Back in April I wroe about the “English Village” where children are provided with a simulated English immersion environment. My basic take on it, was that it was overly ambitious and not likely to succeed. In a Dave’s ESL Cafe thread on user details the pro’s and cons Dancing likea Monkey at SEoul English Village. While I would never work in a place like this, because I cannot teach kids without going crazy some teachers may be interested.

In my earlier post I compared it to a theme park and further down the Dave’s thread JongnoGuru does as well:

It sounds like a Monkey Petting Zoo to me. As it happens, the wife of an American I know told me she applied for a job at one of these Boring-School-Subject-Recast-as-“Fun”-Theme-Parks, and she was turned down. Why? She said the people who interviewed her (the family lives here in Seoul) told her she didn’t look the part. Now, she does look vaguely Hispanic, as many Americans do, but you certainly wouldn’t know that from how she speaks.

Being turned away from this position, because you don’t look the part isn’t surprising. It is a theme park afterall. Additionally many hagwons will not hire a teacher who is not attractive.

I’ve added the pro’s & con’s from the Daves thread to the extended entry.

For those of you who may not know Seoul English Village is one of the first English immersion programs in Korea. It is funded by the Seoul city government and managed by Herald media.

My main point in this posting is to let teachers who are considering working for Seoul English Village know some of the positive and negative aspects of working here. Although we have had about 10% of our teachers leave, in 7 months, because they don’t like it here, I am not trying to bash SEV. I just want the facts out there for other teachers to see. I’ve been working here since the grand opening in late November 2004, and any teacher considering this school should be informed of some of the common highlights and problems of working here.

Pros:

1. Getting paid on time isn’t usually a problem.
2. There is a large amount of freedom for each teacher to develop their own curriculum for each class. For example you may teach Bus Terminal class, but how exactly you do that is mostly up to the teachers. Some classes have more flexibility than others of course.
3. You change classes every 4 weeks. If you get a bad class you might get a good one after 4 weeks.
4. There are lots of fun facilities that teachers can use in their off time not to mention getting to teach in them (like pool hall, movie theatre, 3 karaoke rooms, cooking classroom), although you do have to give 48 hours notice to management before using a classroom after hours.
5. I find the interaction with the students (mostly 5th and 6th graders), the most fulfilling part of the job. Much of the job is role-playing and acting, and if you get a kick out of that you’ll love the actual work aspect of this job. This really is the core selling point for working here: it really can be great fun teaching many of the classes (like Magic, Police Station, Hospital, X-Box, Pool Hall, Monopoly, and a few others).
The hours aren’t bad. depending on what class you are teaching and whether you share it with another teacher you would teach a maximum of 26 hours per week and as little as 11.
6. The students are usually very excited to be here, so you don’t have to twist many arms to get them to have fun.

Cons:

1. If you don’t like a lot of attention from media and children you might not like this job. Camera news crews are fairly common, and will waltz into your classroom and film you while you are teaching, although this is less the case now than it was near the beginning. The students will often mob you if you are nice to them, whether you are on or off duty, its like being a celebrity.
2. Teaching skill doesn’t go to far here since there is hardly any actual teaching here. It is basically acting, role-playing, and supervision. (there is about 4-5 hours per week of what amounts to babysitting. For those incline toward drama, acting or babysitting, this point could be a pro)
3. You don’t really have a chance to get to know the students. They are here for only one week, and you get each of 25 teams of 12 students for one maybe two 45 minute periods.
4. You will be lucky to make 2,000,000, and airfare, only a couple of the current teachers have gotten that although that is what is being currently advertised as starting pay. Most of the other English villages pay at least 2,500,000.
5. You live in a dormitory room sharing a bathroom with one other room. These living conditions are not too bad if you are used to living in a dorm environment with limited privacy and constant contact with your coworkers.
6. There are no cooking facilities (unless you count a communal toaster oven and a microwave), although weekday meal are provided in the cafeteria. It is possible to use the cooking classroom if you know two days in advance that you want to cook something.
7. The food in the cafeteria is edible and occasionally very tasty although often not very healthy. Half of the meals are Korean and the other half are “western”. (they do have mashed potatoes!!! if you like that)
8. We are often treated like trained monkeys (but if you like being a monkey maybe you wouldn’t mind so much).
9. Their are still a few bugs in the system. As with any new institution the program is in constant flux in attempts to better the program. This can be stressful if you like consistency.
10. Teachers often have to take matters into their own hands when suggesting changes or modifications to classes or to other teacher related issues.
11. Five 15 minute morning meetings, and one 30 minute friday meeting per week, which often become venting sessions for frustrated staff.
12. Having to constantly be in contact with your co-workers. This is a problem when you are trying to enjoy your life and other disgruntled teachers will not cease complaining to you until you jump on their band wagon of rage and revolution. This has the effect of self imposed exile out of fear that you will be accosted by angry mobs ready to lay siege to the management’s offices. (I suppose this is more of a comment on the close living quarters than a about the actual people here)
13. There are no internet connections in the rooms, only large communal areas with virus ridden computers. Internet is available in the rooms for an extra $US40 per month with a one year commitment.
14. Being such a large project, organization is a constant problem; if you are a perfectionist you might be a bit put off. Wait a few years…
15. You are expected to stay on campus for your full 8 hours per day, regardless of how few classes you have that day. (This doesn’t bother me too much since I signed a contract that states I am to be here 8 hours per day regardless of class load).
16. There is a rather strict visitor’s policy, which states that they can only stay until 11pm on nights when the children are on campus and 1am on weekends and holidays. (This is somewhat understandable since the students do stay here, although that doesn’t make the rule more convenient when you want to invite a friend or two over for a late movie)
17. Since there are many changes that often happen in regards to policies and the program, don’t be surprised if things don’t end up exactly like you were told. Even seasoned veterans of English teaching sometimes forget to carefully read the contract BEFORE accepting the job.
18. Although I know that it is common in Korea, the way the Korean staff get treated compared to the foreigners is really hard to watch.
19. Security cameras in all the halls and most of the classrooms. This being a single instance of the lack of privacy that SEV teachers have to get used to. If you value your privacy beware!

There are a many other small issues that many instructors here might have, but I will leave it to them to discuss here, as I have touched on most of the major issues to me.

Overall points to consider:

1. If you are not flexible and open minded to a constantly changing work environment and work schedule you will probably not like this job.
2. If you don’t like being treated like a trained monkey, you might not like this job.
3. This really isn’t a teaching job, it is more of a combination of role-playing, drama, and babysitting. If you think you will like that then this job might be for you.

If you think that the pros outweigh the cons then you might want to seriously consider the job, if not save yourself and others the trouble and look elsewhere. If you are undecided and money is an issue at all, look to one of the other English villages.
I hope this was in some way helpful to you or at least provided some useful information.

There is also a report on that thread of one teacher whose students attended the English Village and thoroughly enjoyed it.

A couple of months ago about 7 of my best students went to Seoul English Village. They absolutely loved it. I think it was the highlight of their life up until now. They wouldn’t stop talking about it for at least a week. As they knew I was leaving the hagwan shortly they started demanding I go work at SEV because its such a fantastic place, and they will be going back again next year.

Anyway, from the sounds of Monkey’s post, I think I will skip my students advice and not apply there. On the positive side Monkey, you and the rest of the teachers are making the children very happy.