Also see:  Korean School Franchises

As in most Asian societies, education in Korea is considered very important. Class sizes in the Korean public system are very large and public school English teachers are not particularly competent. In fact, sometimes they are unable to communicate in English. Most elementary and high school students go to regular public schools in the morning and early afternoon and then attend private institutes in the late afternoon and evening. Some of these private institutes focus on improving students' abilities in all subject areas while others focus on one subject, like English.

There are literally thousands of private institutes that specialize in teaching English to young learners in Korea. Most are part of large, well-established chains; others are small family-owned operations. Usually these schools employ both Korean teachers and native speakers of English, who have been hired on one-year contracts and flown to Korea by the school. Almost all jobs through APC are with these kind of private institutes, called "hakwons" in Korean.

Generally students attend the schools two or three times a week and are taught by both Korean teachers and native speakers. In some schools, the Korean teachers explain grammar points and vocabulary in Korean and English and deal with administrative responsibilities such as contacting parents, and reporting on students' progress. At some schools, the Korean teacher and the native speaker teach the same students on different days and at others, the Korean teacher and the native speaker teach the children on the same day for 45-60 minutes each. A few school chains have only native speakers teaching English. In these schools, Korean support staff are available to deal with issues that can't be handled in English, especially for younger children.

The point of hiring native speakers of English is that they are able to provide a context for genuine communication in English. Knowledge of Korean is unnecessary and, if you do speak any Korean, you shouldn't let your students know this.

Young Learner Schools – Locations and Premises

Korean towns and cities are built as a collection of neighborhoods of varying size. Each neighborhood has a central core of anywhere from one or two square blocks to a square kilometer. In these "downtowns" of the neighborhoods, there is often a pedestrian mall, there are always department stores, supermarkets, cafes, pubs, restaurants, various shops, banks, and one or two language institutes for children. In built-up areas, the schools usually rent a couple of floors of an office building. In smaller cities and less urban areas, there is often have an entire building that has been designed to meet a school's needs. Here are some examples of very different school exteriors.

Layouts, Sizes and Facilities

Smaller language schools in Korea have just one or two foreign teachers and perhaps a few Korean teachers. A school this size may only have two or three classrooms and no teachers' preparation room at all. I would not send someone with no previous experience in Korea to a small school; co-workers who have spent some time in Korea are very important social and knowledge bases for new arrivals. Some of the bigger language institutes have more than 20 foreign teachers and sometimes even more Korean teachers. These schools might have twenty classrooms, an auditorium, and a large teachers' preparation room. An average-sized children's English school in Korea has between five and ten foreign teachers with a roughly equal number of Korean teachers. Usually the part of the school the owners have spent the most money on is the reception area and meeting room (see photos below). These are the areas the parents, who keep the schools in business, see most often.

A medium or large sized language school usually has a "gym" or play area for the children (which often doubles as an auditorium), and a computer room. Younger children sometimes spend four hours or more at the school every day and are engaged in a variety of activities with both Korean and foreign English teachers.

Most schools have a teachers' room as well as a meeting room. Meetings are usually held one a week, or twice monthly, to discuss enrolment outcomes, teaching methods, practical problems, upcoming events, etc. As with any teaching job anywhere, attendance is always mandatory and unpaid. The foreign teachers' level of participation in decision-making really depends on the school owner, the academic director, and the interest level and abilities of the foreign teachers themselves. There are always photocopiers, office supplies, supplementary teaching materials, and computers available for teacher-use. Here are some examples of teachers' preparation rooms.

The classrooms are generally quite small since the class sizes are small. They are normally about a third as big as a regular elementary school classroom in North America, and class size is limited to 12 (or sometimes 10) by almost all of the schools. Some schools assign a foreign teacher a certain classroom, while at others, the foreign teacher moves from room to room between classes. The classrooms rooms always have a whiteboard or a blackboard. Usually, the kids sit around one or two tables.

All the photos on this page are from schools where we have placed teachers. Six or seven different schools are represented here. These photos are show typical school layout and decor; they represent neither the best nor the worst of facilities in Korea. When I first arrived in Korea in 1996, I was genuinely surprised and impressed by how clean and modern the school premises were.