Teacher's Duties / Dress Code
Teacher’s Duties
A general teaching contract in Korea will usually be as follows with naturally some differences from school to school. You will be contracted for 30 teaching hours per week but the majority of teachers will usually teach about 25 hours per in an average week.
There can be some additional duties which you maybe expected to fulfil such as:
- Writing report cards
- Supervising day-trips
- Market days
- Speech competitions
- Student concerts/plays
- Judging English debates
- Supervising examinations
- One-to-One tutoring of students
- Report cards / parent-teacher meetings
- Setting examinations on course work
- Interviewing incoming Korean English Teachers
Teachers can be expected to hand in their lesson plans either the day/week/month before again depending on the school.
You can be asked to do overtime, it is optional and you will be paid for it at the agreed rate in your contract which is generally between 15,000 & 20,000 won per hour.
Classes will generally be less than 12 students and the room may have cameras and speakers in them. This is for your benefit as much as the children's. It can be awkward for the first few classes, but you really do forget about them very quickly.
You will usually team up with a Korean teacher, who will have the class before or after you. The Korean teacher will teach the grammar, forms and structures, while you will teach the conversational, pronunciation side of the language while building their confidence in using the foreign language.
In public schools you may have the Korean teacher in the class with you to assist in classroom management and with explanations.
Dress Code – This varies from school to school, but it is generally acceptable for teachers to wear their casual clothes to work. In rare cases it make be expected for a teacher to wear semi formal clothes (slacks / skirt and a shirt / blouse) but if this is the case you will be notified well before your departure. There is no need for suits and you may find that your school may allow shorts during the summer.
Korea is a relatively conservative country so facial piercing or and uniquely coloured hair will strike them as odd and maybe inconsiderate or inappropriate, so please be aware of this when attaching your photo and when you first arrive in the country.
Generally, Koreans will warm to you individuality very quickly but to bombard them with it on your initial application or your first day will most likely have a counter-productive effect.