YBM/Si-sa ELS – Seomyeon: Bujeon, Busan

This is a great place for adult speaking classes in an interactive style.
However, there are at least three serious issues:

1 – Most teachers understood the contract to include 8-10 vacation days, of our choosing. Instead, YBM offers only “session vacation days”, which are the 1-3 days per month when the school is not in session. This means it’s difficult to impossible to take a week or longer vacation during the entire 12-month period. To me, this isn’t actually ‘vacation’, these instead would be considered company holidays.
2 – Housing Allowance. I was under the impression that the housing allowance would nearly cover the cost of housing. Instead, the 200,000 won/mo allowance covers less than half what most teachers pay for a studio apt in Busan.
3 – I realized my schedule would change every month, but I didn’t realize how little notice I would be given. For July, we were given our ‘tentative schedules’ at 4 pm on the last day of June. This makes it a challenge to be professionally prepared for classes in a way that a professional teachers expects to be.

I worked at YBM ELS in Seomyun, Busan. I can tell you that it’s absolutely not worth it. They work you like a dog down there. You will absolutely start work at 6:50am and finish at 10pm most days. The lessons are so scattered throughout the day, that you won’t be able to do much but take a nap (absolutely necessary).

You will teach 7 to 10 different lesson plans due to their every other day classes, as well as one-to-one private lessons with business men (super boring). The planning and prep work takes hours. If you teach the special classes, prepare to give up much of your weekend (that is if you aren’t teaching Saturdays, if you are, then change that to all your weekend).

Most of the students are business people and many have been studying there for a long time and this has given many of the students the opinion that they own the place and will try to dictate the lesson plan. I’ve taught adult before, and had reletively no problems, but the students at this institute are different.

Also, they schedule those 10 days off for you and they do it in a manner that isn’t convenient for travel. You’ll almost never have time to explore the country. Most of the teachers use their weekend to catch up on sleep or recover from drinking binges they go on to try an forget about their miserable lives at YBM.

I’ve spoken with many other teachers from other adult YBM schools and they report the exact same problems

First, there are some good points about YBM.

1. They always pay on time. (Very good point)
2. You get to wear the tie your grandma gave you for Christmas. (may not pertain to you)

Okay then. Let move on to some problem spots.

1. The pay really sucks. After you pay rent and utilities and they take our a deposit from your first 3 paychecks, you may find yourself very thin in the wallet in a very short time.

2. Really weird hours. You should be at the hagwon by 6:30 to 6:40 in the AM! I’m talking everyday! And you might just find yourself finishing work at 10PM (you might want to change might with usually). Go home, eat, and sleep right away. A very boring simple life. The amazing thing is how the managers and staff are astonished at the possibility of be late from time to time. Of course, they never work from 6:40am to 10pm.

3. A waste of a year. I had plans to travel around the country. Didn’t happen. You never get more than the occasional 3 days off. And even then, you might be called in to do some randome interviews. From beginning to end, you WILL not have time to travel.

There are more personal things I can get into, but I think you get the drift. One thing I can promise you is that if you do work at YBM Seomyun, you will find yourself green with envy when hearing the public school teachers talk about their Thailand plans for their long vacation (several long vacations each year). Or when you see their amazement that your housing is not 100% paid for. Or that you weren’t able to save a dime.

There are worse jobs, but there are many many many better ones too.

That’s it.