Hi all I just passed module 7 correction and feedback Yipee, one more step on the ladder to teaching.

Ray:) in the UK

Hi! Sorry about late reply i havent been very active on here lately. I am going in 2012 either feb or August if all goes well. EPIK is my number one agency and im applying through ESL starter. But i have other applications in aswell and we shall see how things develop. How about you? Exciting times! :P

Hey, the British visa doesn't take too long, maybe 2 months? It was all a little complicated for me as I'm from Jersey, rather than mainland UK, but I got it all sorted in the end :)

Ohh, sounds like you are super prepared! The thing I would say though, is don't go with too many agencies, it is kinda seen by some employers as disloyal if they get your CV from lots of different places. I would just go with one big one (like footprints) and make sure the rest that you choose operate fairly locally. You won't really improve your job pool that much. Make sure that when they talk to you about sending your CV out that you only let one agency send it to each place. Good luck though! I'm sure it will be great! 

Hey, the city I'm in is actually, by British standards anyways, a pretty big city. It isn't Seoul, and the people here will say it is "almost country", but it is 600,000 people and has a lot of amenities (several cinemas, lots of bars, a few clubs and supermarkets that stock some western products). However, foreigners are still a bit of a novelty. It's a nice city, not the nicest, but it is a good place to live!

Oh, the last thing I wanted to say was don't be too shocked if your appartment isn't ready when you get there. You will probably have to do a little training with the current employee before you start proper and it isn't always them who stays somewhere else. If this is the case though, they should provide you with free accommodation (for example, I stayed at a love motel near the school at my bosses expense, but I have heard of people staying with the boss or with a friend of someone or something like that). It can be a little stressful (I recommend learning to recognise some food names, especially things you might get a 김 밥 shop before you go, so you can order food from these places which are cheap and everywhere, when I got there, I had to eat ramen from the corner store and stuff from a bakery for a few days).

Ohh, I forgot to mention, overtime is normally anything over 30hrs/week OR 120hrs/month (these are sometimes different, and the latter is better!)

I did tonnes of research before I came here, some turned out to be unecessary, but most was vital! Reasearch is always good! In terms of flights, sallary and accomodation;

Sallary: 2.1mil W is the norm unless you have any in Korea teaching experience. If you get more than this, question why (one of my friends works for a terrible company that pay 2.4mil as they expect you to work ALL the time and are generally pretty awful to work for). You should also get half your medical insurance paid and be taxed at 4%. Over time will probably be paid at 18,000-25,000W

Accomodation: Should be provided and furnshed with at least a bed, a stove, a fridge/freezer and a washing machine and probably a TV. Anything else is a bonus, but lots of people (like me) get lucky and they basically get everything the person before had and couldn't flog to a friend at the end of their contract (I got crockery, cutlery, sunglasses, jewelery, towels, chairs, a table, a sofa, a microwave, shampoo, conditioner, toilet roll, bedding, food, stationary, a chest of draws, an extra wardrobe, a yoga mat, etc!)

Flights: Should be paid, both ways, but they might dictate when you go and will probably find the flights for you. For example, for me they found a flight which was on the Saturday, emailed it to me (you have to pay, then they pay you back after the first month) then told me not to buy it and emailed me a cheaper one for the Friday. It wasn't a problem, it was good to go early, and the stop over wasn't bad at all!!) It cost about £450 I think... but I can't remember (one thing I would say is that I got to the airport and they wanted to know why I didn't have a return flight booked. Might have just been a rookie, but they made me show them the contract I had with the school on my laptop. I mean, you can't get an E2 visa without a contract, so they shouldn't have needed to see it, but I'd have a printed copy, even though it won't be signed, on you).

Yeah, I went with them, they were nice people, and they actually live in Cheongju (where I teach). It is run by a guy from Manchester and his Korean wife, so they are good at dealing with people on both sides of the world. They took me out my first night and met me off the bus from the airport (my director was away that weekend I think). The guy had actually worked at my school before, so I knew it wasn't terrible (my first director wasn't great, but he wasn't awful). They were generally honest people, and I'm pretty sure had I needed it, I could have made friends through them to start me off in Korea (I ended up making most of my friends through the church I go to). 

Hey,

In answer to your question, I went through another agency, the one that I used to post the details on the visa stuff (www.teachkoreans.com). The are qutie small though, and tend to work pretty locally, so they have plenty of jobs, but they are nearly all in Cheongju (which is a nice city, but it is small). They are nice though, sorted me out :)