Miss Haley's Hagwon

I got a job. Well, I think I got a job. To start, let me say that a lot has been lost in translation so instead of beginning each sentence with "I think" or "I'm pretty sure" or "As far as I can tell," I'll just warn you that this is my version of reality.

On Tuesday I had an appointment with a person on the Army base whose job is to help military spouses find jobs. Having researched several engineering job openings, I was confident that I'd land one of those. But I was sorely mistaken. First my resume was all wrong (not nearly wordy enough) and this person was able to read between the lines of the job descriptions that certain candidates had probably already been selected. The overall message to me was to persevere toward an engineering job if I was feeling ambitious, but to see no shame in just giving up. Instead I was given several fliers for jobs teaching English at hagwons in the nearby city of Pyeongtaek.

A hagwon is a private, for-profit school for children that specializes in English, music, science, etc. A lot of military spouses get jobs teaching English, because it's very prestigious for the school to have a native English speaker. One hagwon director called me back and asked me to come in for an interview on Wednesday afternoon. He gave me very unclear driving directions, but after an hour's research on GoogleMaps and Andrew as my chauffeur, I set off to meet him. Miraculously, we found the hagwon and the director wanted me to come back the next day to sit in on a class of 1st-3rd graders.

Thursday I arrived at the school and the director informed me I was going to teach math. This hagwon's philosophy is that teaching phonics, reading, writing, science, math, and social studies all in English will keep the children engaged and improve their vocabulary faster. The students already know the concepts from their Korean-speaking schools, but at the hagwon they learn how to think and reason in English as well.

An hour later I was shut in a conference-sized room alone with seven 1st and 3rd graders, trying to entertain them with a math lesson about double-digit numbers that was too simple for them. They raced through the handouts, and I spent the rest of the hour-long class teaching them counting songs and asking them to guess how old I am by giving hints of what numbers it was between.

The director and his daughter took me to lunch afterwards to explain more about the hagwon's mission and to watch me taste bizarre food after bizarre food. Luckily the daughter is about my age and can convey her thoughts in English much quicker and more clearly than the director, so about 80% of the time the answer to my question corresponded with the actual question I asked compared to less than half the time with the director.

Next came the kindergarten class. These poor kids go to school from 9am to 6pm straight, and what time do you think they come to this hagwon? Lucky me, from 5-6pm. These kids speak limited English and have boundless energy. They bounced around jabbering in Korean for the entire hour. I was under the impression that I was watching the director teach this class, but then he left and shut the door. Thankfully after about 15 minutes of the kids running and shrieking, the director came back in and told me that they have workbooks. Five minutes with those and then they repeatedly climbed on the table and jumped off. I need some serious classroom management skills!

Now it's Friday morning and I go back this afternoon for another kindergarten circus and to negotiate a contract with the hagwon. I'll be teaching about 15 hours a week in September until it picks up in October but the best part is that they'll help me get my Korean teaching visa so I can legally tutor private students as well.

Wish me luck. So far I'm no match for a handful of adorable little Korean kids, but I guess that'll keep me pursuing an engineering position!