Avalon English – Suji (Elementary School Campus): Sanghyeon-dong, Gyeonggi-do

While working at this Hagwon, Avalon proceeded to KILL my coworker and friend Ryan! Yes, you heard me right, they instigated the circumstances that led to his death. This branch has a policy of “holding the passports” of its new teachers, a highly illegal but common practice among private academy staff and administration. Though Korean Immigration requires all foreigners to have ID on them at ALL times and to present it to any officer or representative of the law upon request, Avalon commonly “requests” passports from its new teachers under the guise of “getting their alien registration card” for them (a process that takes all of 10-15 minutes if you make an appointment online and go in yourself!). Mine was kept for nearly 4 full months before being returned! I didn’t even know they were putting me at risk of deportation while I was without ID. Their motive is merely to keep new teachers from running!
At any rate, Ryan, a 24-year-old new teacher, started a couple of months after I did. Being a new teacher/recent college graduate, as are so many foreign teachers at Hagwons, he had little experience in classroom management. Instead of offering training to improve teacher’s classroom skills, Avalon reprimanded him and wrote him up for “not controlling the class.” (Koreans aren’t well-known for their tact or professionalism in offering constructive criticism to foreigners.) As a consequence, he didn’t take it very well. He got angry and spouted “I don’t care, I’m already looking for another job anyway!”
Unfortunately, since they were holding his passport (and adamantly refused to return it though they had NO LEGAL right to have it!) he couldn’t even apply for another position! They were effectively blacklisting him so he couldn’t work in Korea for another employer and would be FORCED to leave without the option of working for a employer with integrity! As his 30-days notice progressed, he became more and more depressed. I overheard numerous phone calls home to his parents in New York during the break we shared together daily. Eventually, he started drinking… a silent plea for help that was very dangerous for a diabetic.
As luck would have it, he did get drunk enough to pass out, didn’t awaken in time to take an insulin shot and slipped into a coma from which he never awoke! Avalon’s response to the whole situation was a massive coverup… they never even told the other foreign coworkers.My only official notice was a “cold” email stating “he stopped coming to work.” It was two weeks after his death that I learned about it over a card game at a coworkers apartment! One of the Korean teachers had let it slip! That certainly explained why he never answered my phone calls or text messages. I had thought he was just mad at Avalon and didn’t want to talk until he cooled down!?!
A few of us were disturbed about there not being a memorial service or any “nod” of honor for his memory or admission that the school administrators were likely contributors to his needless death. Avalon buried the details and have NEVER responded to multiple requests for an address to send a card of sympathy to his parents. All inquiries have met with “circling the corporate wagons” to protect their own… then they wonder why there’s such segregation between foreign and Korean staff members!
Don’t work for this school! They breed contempt for foreigners, intentionally withhold important information from their staff and the parents of their students… I think MANY of the parents would have withdrawn their children if they’d known FOUR of the 11 foreign staff members were openly hostile gay men. Avalon supports this kind of perversion being propagated in their classrooms to students.

Thadius D, or “Beaux”, is right that it was a horrid place to work. Ryan did die and the company did try to hide it from us. But being one of the “openly hostile gay men”, I cannot but help point out that we were simply trying to maintain some semblance of integrity in an environment where our korean female co-workers and canadian male co-workers used the workplace as their own personal pick-up bar. I take especial offense to your insinuation that we were spreading any perversion in the classrooms. How exactly do you know this? You never watched any of our classes. I myself was doing the best job possible under extremely trying circumstances. I’m sure my gay “pervert” friends would say the same.

Honestly, I know all 4 of the guys above and this is just absolute trash for various reasons.

#1: Avalon didn’t kill this guy obviously. He was fired from a job in Suwon, came to work for Avalon and couldn’t cut it. At his first social gathering with the entire Korean staff, the guy chugged a bottle of soju in his first week at the job. Not to cut the guy down at all, and it is extremely unfortunate that he passed, but it wasn’t Avalon at fault other than the cover-up which was terrible.

#2: There was 4 openly-gay hostile people at Avalon is a lie. There were 3 men who were gay and not very hostile at all. That is there choice. I wasn’t friends with them, but they were not hostile at all. Not all were great teachers but the fact they were gay means nothing towards that (other than the fact the original poster is homophobic but quite often acts gay)

#3: Teachers used the job as a pick-up bar: Honestly, there were several people who were dating at the campus. Not that strange considering they women spoke English quite well and are attractive. One couple is engaged, another has been dating for 3+ years, and one relationship didn’t work out. I would think nobody there took that job to “pick-up” and that comment is ridiculous.

You can judge for yourself whether or not Avalon is a good company to work for, but some of the above comments are absolute garbage and I know every single one of them who posted and still work for this company years later.

I worked for Avalon in 2006, and it was a good hagwon. I think Avalon is especially good for new-comers to Korea. It’s a bigger hagwon so there are lots of people to show you the ropes. Some of the best friends I’ve ever made were when I was working at Avalon. Housing is nice and you’ll always get paid on time. As the above conversations shows, not every teacher is professional and there can be a lot of drama that goes on (I was there before Ryan’s death). Avalon has the same problems that are endemic to all hagwons. Remember hagwons are businesses first and schools second, but as far as the education for profit schools go, Avalon is one of the better choices.