When I was a teacher back in South Africa, I became accustomed to a certain routine and school culture. As a teacher in South Korea I had to adapt to a new system and I had to see things in a new/different way. I knew that I was entering a whole new culture, but I wasn't quite prepared for all the differences.
I started out teaching English at one of the many private academies, known as hag-wons.
Hurdle #1:my first problem was that, at first, all of my students looked the same! My main method of differentiation was to see whether or not they wore glasses! The first week was hell, until I realised that most of them had English nicknames. That really helped, but in retrospect, considering how long I ended up staying in Korea (unexpectedly), I wish I had made the effort from the start to learn Korean names.
Hurdle #2 came in the form of communication... of course. Simple instructions like 'get out your pencil' or 'open your book' or even 'be quiet' posed enormous difficulties (ssshhh! has a whole other meaning in Korea!!). Although I have always been strict about using English in the classroom as much as possible, I was forced to pick up a few Korean words here and there to convey my intentions. Body language was often useful too!
Hurdle #3 came in the form of the differences between the structure of English and Korean (Hangul). One of the first things I noticed was how the students always added a little vowel sound at the end of words ending in a consonant. And how they just couldn't say 'fish', but rather said 'pish'! At first this was a source of great amusement, but when I encountered this problem repeatedly from class to class, level by level, I realised I had to get to the root of it all. As it happened, at the time I was delving into my first lessons of Korean/Hangul with a little book lent to me by a foreign co-worker. There I learnt that at the end of most words ending in a consonant a sound is added (it sounds like 'euh' and looks like a minus sign: 스 ~ seu), so 'yes' always came out sounding like 'yessir'!! (this is also known as Konglish!)
The next lesson I encountered was that there is no defined 'f' sound in Hangul, but rather a sound that is adapted and used in its stead. This is represented by the sign 'ㅍ' which is actually a 'p' sound, so it comes out sounding like 'pish', and, to get more complicated they also add a sound like 'ee' after the 'sh' sound so it sounds like 'pish-ee'. Good grief!!
But thanks to some education and after asking my Korean co-teachers endless questions about pronunciation and vocabulary, I came to understand a lot more about the Korean language, and thus about my students.
It's been a long journey. This understanding did not arise overnight, and is certainly not complete. However, it has been most useful, and even fun, to learn.
I did not learn to speak Korean fluently despite the amount of time I eventually spent there, because early on, I didn't know how just long I would end up staying, and most of my Korean friends enjoyed speaking English so there just wasn't any need. Since all my co-teachers spoke English, I had few problems in that respect.
It wasn't until my son started attending kindergarten that I realised I needed to pay more attention. He had always had contact with Korean child care-givers (from around 6 months), and he was speaking Korean by the time he went to nursery school/creche. So Korean was more or less his first language. By the time he was 5, he spoke Korean more fluently than English. It's really funny, because soon he was old enough to be my translator! People were so surprised when he spoke Korean, but it's fun and things were never dull with him around!
But, to get back to my original point... cultural differences at school. Even though I have a limited knowledge of Korean and my friends/co-teachers were pretty good when it came to speaking English, lots of misunderstandings still arose because of our cultural differences. There were just so many things that happened to me along the way and a lot of it simply stemmed from the fact that you, as a Westerner, have to spell everything out clearly to be understood. For example, sometimes we just don't express our urgency as clearly as we should and our point is not taken. Or we totally misunderstand our Korean friend's intentions.
I have had to explain a simple point over and over to make sure I was understood. If you don't have the patience, prepare to be frustrated.
One of the most annoying things has been when nobody tells you about events taking place at school. I've found that it's better to make a preemptive strike and say at the beginning of the day/week/month/year, "So, what's the schedule going to be like today/this week/month/year?"
At times I forgot to do that and paid for my mistake by pitching up and being told there were no classes that day! That was the year before foreign teachers were told they had to be at school even if there were no classes.
Back to school culture. I am very pedantic and I was often a little inflexible at the beginning of my teaching career in Korea. After some time, though, I realised I had to give in a little or all of my hair was going to turn white. So instead of trying to force my students to make the 'f' sound in 'fish', I said, you know what, they ARE saying 'fish', maybe in their own funny way, but that's good enough for me. I took a giant step back, and stopped having expectations, but rather tried to aim for a true sense of learning. This was great at the academy where I had 12 students at most and one at the least, so I really enjoyed the one-on-one process of teaching and learning. It was really rewarding, teaching the alphabet and phonics to groups of kindergartners and seeing them when they eventually got it.
However, when I moved to the high school, I completely lost that feeling of accomplishment. Here I was, facing up to 40 students per class, x 8. I had no idea where to start, and turned to the textbook to provide some guidance but that was not the answer. I found a solution as to how to approach my lessons and have a meaningful outcome several frustrating months later, pretty much near the end of my contract. The only consolation I derived from this experience was that many of my students did approach me privately for a bit of a chat or QnA. In that sense, I felt I had achieved something.
So what were the obstacles here?
1. The emphasis on studying English aggressively ends at the junior Middle School level. Most high schoolers have to dig really deep to remember what they learned in Elementary school.
2. There is a negative attitude towards speaking up in English in the classroom. Students are extremely shy or downright reluctant to speak up in case they are teased, or openly jeered at, for daring to show off their skills.
3. My encouragement fell on deaf ears.
4. At high school level, emphasis is placed on vocabulary and grammar as taught by the Korean teacher and the foreign teacher is focuses on conversation. But guess which
components are tested and awarded a score and which one is totally omitted from the testing phase?
I felt completely useless and lacked any power over my students so I didn't blame them for showing little interest in my assignments.
5. I had no input in any of the tests or exams.
6. There was no tutorial structure at my school so I couldn't get to that one-on-one level that I had previously enjoyed with my hagwon students.
7. Worst of all, English is only taught by foreign teachers up to the 2nd grade in high school, so the students really don't care because they know they are not going to be tested on my work, and the subject matter is going to fall away, anyway.
And that's just some of the hardships I faced. Most of these apply only to my personal experience. I know there are teachers out there who have far different experiences, for better or worse. I once heard that one of the foreign teachers would walk down the hallways with her earphones firmly on so that she could avoid her students' attempts at conversation! Too bad. I loved engaging with my students outside the classroom.
Some foreign teachers are more creative, more energetic, more interesting and just more fun.
Then there are the students. The dynamics change dramatically from class to class. Something that was fun in one class would bomb miserably in another. It came to a point where I was just sick of doing so much preparation, which often got left on the table, because I'd walk into a classroom and be met by a roomful of sleepy heads or complete indifference!
High school students in Korea are a different breed. They do a lot of self-studying, they stay at school until 10p.m and then many still go on to their hag-wons until midnight. Then they study at home until 2or3 in the morning, and they have to be at school at 7a.m. It's unbelieveable!
I could never get used to their routine. Back at home, in South Africa, we typically start school at 8a.m and finish at 3p.m then go home or do extracurricular activities. We don't attend classes on Saturdays. Koreans do!
As for punishment. This issue had my head reeling. When I was a student myself, corporal punishment was still being practiced. However, by the time I became a teacher, it was illegal. So I never walked around with a ruler or stick and punishment came in the form of weed-pulling, cleaning the school grounds, detention, suspension or expulsion.
So I just went cold when I realised how often my high schoolers here were being physically punished. They are made to kneel in the hallway, hold chairs above their heads, and got "cuts" on their hands or across the backs of their legs. I have heard many similar stories of this kind of thing happening in other schools around the country.
A country's movie industry often reflects its culture and customs and there are several movies that feature/highlight high school storylines and these forms of physical punishment are there for all to see.
I don't think Koreans are aware of how this affects foreign teachers.
One of the things that I found funny in an ironic way is the deference displayed by students. They don't meet your eyes when you speak to them but rather look down or away from you. It was funny to me because I first encountered it at home, with my Black students and I didn't understand it then (and frustrated me), but by the time I saw it here, I knew what it was all about. It's a cultural thing where the younger person must defer to their elders when being addressed by them. With my Western way of thinking, I mistakenly took this for a sign of disrespect, when in fact it is the complete opposite, in both cases.
On the lighter side, Korean students are true teenagers. They love music, movies and fashion. Many of them wear glasses, and so that becomes a way to make a statement by getting the latest style, color, etc. The rest use contact lenses and are constantly fussing with them. Hair is very important! Girls and boys alike are very concerned about having fashionable styles and one way to irk a student is to playfully tousle their hair!
They all have handphones and personal media players. It can get quite out of hand in the classroom when they're trying to sneak a peek at a video file or listen to music. They try to hide the earbud earphones under their hair!!!
The last thing I want to do is act as a policeman in the classroom and one of the things I hate doing is confiscating students' items. I prefer to trust students to behave in a respectful and responsible manner.
The girls adjust their skirts' hems to the point that I get embarrassed for them but nobody else seems to notice. I once asked another teacher if there were any uniform regulations and sure enough there are, but they are obviously not being enforced at my school.
The boys, likewise, tamper with their trousers, tapering them to fit tightly around their legs but still baggy in the crotch. It's quite an hilarious combination that ends up looking like harem pants!
At first I was really stressed about getting some content across to my students but after a great deal of frustration I just let it go and relaxed. My attitude was just to focus on the students who were actually paying attention and I did my best to help them out, and kept imagining them in the future, as key figures in companies, where their English skills would be an asset.
This is a very exciting place to be if you are Korean and can speak English. There is just so much room for an English-speaking Korean to grow. There are so many different industries that could use them. I often see public figures like Daniel Henney who are bilingual, and see what exciting lives they lead, because they exist in dual cultures (East and West), and I think that is just awesome.
I think of all the Korean entertainers and sportsmen who can go out into the world and stretch their minds beyond Asian borders. It's an exciting time for them and I just hope the Korean Education Department will one day understand the value of English as a school subject and view foreign English teachers as assets and stop employing them as some strange kind of totem.
The bottom line for me is this: English can take you far. It is a universal language that can bind us all together some day.
However, when I moved to the high school, I completely lost that feeling of accomplishment. Here I was, facing up to 40 students per class, x 8. I had no idea where to start, and turned to the textbook to provide some guidance but that was not the answer. I found a solution as to how to approach my lessons and have a meaningful outcome several frustrating months later, pretty much near the end of my contract. The only consolation I derived from this experience was that many of my students did approach me privately for a bit of a chat or QnA. In that sense, I felt I had achieved something. 
1. The emphasis on studying English aggressively ends at the junior Middle School level. Most high schoolers have to dig really deep to remember what they learned in Elementary school.
Some foreign teachers are more creative, more energetic, more interesting and just more fun. 
As for punishment. This issue had my head reeling. When I was a student myself, corporal punishment was still being practiced. However, by the time I became a teacher, it was illegal. So I never walked around with a ruler or stick and punishment came in the form of weed-pulling, cleaning the school grounds, detention, suspension or expulsion. 
On the lighter side, Korean students are true teenagers. They love music, movies and fashion. Many of them wear glasses, and so that becomes a way to make a statement by getting the latest style, color, etc. The rest use contact lenses and are constantly fussing with them. Hair is very important! Girls and boys alike are very concerned about having fashionable styles and one way to irk a student is to playfully tousle their hair! 
