If you haven’t got the message yet, South Korea is hot right now. And by hot, I mean super trendy. Korean food and music is basically taking over the world. Long snubbed by international travelers, it has now come to rival its much, much more expensive neighbor: Japan (see Japan job guide here). Korea has a fascinating history that goes back thousands of years, one of the most delicious and diverse cuisines on the planet, super-fast internet (think twice as fast as the US), and gorgeous natural scenery. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, I highly recommend it.

My EPIK Journey

I had the opportunity to live and teach in South Korea back in the early ’10s for their government-endorsed teaching program, EPIK (English Program in Korea). It is similar to the NET scheme in Hong Kong and the JET program in Japan. If you are not familiar with either of those, they are essentially government programs to embed foreign English teachers into the public school systems. They are very organized compared to other teaching opportunities abroad, which tend to be for private companies or individual schools. With EPIK, JET, and NET you are an employee of a board of education, so benefits and support are unparalleled.

Some Context

EPIK is very popular among recent grads. It is less strict on requirements (read, credentials) than the NET program. EPIK is also much more expansive and less competitive than the JET program, which has slowly been losing its continuity as school boards, and even entire prefectures, opt out. What’s more, Korea is MUCH more affordable to live in than either Japan and Korea, which means you’ll actually get to use your money on enjoying the sights and sounds of Korea rather than merely trying to survive.

If any of this has piqued your interest, I highly recommend checking out the EPIK program. However, let this be a warning to you: while they accept a multitude of nationalities and educational backgrounds – so in that sense they are less strict that the JET or NET – EPIK is VERY stringent on the documents they require and how they are to be submitted. It is very time intensive to put together the documents for the application packet, so start early! And while it is not impossible to do it while abroad, it would require a high degree of organization and know how. In other words, you will probably want to apply while in your home country.

Applying

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert, but here are some general guidelines for applying to the EPIK program. Since things have changed slightly since I worked for them, I got these from the EPIK website (http://www.epik.go.kr/index.do). 

There are three routes that you can take to apply for EPIK. You can apply on their website, you can apply through one of their approved overseas sister-organizations, or you can apply through a recruiter. I know I have warned everyone against using ESL recruiters in the past, but since this is a well-vetted opportunity, there really is no risk involved. This is the route I recommend for the simple reason that because there are so many places to get tripped-up in the paperwork process, it’s better to be working with someone who has a vested interest in keeping you on track. 

The actual list of documents required of you will depend on your country of origin. All applicants are responsible for providing the following, though:

• Completed Application Form and Photo
• An Apostilled Copy of your Bachelors Degree
• Original, Sealed Transcripts
• An Apostilled, National-Level Criminal Background Check
• Two Letters of Recommendation
• Passport Information Page Copy

In case you are not aware of what it means to apostill a document, it essentially means to have a notary stamp notarized, which is done through the Department of State. This obviously means it’s a two-step process to get it done,  the initial notarization and then the apostill. This is where the time starts to add up because the FBI background check can take a month or two to be issued, and then you have to have it apostilled. 

You can get more information and a complete list of the documents here.

Also, keep in mid that it is all but inevitable that you will have to go back to your home of record to amass all of these documents and stamps. I have heard of people being able to do it through the use of couriers and virtual mailboxes (see my article here if you don’t know what a virtual mailbox is), but I don’t know if it is much easier/less time consuming.

What’s it like teaching with EPIK?

This is probably what you are really wondering, right? Well, once you get to Korea, you will go to a massive orientation with all the new EPIK teachers, which is typically a couple hundred. A lot of times you won’t find out which school you have  been assigned to until the end of this orientation. Somehow I found out before I arrived, but I ended up with a special assignment because I already had an MA TESOL at that time. 

Once you finish the orientation and arrive in your respective city, you will set up shop in an apartment that the school has already lined up for you. These apartments are usually covered, but I think in rare circumstances you can be asked to cover whatever the balance is after they use their government funding. As housing in Korea is pretty cheap, this doesn’t happen very often. 

You will have a teacher assigned to you that is going to help you do all of the miscellaneous things related to immigration: paperwork, bank account, phone, etc. Usually it is your co-teacher, the teacher with whom you will be working for most your time there (more below), but not always. Something to keep in mind, this is not their job and they don’t get any instruction on how to do it, nor do they get paid extra for doing it. So, be very grateful and gracious while they help you. 

Now the only thing left to do is teach! The circumstances under which you teach will literally vary from school to school, so it’s hard to provide any useful information. Every school has its own approach. The only thing that is (almost) certain is that you will be teaching with a “cot-eacher.” “Co-teaching” is exactly what it sounds like: two teachers jointly teaching a class. Much like in your home country, Korea is a little wary about letting some un-credentialed people look over their children. So they figure, why not have an English speaking teacher and a Korean teacher teach the class together. Again, “co-teacher” is an extra duty often passed around for which the co-teacher receives no extra training or pay, thus each co-teacher adopts their own approach to the relationship.

Challenges of Teaching with EPIK

Now, this brings me some of the cons of the program, which are pretty constant no matter which school you teach at. They may not even bother you, but then again, they may drive you crazy after you’ve been doing it for a while:

“Co-teaching”: Having two teachers helm a class jointly, what could go wrong? Well, in theory, nothing. For highly trained and highly practiced teaching pairs, this can be an outstanding medium of instruction. But the reality is, neither one of you truly gets the training you need to execute such a model effectively for an entire school year. What’s more, the Korean teachers just don’t have time to practice lesson plans on their free time to make sure that both of you are engaged during the lesson. They are extremely busy and more often than not the role of co-teacher has been dumped on them. It’s a bunch of extra work for no tangible gain. So, what usually results is a very awkward arrangement of either the two of you taking turns teaching portions of a lesson , or the two of you alternating teaching days. It is certainly not uncommon, however, to end up with a co-teacher who has decided (for the reasons stated above) that the whole thing is too much work and they are going to just teach the class themselves and you end up as essentially a teacher’s assistant, passing out papers and reading passages out loud.

“Desk Warming:” You are contractually required to be at the school for a blanket number of days, which seem to have nothing to do with the way a school operates. I’m guessing that the reason for this is that the Ministry of Education wanted a blanket contract that could be applied tens of thousands of times at hundreds of different schools. In any event, while the Korean teachers by-and-large take the same vacation days as the students, you may or may not be given all the same days off depending on how many days you’ve been given off already. What this results in is “desk warming.” You will come to work for a couple days of a holiday break and just sit at your desk, waiting for the clock to tick down. You’ll often be the ONLY person in the school. Sounds terrible, and it usually drives teachers crazy thinking about all the other things they could be doing, but in all actuality you sit and watch YouTube for a couple hours and then don’t come back after lunch. Who’s gonna know? It’s really not that bad in my opinion.

And there you have it? Was this helpful for you? Have you worked  for EPIK before and you want to supply some further insight. Drop me a line at matthew@teachfortravel.com. And don’t forget to read through some of my other guides for more tips and tricks for working abroad.