Back to the future -- ESL style

At the beginning of the year 2000, I began the process of looking for schools to apply to. I had decided I would only go to 'name' schools, or at least to a school recommended by someone I know. There would be no agent involved, and I would not be going to any strange sounding places (such as Tomato Language Institute -- honestly, the name of an actual hagwon).

Part of my decision-making process had to consider what I hoped to be doing in the future. Heather and I had already agreed that going back to Korea was going to be a five-year commitment, but beyond that I would want to be prepared for whatever eventuality. During our time in Toronto, I had applied to teacher education programs at three universities (and was accepted at two of them), but the timing hadn't been right to quit my job in order to go to school. I figured that teacher's college might be a definite option the next time we returned to Canada; thus, I decided that I would likely apply to children's language academies this time, if for nothing more than the experience.

I narrowed my search down to four choices in early 2000. The first option was ECC, a well-known franchise of children's schools in Korea. I had worked for them briefly back in 1997, filling in for another teacher on Saturdays. It was a positive experience, but the money was shit. The second option was BCM, an established academy for adults (I put one in there, just in case I got cold feet about kids).

The last two options were JLS, a school I had never heard of before but for whom my friend Sara worked at the time, and EG Language School, which I heard was operated by a former JLS teacher. Although I sent inquiries to the first two schools, I quickly determined that JLS and EG were my top two finalists. I had to get more information.

Sara told me about the general working conditions at JLS: a nice owner, decent curriculum, branches in Seoul and Bundang. I found out that there were many Korean teachers, and foreign teachers partnered with them to teach the students. Classes consisted of elementary school kids, around 10-12 students per class. The money was okay -- a starting monthly salary of 1.75 million won (I had earned 1.4 million at Global). The guy who was in charge of hiring was a dude named Baker, and I should send my resume to him. Frankly, it sounded very good, especially coming from a trusted friend like Sara.

But I also looked into EG, which was advertising frequently on Dave's ESL Cafe. Conditions were similar to JLS, which wasn't surprising. I called the school and spoke with a current teacher, who said there weren't any big problems working at EG. They also had branches in Seoul and Bundang, and starting salary would be about the same. In essence, JLS and EG seemd to be two sides of the same coin. However, because I had a friend at JLS, and they offered a 100 000 won/month bonus for teaching in Bundang, and because they paid a 400 000 won housing allowance, JLS was my number one choice, with EG second.

I sent resumes to both JLS and EG. Very quickly, EG sent me a contract. All I had to do was sign and return it. However, I was waiting for Baker from JLS to respond. He didn't. I wrote Sara, and she said Baker was interested in my services. Yet, I was still waiting. Meanwhile, the EG contract was burning a hole through my desk. I finally asked Sara to tell Baker that I was going to sign the EG contract if I didn't hear from him in 24 hours.

At about 3:30 in the morning, the telephone rang. It was Baker. I was drowsy, of course, and Baker, upon hearing my slurred speech, asked me if I had been drinking. Now, being thought of as a drinker isn't necessarily a bad thing in Korea, so I wasn't completely offended, but I did let him know quite strongly that he had woken me up. "Oh!" he responded. Anyway, we talked briefly, and he offered me a contract to work at the Bundang branch. Naturally, I accepted.

So now I had my next job lined up. We were definitely going back to Korea. I was definitely going to be a full-time ESL (EFL) teacher again. But I suspected that it would be a very different experience this time from what it had been before.

Perish the thought

Heather and I had been in Canada for a year-and-a-half. We were living from paycheck to paycheck, as my piddling salary from Campus WorkLink and Seneca College failed to match our expenses. We never went anywhere, not even to decent restaurants. We never took a vacation except to go to my parents' house in Wiarton. Things were looking pretty bleak.

At about the same time that Heather received her permanent resident status, the one idea that I had previously refused to consider began to creep into my mind. Should we go back to Korea?

The fact of the matter was that I had been able to make some money when I had worked in Korea as an English teacher. Living a life of deficit spending in Canada was going to be disastrous if we continued down this road. I couldn't see any bright options on the horizon in Toronto, so I finally popped the question to Heather: "Do you think we should go back to Korea?"

It was as simple as that. Merely expressing the thought suddenly made it real. One thing I've learned about myself over the years is that when an idea strikes me as being the right thing to do, I'll likely follow through on it. And so it was that we decided we would go back to Korea after our apartment lease was up, in April 2000.

Interesting times at Seneca

As I've said already, teaching at Seneca was more like a real teaching experience than what I had gone through in Korea. At the same time, there weren't a lot of hi-jinks to report from this period of my ESL career. However, I can mention the following interesting moments.

Between every semester, we participated in new student level testing sessions, and my first experience with this was as a station manager. Basically, I was in charge of telling the potential new students where to sit and who to see next, and helping the testers whenever necessary. In following semesters, I worked as one of the testers, which basically meant asking a series of progressively harder questions to determine a starting level. If there was one moment that recalled the sarcastic good old days of Korea, it was when the man in charge (I think his name was xxxxx), disgustingly told me that one of the teachers (I'll call her Crystal) was a "cunt." Okay, so professionalism didn't rule the day 24/7 at Seneca, but I laughed my ass off at that one.

One time in class, I had a group of students that included immigrants from Israel and Iran. I thought this was cool until they began to talk Middle East politics. Fearing where such a conversation might go, I nipped it in the bud and stated that no politics should be discussed during the class.

In that same class, there was a Russian lady who liked to ask and answer questions as frequently as possible. I had no problem with that, but one other student, a lady from Romania, disliked it. At one point, the Romanian student stood up to face the Russian student and berated her for talking so much, stating that she didn't come to this class to listen to a Russian do all the talking (paraphrased). There was a chill in the air for the rest of that night, and I think the Romanian woman alienated herself from the rest of the class for that semester.

In one of the semesters, my class included a few people from the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as one young lady from Italy. One night after class, they took me out to a Cuban salsa club on Yonge Street. They taught me some salsa dance moves, and I enjoyed a few fine drinks. I believe this was the only time I went out with my students while teaching at Seneca.