stand teaching in korea for more than a year

Post: #33

That's my dillema, I want the fun times and laid back lifestlye of South America but the pay of Japan or Korea. I have no interest in teaching English I just want to live abroad for a while and do it for totally selfish reasons. Going to do a basic TEFL course soon and see how I find that.

Post: #34

(04-12-2011 08:00 PM)Gringo Wrote:  That's my dillema, I want the fun times and laid back lifestlye of South America but the pay of Japan or Korea. I have no interest in teaching English I just want to live abroad for a while and do it for totally selfish reasons.

Yeah, that's everyone's dilemma. Think of it as a direct lesson in labor economics. If a cool place to live paid well, then everyone would go there and drive wages down. So, it wouldn't pay well for long.

Only shitty jobs; jobs in shitty places; and hard to train for jobs pay well in any profession. Otherwise, too many people want the jobs and the wages go down.

If you just want a live abroad experience, then I STRONGLY suggest that you avoid North Asia. Especially now that Japan is fucked. After one year in South Korea, I promised myself that I would never again go and work in any one country just for the money. Its just not worth it.

That being said, some people LOVE S Korea and permanently expatriate there. Its about the individual. However, there is a strong current of dislike for the country in the ESL teacher community, for various reasons which I tend to view as small but cumulative annoyances that add up to a potentially shitty experience. Some of that is what S Korea lacks as much as what it possesses that is annoying. When you're dealing with a shitty situation and there is no tropical beach, bumping foreigner friendly nightlife district, or other amenities to make up for it, then you can quickly get down on the country. The bone numbing winter cold (Siberian winds) is another factor. Before S. Korea, I hadn't been aware that I could feel cold that deep in my bones.

I have a suggestion but I won't post it here due to not wanting to feed the market mechanism above described. If you want, you can PM me. My suggestion isn't for a well paying secret paradise that no one knows about, but rather the best bet for a person with your goals, who MAY want to make some money after a year or so of getting acclimated.

If you want to teach in South America, then you can easily do so and live well by local standards. You can do this almost anywhere in the world. Where it gets tricky is when you want to save money. The thing is, the only country's that are even remotely worth going to for money are South Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. The other countries, while some may allow you to save a little more or less than the other, provide so little savings potential that its not worth to choose one over the other due to small differences in savings.

Therefore, unless your going to Japan, South Korea, or the Middle East, just resign yourself to living a subsistence lifestyle with any incidental savings being icing on the cake. You should choose purely on where you want to go based on lifestyle, culture, and the ability to get enough work to live stress free; but not on the ability to save.

This perspective should help you to make the right decision about where you want to go. The better the country is, and the more fun that you have, the less you will notice your subsistence level pay. If you want to save, then put your head down and do your time. And, yeah, girls can make your time a little better anywhere. But they aren't a reason to justify a country, as they are available everywhere except the middle east. And pussy isn't going to right a bad situation, and it can potentially add to it.

Post: #35

(04-12-2011 08:00 PM)Gringo Wrote:  That's my dillema, I want the fun times and laid back lifestlye of South America but the pay of Japan or Korea. I have no interest in teaching English I just want to live abroad for a while and do it for totally selfish reasons. Going to do a basic TEFL course soon and see how I find that.

You can have fun in S.Korea, unless you are just completely unattractive to asian women. Hell even then there is enough american and european girls there to bang.

You could work there a yr and save some good coin then take 6 months off to go travel S America when ur contract is up!

Post: #36

I've sent you a PM hydrogonian.

Quote:If you want to teach in South America, then you can easily do so and live well by local standards.

I don't know I did a bit of research on Brazil, talked to a few companies and schools about what they paid, spoke to a few people who teach English out there and it seemed the level of pay was quite low compared to living standards and the amount of hours of work available per week wasn't enough by any means to live even comfortably. I'd need a lot of savings to sustain even a normal lifestyle out there from what I have gathered. And Brazil would be my number one country, I love it!

Post: #37

Quote:I don't know I did a bit of research on Brazil, talked to a few companies and schools about what they paid, spoke to a few people who teach English out there and it seemed the level of pay was quite low compared to living standards and the amount of hours of work available per week wasn't enough by any means to live even comfortably. I'd need a lot of savings to sustain even a normal lifestyle out there from what I have gathered. And Brazil would be my number one country, I love it!

From what I know, that is accurate. I should have qualified my statement and been more specific.

The best countries to go for work in S. America are: Ecuador, Colombia, and Chile.

I would pick Ecuador or Colombia.

Argentina and Brazil are Difficult. The others I would think are even worse, but I'm not sure.

You might be able to hustle toward a living in Uruguay, but its a small country with a small market.

You can make a living in Mexico as well, if you aren't bent on S. America specifically.

Post: #38

Brazil definitely wouldn't be too easy, almost impossible to get a work visa so working illegally, poor pay, minimum hours, high cost of living BUT the lifestyle if you could survive would be great.

Post: #39

I came across this blog post, which has a pretty good summary of the pros and cons of a lot of the popular countries to teach. It seems helpful:

http://www.myseveralworlds.com/teach-and...tinations/

Post: #40

Thanks I shall have a look.

Post: #41

It is real simple when it comes to basic ESL.

Asia/Middle East - Money

South America/Europe - Fun & Girls (you can still have fun in SoKo no doubt, just mainly most guys are more attracted to SoAm and Europeans)