My Korean master is opening a new dojang in Seoul and wants some English native speakers who are WTF black belts to help with the teaching. He wants to be able to offer English teaching alongside taekwondo as he has found many Korean parents are no longer putting their kids into taekwondo because they feel they will need English skills more than taekwondo to succeed at school. I'm sure there must be some taekwondo enthusiasts out there who would like to come to Korea for a few months, maybe students on a gap year, but I'm not sure how to get in touch with them. As it is early days I have no idea how the practicalities of this would work (ie visas, accommodation etc) and this is not a job ad, but I just wondered in principle if there would be much interest in a project like this. What do you think?
For sure. I think the only problem would be if you're targeting students to teach, the cost of airfare is phenominally expensive. There's also the issue of room $ board. Would your master be arranging something for ll of them, or would they be on their own, you know? But overall, I think there would definitely be interest
yes i can see the cost of the airfare could be a problem. i'm sure accommodation could be sorted out fairly easily. Maybe it would appeal to someone learning Korean at uni, or someone wanting to teach English as a foreign language who was planning to come to Korea anyway. I'm not sure what the regular English language Institutes offer to their foreign teachers in the way of flights/accommodation so I guess I need to do some more research. At the moment we are looking for someone who is already in Korea, but so far no luck. There are teachers of English and there are tkd black belts, but there don't seem to be any who want to combine the two.
I am not sure exactly but... It would be easier to recruit within Korea, but it could cause Visa problems. If you are an English teacher on an E-2 visa, you need to get specific permission from the government to work at a place other than your work site, even if volunteering. Recruiting from overseas is difficult because the dojang owner would have to sponsor the person and arrange the visa details. Korea is still pretty closed to foreign workers and the visa details are enforced. If the instructor was paid, the owner would have arrange pension payments, severance pay, and other details. I think tourist visas are good for 90 days... but if you are caught working on a tourist visa, there is a fine and deportation. I found that any foreigner working at English school, going to TKD dojangs, or doing private tutoring (at least in the countryside) were investigated pretty quickly... In my case, I had to be pretty careful as the authorities were watching for illegal private tutoring. I turned down teaching Hapkido classes in English because of the danger of being fined and deported. I taught classes sometimes but didn't make "English" a major component of them and I didn't do "English Martial Arts Terms" classes with them. I was investigated a couple of times just from students talking about the "American at the dojang told me..." for fear that I was doing private lessons. In my opinion, the easiest way would be to have the person listed as a student of the school and teach as part of their training (maybe in lieu of paying for classes). They would need some way to pay for living though, so... ------ Most English teacher contracts include housing, visa sponsorship, and airfare. Korean law requires the employer to pay pension payments, severance pay after 1 year, and medical insurance.
We have a guy from our school who has been in Korea for the past year and is considering staying for another year. he is teaching english as a second language and traing in TKD while he is there. Being he is a black belt he is also assisting in teaching in the dojang. I dont know the details of his visa or anything like that. If not for my military and eduactional responsabilities I would love to do something like this.
Thanks for the insight Thomas, that has given me some things to think about - I can see this might not be as easy as I first thought! Hmmm, maybe I need to watch what I write here if there are investigators around.... The new dojang is now up and running, and at the moment a couple of the women from the 'mums' classes' are helping out with the English side of things as volunteers, but with their own family commitments this is not going to work out as a long term solution. Hybrid - do you think I could get in touch with your friend here to ask if he has any ideas? It could be really helpful for us. Thanks.
I have a cousin already out in Seoul who is trained as a teacher in English, Phys Ed and German. Unfortutanly he dosen't do TKD. But perhaps your master could extend the of teachers slightly to those willing to teach within a context of TKD even if they don't train or if they wanted to then they could give english lessons in return for TKD lessons as has been suggested. The best way is to find someone already in the country with all the clearence needed to work there even if they arn't trained in TKD, sounds like it's the safer route
Reckon he'd be fairly open-minded, provided the teacher concerned really enjoys teaching kids, and is enthusiastic about the project. Feel free to pass on the message to your cousin, I think this is a great opportunity - I would be doing it myself if I didn't have to leave Korea next month !:cry:
