EPIK application

I want to write briefly about the application process for teaching with the EPIK program.

English Program In Korea, funded by the Ministry of Education. It's a national program to give all students the opportunity to learn English.

Because of English Fever, which escalated with Korea's economic boom in the late 90s, English has become a much sought after skill opening many doors of opportunity (in employment and or simply travel). It's true many people want to travel and explore

outside of Korea which is a fairly new option given the countries traumatic history of occupation and poverty.

Kids from wealthy families had an unfair advantage in being sent to private English schools. To balance opportunities and form an even playing field/up the competition, the government decided to bring English into the public schools around 1995 with about 60 Native English Speakers, today the number is close to 5000. That is a huge investment.

After a day like today I wonder if my students get the full advantage of my being in their classroom. Half of them aren't interested in English. Of the interested half, a quarter are so shy they are paralyzed to speak. So part of my job is to make myself available to these kids so they can take advantage of being in my classroom. But with 30-35 kids per class x 21 classes it seems close to impossible to form relationships with all the students. Sad! I am noticing that after a month and a half of teaching I have started to 'get' some of the kids (not that I can remember names).

I know many people who went through recruiters to apply for EPIK. They have good and bad stories and mostly express feelings of having hassles (the good stories include having their hand held through the application process and getting a free t-shirt from a nice representative of the recruiting company at the airport in Korea). I applied through the consulate in San Francisco and had a fairly easy time with it. The main issue I ran into was long gaps of waiting and slow response to my questions. Oh and there was the unexpected last minute acceptance of my application with a two week window to pack up and move to Korea, which after a few days of thinking about I passed on and reapplied without a problem.

Arriving in Incheon airport there was a group of about 500 new arrivals who were ushered to Jeonju University (about 4 hours S.E. of Seoul) and there we stayed for a week of orientation and socializing, EPIK's strategy to get the new teachers comfortable and making some friends before we were shipped off to provincial towns or swallowed by the big city. Activities at orientation included lectures in education theory, a field trip to a local temple, lots of delicious food, movie nights, traditional Korean dance performances, and a paper fan making workshop. Basically it was like summer camp for teachers . The EPIK staff is really helpful and wonderful. Their job is to make newbies feel comfortable and they do their best in answering any questions and helping with the basics such as setting up a bank account and processing with imigration for a Alien Resident Certificates, health insurance, taxes, etc.