UnNamed

Hi,

Just thought I'd add one more school to teh list. I wish I didn't have to do
this.

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Employer:Baek Maeng Ho
Name of Institute: Jungchul Interlab
Address:5th Floor, 821-4 Ponji
Ilgok Dong
Poon Gu
Kwangyonshi, Kwangju
South Korea
Telephone:062 574-0584

My accommodation consisted of what they claimed the Americans
call a studio apartment. In British terms it would be called
a bedsit. My American friends described it as a motel room.
The total area was about 4m x 8m, including a shower/toilet
room (no sink) and, at one end, a section approximately 1.5m
wide was walled off to make a kitchen/laundry area. To be
fair, I was offered a television set, which I declined. Not
out of any desire to snub my boss, but simply because I don't
normally watch much television anyway.

My contract stated that I would have certain specified items
of furniture. I was provided with the specified desk and one
chair 3 weeks after moving in. As I write this, I am still
waiting for the "chairs" mentioned in the contract. I also
believe that, to most Westerners, a 'furnished' apartment
includes a closet. Mine didn't.

One month after I moved in, I was finally told my address,
despite constant requests for such information. At one point,
I was even asked why I wanted to know such information.

They first day I moved in, I asked about a telephone. I asked
at every staff meeting thenafter. Two months into the job, I
finally learnt that my boss "doesn't want me to have a phone".
To be fair, he did offer to arrange for me to pay for a phone
to be installed. I declined. The contract stated that all
utilities would be provided, and at the initial interview for
the job, I was allowed to believe that this included a telephone.
The contract said that the phone bill would be shared if I shared
the accommodation with another teacher. To me, this implies that
the school should provide a telephone. After all, if the telephone
is nothing to do with the school, as my employer insisted, why
would it be mentioned in the contract.

To be fair, they asked me to retype the contract, which I did.
Throughout the process, I clarified the wording with one of
my fellow employees to be, so I feel confident that there is
nothing in the contract which should surprise my employer. At
no point did I pressure him in signing, and he was always free
to hire a professional translator to check my words before he
signed.

I was also allowed to believe at that interview that I could
choose my own books to teach from. He neglected to tell me that
this does not include the right to choose which books NOT to
teach from. I repeatedly stated at that time that I would not
be happy teaching from books that contained large amounts of
Korean text. The books that I was made to teach from contained
large amounts of Korean text, large amounts of spelling mistakes,
grammatical mistakes, and non-standard word-usage. I repeatedly
appealed to his better judgement, and was repeatedly ignored.

Shortly before Christmas, I received news that my grandfather
had died. I wanted some time to grieve, so I went into the school
building to tell them the news. I was asked to work that day, but
I did not. To be fair, the contract stated that I should provide
documented evidence of the fact before I could claim time off,
but I would have thought that the sight of a grown man crying
openly might suggest that the news was genuine.

When I started there, there were three Korean teachers and myself.
Of the Korean teachers, one admitted having no ability to speak
English. One would question the judgement of a man who employs
a teacher who has no effective ability in their field. Also,
another of the Korean teachers did not understand me when I said,
"I didn't know." Now, I know I have a British accent, which most
Koreans are not familiar with, but I must admit that I was both
shocked and disappointed by this failure to understand a basic
sentence.

He paid promptly and in full for the first two months. For this,
I praise him. However, despite the fact that he finally and
begrudgingly acknowledged that he broke the contract first (after
some prompting from a friend of his who was interpreting), he
still refused to pay me for the final month. The day before I
left, I tried to arrange a meeting between the three of us to
come to some kind of compromise, but he refused to even turn up.

I was normally told about an hour before any timetable changes.
At one time, I wasn't told of the timetable changes until *after*
one of my newly scheduled classes has started.

The ideal lesson plan, as I understood my employer's views,
consisted of non-stop "listen and repeat" exercises. True,
I don't have any studies which prove this method to be
invalid, but equally true, I don't wonder why this method was
never demonstrated at my CELTA course. I was criticised several
times for not following this lesson plan.

On Jan 15th, in an effort to recover my passport from Mr Baek,
I went on strike and refused to work, previous more reasonable
efforts having failed. Mr Baek held out for 40 minutes before
giving my passport. In that time, he tried to get me to hand
over the keys to my room, which would give him access to all
my possessions, and he threatened me with violence.

To conclude, as long as you don't mind substandard accommodation,
don't mind pretending to teach, or babysitting, don't mind being
paid below the going rate for teachers in Korea, don't mind physical
violence, don't care if a family member dies back home, don't mind
him holding your passport for any reason or none, don't mind not
getting paid, and don't mind having no contact with fluent
English speakers, you'll do fine there.

If you apply for a job here, you may find that your primary contact
will be one of his Korean teachers, either Ms Moon or Ms Lan. Both
of them seem like good people, but they will follow Mr Baek's
instructions, and it is often very hard or impossible to get
clear information from them. Fabian 3/01