Teaching English In Korea Hours (EPIK vs Hagwon)
So if you’re thinking of teaching English in Korea, I’m sure one of the thing you’re wondering is how many hours you’ll have to teach. The short answer is that teaching English in Korea hours vary widely between the three main options you have – EPIK, TALK, and hagwons. In this article, we’ll discuss these options, their hours, and the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Teaching English in Korea hours at EPIK And Public Schools
EPIK is a program that provides the public schools of Korea with English teachers. Public schools in the country contract you to work 22 teaching hours per week. The catch is depending on whether you teach elementary, middle, or high school level, you will be teaching either 40, 45, or 50 minutes per class. Additionally, you have to come to work everyday during normal business hours (9-5 or 8:30-4:30), regardless of whether you’re teaching a class or not.
If you find yourself significantly below the 22-hour benchmark, you may be asked to teach extra classes such as teacher’s sessions or after-school classes to make up your lost hours. However this is not always the case; you might just be able to teach 18 hours in a week and leave it at that. The flip side of this is you may find works where you are slightly over as well, but you’ll be paid extra time per hour.
A nice benefit is that public schools also tend to have occasional free days because of school outings, class trips, cancelled classes, and things of this nature. This may be one of the more desirable options because of this and teaching English in Korea hours at public schools give you plenty of breaks here and there.
Click here for a breakdown of the EPIK salary and benefits.
The TALK Program
Then there’s TALK, a government program that brings English teachers to public schools, much like EPIK. However, TALK is only 15 hours per week and these classes are normally in the afternoon, running from about 2pm-5pm. The give and take is of course that while you work less than EPIK, you also get paid less as well, around 1.5 million won.
Teaching English in Korea Hours In Hagwons (private academies)
The schools with the largest amount of teaching English in Korea hours are Hagwons, however hagwons also vary a lot from school to school. Generally, you’ll be teaching around 30 hours or more depending on which Hagwon job you get. As you can imagine, this is quite a bit more than a public school job. The hours will typically be different as well.
Normally your Hagwon teaching job will be somewhere between the noon to evening because that’s when kids finish at their normal school and go onto Hagwon. Think something in the area of 2pm-9pm. There are a couple of exceptions with more normal business hours, but that’s only younger children in the kindergarten age range.
So, there are a lot more teaching hours at a Hagwon and typically, you have to teach them all. You also are not likely to get the cancelled classes and school outings that you will with public schools because the Hagwons are private academies and they work on per hour basis. So the hours you are contracted for, you normally teach. Additionally, often you will receive less vacation time with a Hagwon than with the public schools.
One possible advantage to working with Hagwons is they normally have a set curriculum that you don’t have to put my effort into. You can often just show up and teach. Of course, this still varies from case to case because some people at Hagwons have to prepare, but a more fixed curriculum is something to keep in mind. In the public schools, you’ll likely be expected to put a lot more effort into preparing lessons and putting some effort into creating content for the children.
In short, the teaching English in Korea hours are not a fixed number, however you can generally expect less in the public schools, and more vacation and free time, and a more hours in Hagwons with teaching times usually being in the afternoon to evenings.
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Do you know much about the GEPIK program? In many blogs I’ve found, I see brief mentions but not many details. Do you know of where I can find more information?
Hey Katy.
It’s actually the program I know least about, too. I plan to do a video on it soon though 🙂