Pro Tips to Succeed as an English Teacher in a Korean Classroom

Hangug-e osin geos-eul hwan-yeonghabnida! Welcome to Korea! In case you hadn’t heard before (you probably have), South Koreans love their English teachers. You’re here for a very needed and respected job, so congrats! 

Keep your students smiling with our best advice on how to rock a Korean classroom.

Now that you’ve gotten the job, it’s time to prep for the Korean classroom and South Korean customs and traditions. You’re already going to be adored because of the nature of teaching English, but there are a lot of ways to really ensure you’re successful while teaching abroad in Korea! Learn our favorite Korean classroom management tips for English teachers on the peninsula. 

What is a Korean classroom like?

You most likely already know the basics of schooling in Korean (how else would you have gotten a teaching job?) but what about some of the ins and outs of the Korean classroom? From Korean school system grade levels to general South Korean customs and traditions, there’s a lot to know before diving into your new career!

Schedule, hours, and grade levels

The South Korean educational system is very similar to western educational systems, where kids are in school from about age 5 until early to mid 20s. Kindergarten isn’t mandatory in South Korea, so the only way to enroll in it is usually through a private school. Unlike most of the western world, the school year in Korean runs from March through December. Since school is year-round, students don’t have a big break before they enter their new grade but instead have summer, winter, and spring breaks that are usually a few weeks long each. 

Weekends might be a time for some R&R in the rest of the world, but not in Korea! Official school days are Monday through Saturday with some public schools giving off two Saturdays per month. Education is the main extracurricular activity (if you can consider it that…), so the Korean high school schedule keeps most teenagers out until around midnight every day. South Korean school hours are long, with high schoolers usually in school for about 12 hours per day, middle schoolers for about eight hours, and elementary schoolers for five hours. These are “standard” days, so if a student is taking more classes or has extra tutoring, their days will go even longer. Dinner is usually served at school to accommodate the very long academic days.

Ask your co-teacher for even more tips on South Korean students.

Public school vs. private school vs. language academy

The types of schools in Korean range as much as the types of people do. What type of school you go to mainly depends on your economic status, but factors like population/availability and financial aid/scholarships also come into play. One thing to note is that in most schools in Korea, the students do not move from class to class but rather the teachers are the ones that switch rooms. Also, English is required to be taught in all schools from around the age of 10, so if you’re teaching in a Korean high school classroom, you can expect your students to be pretty proficient! 

Regardless of what type of school they’re at during the day, pretty much all South Korean students attend a hagwon, or private after-school “academy”, to boost their education. Hagwons are basically private “businesses” that run one after another to drill skills, practice English, and prep students for exams. There is usually huge demand for hagwons and can range from general topics like math or science to more specialized topics like piano or essay writing. South Korean students consider hagwons to be their “social outlet” because it allows them to make friends outside of their daytime school.

Why dedicate so much time to education?

Ultimately, the main goal of primary and secondary education in Korean is to get into the absolute best university possible. Like many Asian countries, Koreans value education above pretty much everything else, so the competition to get into a good college is stiff. South Korean students aim for acceptance at one of the SKY universities or a top university abroad. Did you know that South Korea sends more students to study abroad than any other country? South Korean students are currently the largest international student population in the U.S., so Americans better study up if they’re going to compete!

Master the Korean high school classroom, too!

The Korean version of the SATs (the CSAT) is known for being one of the most difficult standardized tests in the world, so some parents make their kids start studying in middle school. With the exam lasting almost 10 hours, we can imagine how intense the preparations for this day are! As a teacher in Korea, you should be aware of the marathon that is standardized test prep, and especially mindful of the Korean high school schedule as the exam approaches each year.

What types of ESL lessons work best with South Korean students?

Anyone can Google “ESL lessons” and have a ton of fun ideas come up, but if you’re going to be successful in South Korea, you need to understand your role...especially if you’re teaching multiple Korean school system grade levels! The term “edutainer” is probably the closest description for your role here. As you make your lesson plans, you obviously need to be mindful of the educational quality and curriculum goals, but you also need to remember that you’re here to make learning English exciting!

There is a huge emphasis on student enjoyment in Korea (particularly at the elementary school age), and parents are not afraid to speak up if their kids complain about boring classes. You already know that students are spending huge amounts of hours at school each day, so the struggle against burn-out and boredom is REAL. Foreign teachers are hired to be more of conversation instructors than full teachers, so your job is more about getting your students to speak, think, and (most importantly) play in English so it becomes natural for them. In short, do whatever you can to make English come to life!

[7 Advanced ESL Lessons That Your Students Will Love]

Partner/group activities

A cultural difference between a Korean classroom and a western classroom is that most older Korean students won’t speak unless spoken to first, especially in English. It’s tempting to just call on students to answer a question if no one is raising their hand, but it’s probably wisest not to single students out. Instead, try to incorporate partner or group activities (at least at the beginning of the year) to get your students more comfortable both speaking in English and speaking in front of you/their classmates.

Incorporate creative lesson plans, like partner activities or outdoor games.

Musical options

It doesn’t matter what age group or culture you belong to...music speaks to everyone. Not only is music a huge part of any culture, but it also is a fantastic way to learn new vocab and the melodies act as mnemonic devices for remembering phrases/full sentences! Koreans in particular love music (have you seen a Korean when K-Pop comes on?) so use this to your advantage.

Singalongs work really well with young Korean students to help teach them vocab and develop their English-ear. You can use any songs you learned as a child...if they helped you learn English, you can be sure they will help your students, too! If you’re teaching an older group of students, your best bet is to take some songs in English that are popular now and/or iconic songs from the past (both help with cultural understanding!) and print the lyrics off with a portion of the words missing. Play the song for your students and have them fill in the missing lyrics!

[6 Tips for Teaching English to Complete Beginners]

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego/your teacher? 

You don’t need anything but Google Maps for this! Give your students a tour of your hometown or city using both the standard map and street view functions, and turn it into a game! You could have your students visit a new place each week and practice navigation and giving directions in English. Google Maps even has a tool called Google World Wonders that offers detailed views/tours of tons of famous places around the world. Check out National Geographic as well for worldly podcasts and games for kids. This is a good way to practice English and boost your students’ global knowledge!

Maps and geography discussion can spice up your Korean classroom!

Anything with technology

To say South Korean students love their smartphones is an understatement. Instead of reprimanding kids for using them, embrace them! Download any and all apps that you think your students will enjoy, including games, English vocab flashcards, scavenger hunts, you name it! Heck, you can even teach your students phone etiquette by pretending they’re talking to Psy or English slang for when they’re texting their friends. The sky’s the limit for what you can do with technology, so pay attention to the types of tech trends your students are obsessed with and take advantage of the hype!

[11 Kick Butt ESL Resources for Teachers]

Other tips to succeed at schools in Korea

Teaching isn’t only about lesson planning and grading papers! Anyone working abroad knows that there are a myriad of ways to make a bad name for yourself even if your work product is excellent, so read about some of the South Korean customs and traditions as well as school system expectations to avoid insert-foot-in-mouth situations!

Use your red pen wisely

Grading can be tough, especially in the competitive environment of South Korean students.

This is seemingly minor but to some a big deal. There’s a superstition in Korea about how writing a living person’s name with red ink means you want them dead. Your students might test every ounce of your patience, but you probably don’t wish anything actually bad on them, so it’s best to avoid writing any of their names with a red pen. Some students won’t mind if you make this mistake but it’s impossible to predict which ones will laugh it off and which ones will be horrified!

Learn to accept tardiness

We know this is the last thing any teacher wants to hear, but with everything else kids in Korea have to stress about, being punctual isn’t really one of them. This is probably due to parents packing too much into their kids’ days, so overlaps like finishing a math class five minutes before their next lesson which is 15 minutes away can happen frequently. Korean timekeeping is notoriously off, so this probably won’t just be something you experience in your classroom!

Know your role and embrace it 

It’s not uncommon to hear the phrase “teachers are as high as God” in Korea. You might not agree with that based on your paycheck, but teachers are among the most respected professionals in the country. As you could have guessed already, Koreans take their education very seriously, so don’t underestimate what this will mean for you. Embrace this role and act the part...you are representing a very sophisticated professional population, so don’t view this as a temporary job but rather as a lifestyle. Teachers dress on the nicer side in Korea for this reason, so take cues like this from your fellow teachers to blend in.

[3 Easy-Peasy Lessons for Any TEFL Teacher]

The lottery’s not just for gamblers

By now you know that education is a serious business in Korea, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the majority of schooling in Korea runs on a lottery. After each five year term, everyone from the teachers to the principals have to change schools to keep a pipeline of new talent at each school. 

Your students will take their English language classes VERY seriously.

The system was created to offer every teacher and administrator equal opportunity to work in both accomplished and not-so-accomplished schools, and improve the schools that need it. Korea even has some “model schools” that teachers and students will visit to directly learn how to improve their own schools. If you’re teaching for more than one year, don’t be surprised to see new faces every year besides the students! 

Understand South Korea’s place

Despite what the media likes to show, South Korea is not a developing country. It is a developed country. It wasn’t that long ago that South Korea’s economy was equal to Afghanistan’s, but the past few decades have proved massive for Korea. However, South Korea is still a fairly removed country when it comes to “international participation”, so if you’re teaching in rural areas, you may encounter casual racism or just overall lack of knowledge about other countries/races. This isn’t meant to be mean but comes from lack of exposure!

South Koreans only started traveling internationally for tourism in the 1990s, so think about the difference this makes on their cultural mindset. Having foreign teachers is a big deal for Koreans not just to teach their kids English but also to bring the Korean classroom to the outside world. You’re an ambassador for your home country but also the rest of the world, so don’t shy away from sharing exciting or funny things about all types of countries so that your students see that studying English opens up the whole world for them.

Time to get schooled

Take a deep breath. You’ve got this!

Even though the South Korean school hours are longer and the typical Korean high school classroom is solely focused on college preparations, there are probably more similarities than differences when it comes to schooling in Korea. Overall, you will most likely experience very welcoming co-workers, excited and motivated students, and a warm community that’s happy to have you. Go put on your best Ms. Frizzle attitude and get ready to make a real difference in your students’ lives!

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