United Language School (ULS): Gung-dong, Daejeon

The good: ULS is competitive in pay (2.2mil), offers overtime hours, and offers additional opportunities to teach business classes on-site, and only actually requires 20 days of teaching per month. With just 20 days of teaching per month, most months there are at least one or two days of vacation, sometimes more. The owner has spent a lot of time outside of Korea, and therefore does not treat his foreign staff in the traditional korean “workhorse” manner, he is understanding and best of all, flexible. He has never scolded me, or been visibly upset, or asked too much of any of us. He adheres to whatever is in your contract as much as possible (we have received our full salaries, but sometimes a little late). In addition, Yuseong is the most beautiful part of Daejeon, and extrememly convenient to travel by any means, whether subway, bus, bike, taxi, etc. The station is literally 5 minutes walking di! stance from the housing. The material is relatively easy to teach, no grading, no exams, no extra prep time required. Just come, teach, and go. The students are great, mainly university students and businessmen or housewives, all of which have polite manners and a passion and purpose for learning English. I have never had a student younger than a high school senior. Finally, ULS staff tries to be welcoming and understanding of your needs as much as possible, and the owner is happy to oblige with any requests you may have, really a friendly and easygoing guy.

The bad: housing is small and studio style, so entertaining guests or even comfortable surroundings is not something you should expect. It is also not ‘fully furnished’ in a sense, you might get a bed and table, dresser and tv, but literally find a totally bare room that needs a lot of little things like dishes, cleaning supplies, etc. However the owner does offer 200,000won per month as a housing allowance if you object to the housing and don’t want to stay there. In addition, this position requires a split shift, work begins at 6:30am and ends between 10:30-11:30am. You must return around 5:30pm and might have to stay until 9:30pm. Another issue is: every month a new work schedule is printed, and your class times may change. Therefore if you are not comfortable with change, you will not like this job. You have to be able to accept frequent shuffling of hours, books, and students. Also, the strategy of this hagwon is 1 day a foreign teacher teaches, the next day the kor! ean teacher does. So you have to get along well with the Korean staff, otherwise it may be more difficult for you. Finally, while the staff is friendly now, it takes some time for them to warm up to you, particularly the Korean teachers. Don’t expect to find many close friends immediately. Being patient is a virtue, because as time goes by, you can develop good relationships with them.

My experience with ULS has been very satisfactory. If you have the chance to teach in Korea, I reccommend this hagwon. You will enjoy it much more than what other hagwons have to offer. It’s not perfect, but it’s really, really good.