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If you want to try this adventure, you might consider a more deliberate approach than Margaret took. She jumped into it almost on a whim, after reading one ad in the newspaper. She had a good experience for all that, but most people who don't have her kind of luck may want to do some research. The links below provide good starting points to help you decide, and to get a sense for Margaret's experiences.
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| Escapades | Cathy Bates is an ESL teacher from Calgary; she lived and taught for a while in Seoul and is now in Ilsan. Last updated in February 2003. |
| Teacher's Life | Barbara is a 26 year old ESL teacher from Portland, Oregon. She taught in Ulsan for 3 years, and has some useful tips for newbies. Last updated in September 2003. |
| Teaching in Korea | Christine DeMerchant is a Canadian who taught for a year at a hagwon in Wonju, around 1999 or 2000. She had three advantages over some other teachers: she's older, her boss had lived in the US, and Wonju is a small town. Good info on Korean food, and on what to pack. |
| Doug's Ugly Fish | Douglas Thompson spent 2 years teaching in Daegu (1997-1999). This site, though now a bit long in the tooth, has useful background on living in Korea and how to get a good teaching job. |
| Morning Calm | Rob Price taught at a public high school in Seoul from 1996 to 1998, under the auspices of KORETTA (Korean English Teacher Training Assistant), now the EPIK program. |
| John's Essays | John Howard worked at Seoul hagwons in 1995 and 1996. He wrote these pieces for a public radio station. |
| Dealing With Your Boss | Some thoughts on why Korean bosses act the way they do, and how to make that an advantage instead of a problem. From The Exit, forerunner of Pusanweb. |
| Marrying Your Boss | A western teacher who negotiated the cultural and legal hurdles, more or less successfully, to marry a Korean woman (yes, she really was his boss). Warnings: This page is fairly old (1998), and it loads slowly (lots of pictures). |
| University Teaching | How to get a job, and what it's like. Note that this page is fairly old (1999). From The Exit. |
| Public Schools | Teaching in a Korean girls' middle school, under the auspices of EPIK (also see Rob Price's pages). From The Exit. |
| Pusanweb | A meeting place for ESL teachers and other westerners in Pusan, South Korea's second largest city. Check out their active discussion board, and see the Writings section for often provocative essays and an archive going back to 1998. |
| Ulsanweb | Nothing like the scale of Pusanweb, but then Ulsan is a smaller town. This site helps with nightlife, shopping, restaurants, and medical care. Definitely worth a look if you're considering a job there. |
| Daegu Guide | Applies the model to Daegu. Classified ads, contacts, medical care information, and much more. |
| Daejonweb | An impressive site with guides, a forum, a calendar, and essays like Pusanweb's (though not yet as many). |
| Dave's ESL Cafe | On one hand, some useful advice; on the other, discussion forums with a decidedly negative cant. Read between the lines. If you see yourself reflected in the words of these troubled teachers, Korea probably isn't the place for you. |
| Teachkorea | Job boards, recruiters, and resources; a highly developed web presence. |
| Survive Korea | This site first appeared in 2001, and hasn't ever really developed its full potential. There's some interesting message board traffic from time to time, but you'll have to read between the spam. Every ESL teacher needs used farm tractors, right? Where's the moderator? |
| Fulbright ETA Program | If you're interested in public high school teaching, rather than hagwon instruction, you may wish to investigate this program. It's for graduating college seniors and recent graduates, unmarried, without dependents and under age 30. See the full list of qualifications here. |
| EPIK | Here's another program which places westerners in Korean public schools. As with any such organization, be sure to investigate thoroughly before signing up. (Rob Price got his job through EPIK's predecessor, KORETTA, and his page is worth a look.) |
| Hall Houston | Hall's been teaching in Taiwan since about 1997. His site includes a Reference Guide to Teaching English in Asia with a page of Korean links, and a generous list of creative ideas for ESL classroom activites. |
| Lonely Planet | A traveler's introduction to Korea. |
| One Stop Korea | Scott Fisher is an American who's been living in Korea for about 10 years. He has some great stories to tell and plenty of tips. Better allow lots of time for reading this site. |
| Korea Factbook | A blizzard of statistics from none other than the CIA. |
| Inside Korea | A series of short essays on elements of Korean culture, a quick read with useful information. Each piece has both English and Korean text, in case you want to practice your Korean. |
| The Chosun Dynasty | A series of 100 articles reproduced from the Korea Herald, This seems like a lot, but it's actually quite readable, and worth the effort if you really want to understand Korean culture. |
| The Hermit Kingdom | Kevin Davis's photo album is more than snapshots; he has a true photographer's eye for scenes that tell a story or convey a mood. |
| Axel's Korea | Nicely composed photos from a German student's 3-month visit in 2000. Includes a fair selection from different regions, including Seoul, Pusan, Cheju, and Kangwon Do, each with a bit of descriptive text. |
| A Yank Abroad | Rick Ruffin really likes Korea. He wouldn't mind a bit if you bought his newsletter about it. (And if you order a copy today, the post should deliver it about the time his website's pictures load. ;-) |
| Flavours of Korea | Marc & Kim Millon explore the world of Korea's specialties, with some side trips into the country's culture. They provide a few recipes for you to try. Be sure to read Halmoni, My Grandmother. |
| Korean Cuisine | Diner's Digest provides a short background piece on the Korean diet's origins and on the nation's dining customs. |
| Korean Recipes | Prepare yourself for what you'll find in Korea, with these suggestions from AsianRecipe.com. |
| The Korea Herald | An English language newspaper, published in Seoul. Some people say this paper is a "mouthpiece" for the current administration, but it seems to be the one that's most popular with foreigners. The online version now has limited access unless you register. The long-term archives are closed unless you pay $4 a month for a subscription. |
| The Korea Times | This English language newspaper is said to be more impartial than the Herald, but I haven't seen all that much difference. Most of the website is open without registration (so far). Unfortunately, the site is cluttered with Flash ads, eating up CPU time and slowing your computer. The archive is open, but the search engine seems to limit hits to a few weeks back. |
| Joong Ang Daily | Another English Language Daily. Their open archive seems to go back about a year and has a fairly flexible search engine. |
| Dong-a Ilbo | Yet another newspaper with English webpages. The archive looks good to 2000, but there's no real search function, so it's not of much help. |
| Korea Web Weekly | According to the author, "an independent, non-partisan, non-profit web page on all things Korean." It's mostly just a big page of links, but they're interesting and regularly updated. Worth a look. |
| Brother Anthony | He's a professor in the Department of English Lit at Sogang University. Born in the UK, he became a Korean citizen in 1994 after living in Korea for 12 years. He has some valuable observations on Korean culture (though I wish he hadn't embedded so much Hangul in the page). He's also translated a fair amount of Korean literature in a very accessible style; you can read several pieces on his website. |
| Korean Language | A brief description of the Korean language's origin and that of its script, Hangul. Also has a section on how to form Hangul characters, and another with some basic Korean vocabulary and phrases. |
| Introduction to Korean | An excellent tutorial on basic phrases, with clear, fast-loading sound clips to help. It even has beginning Korean grammar, for the stout of heart. |
| Learn Hangul | This site helps you learn to read and pronounce Hangul (Korean writing), using Romanization (English respelling) and sound files. Some lessons require a browser with a Hangul font. |
| Babelfish | Attempts to translate Korean webpages into English and vice versa. The results, if not always useful, are at least entertaining. |
| Browsing Korean Pages | You'll need a Korean font to try the tutorials above. This information on viewing Korean pages in Netscape Communicator also applies in part to earlier versions of Internet Explorer. Use the search link on the page, or click here to search for the GulimChe font. |
| Kangnung Weather | From the Weather Underground. Or see what it's like right now in Seoul, Ulsan, Cheju, or Kwangju. |
| Seoul Webcam | Live views of Seoul from a camera at the home of Soon Park. |