There are no mistakes in communism…um, I mean…communication.

What in your view is the main mismanagement issue at hogwons?
To me that's easy.

1. The middle manager. Most schools appoint a manager on the cheap, who must answer to the owner and get results. I know its a difficult position but almost invariably they are in it for theri own ego. This means they either bully or oppress the staff while having little or no management experience or ability.

2. Obsession with paperwork. Many Koreans think work = typing everything onto paper.. which nobody ever reads. Often poor managers make up for their lack of skills by resorting to excessive paperwork. They don't seem to get that writing lengthy lesson plans and daily reports every day is mostly unnecessary, exhausting and time wasting. Its simply the wrong focus for a school.

3.  A reliance on rules. Once again, a long list of rules does not make a good school. Teaching young people is a dynamic environment that needs flexibility and adaptibility. There is no one size fits all. Usually it is inexperienced and unskilled management that thinks a rules system is all they need.

These three issues brings to mind a situation that I somehow got wrapped up in while working for an eikaiwa in a resort town near Nagano.
These big corporations typically treat their branch school managers (who are invariably young women) like total crap. The manager at my school would, after phone calls from headquarters, be a mess for the rest of the day. Her job was brutal, so it wasn't a huge surprise when she left on zero notice (zero notice to upper management, that is: we'd spent a lot of time figuring out and completing the student visa application process to Aus lol).

This meant that my branch was effectively without a manager, and seeing as I was the only teacher there, it was also without a native Japanese speaker.
I basically showed up to work as usual, got a set of keys from the mall security, and taught lessons until closing time, when I looked it up behind me.
When students had to renew, I had their parents help me figure out which papers they had to get, and let them sort it out with the regional HQ while I just kinda rubber stamped everything. Needless to say, for those months, the parents of renewing students probably gave themselves some seriously sweet deals.
  I "did" crap tonnes of paperwork -- soooo much paperwork! -- none of which I understood or even could read, all with the help of various parents (who were all awesome, all seemed to know each other, and all did things together outside of the school, including, probably, colluding to rip off the franchise during that period lol).

  It was a surreal bunch of months, for which I got paid a lot of money for doing all sorts of things that I did not and still don't understand.
  But yeah, paperwork, excessive regulations, and poorly treated lower management.

Why the hell was that deleted?

Because "hakwan". Hurts the eyes, it does.


NB: I'm not being serious. I don't know the answer.

Yeah, hahah, what a douche! *nervous laughter*

... uh... uh... uh...

I have been teaching in only hagwons here since December 2002 and NONE of those 3 apply.

If you work in a smaller hagwon, there is no middle manager. There is a receptionist who also takes on office manager duties, but she (has always been a woman where I've worked) is a fountain of help, a real trooper in times of need. Paperwork? I never had to put ink on paper until my 15th year (other than the yearly contract), but this hagwon needs two-line prep and review notes, and coronovirus negative symptoms checks. Rules? ... I rule my classroom. No one has ever told me what to do or not do, other than finish on time (am sometimes late) and give - or don't give - homework (different hagwons have different such preferences).

I was told at my first hagwon on Day 1 to use the audio cassette and computer DVD (this was 2002) and I said flatly "Thanks but I'll only use the book" and acted out the scenes with myself and the more courageous students (as the only foreigner they had just paid to fly overseas, i knew i had leverage).

I visit every hagwon BEFORE accepting a job (except my first, which i interviewed on phone the previous foreigner, a famous ESL Cafe/book author who later went to China and supposedly fell off a building to his death). It is important to find a great match between employer and employee.

My beef with hagwons? ...   ... The dinner break is sometimes 10 minutes long. ... Can't think of anything else (based on my experience - i have had beers over horror stories, but in each case, the teacher has been a bit oblivious to the culture and added fuel rather than water to fire.

You lie to my face! My very face! My very hairy, scary face! How dare you!

Your happy-go-lucky attitude doesn't quite add up. We know. The deletions give you away. They wore you down, and no matter how many times you put on this happy face, you know deep down we are the same, you and I. We got in daily. Oh boy, did we ever get it. How they laughed as we cried. In your case you had a Korando, but I had no such luck. At first it was the woods, where only the small animals heard my yelps. Then it was my shoebox. It muffled my cries, but the neighbors heard. Did they help? Were they concerned? Of course not. They merely turned up the volume of the tv, so the people on screen eating food only munched louder. I cried and they ate. They ate so much. Now I'm almost back in the woods. But at least there I'm away from the ears of the people who never listened. They heard. They heard much. Never listening, though.

Keywords: Korando, Hagwon.

Come at me, bros.

 

I visit every hagwon BEFORE accepting a job (except my first, which i interviewed on phone the previous foreigner, a famous ESL Cafe/book author who later went to China and supposedly fell off a building to his death).

I remember hearing about a teacher who jumped off a building. I think he had been cyberbullied by other teachers.

What in your view is the main mismanagement issue at hogwons?
To me that's easy.

1. The middle manager. Most schools appoint a manager on the cheap, who must answer to the owner and get results. I know its a difficult position but almost invariably they are in it for theri own ego. This means they either bully or oppress the staff while having little or no management experience or ability.

2. Obsession with paperwork. Many Koreans think work = typing everything onto paper.. which nobody ever reads. Often poor managers make up for their lack of skills by resorting to excessive paperwork. They don't seem to get that writing lengthy lesson plans and daily reports every day is mostly unnecessary, exhausting and time wasting. Its simply the wrong focus for a school.

3.  A reliance on rules. Once again, a long list of rules does not make a good school. Teaching young people is a dynamic environment that needs flexibility and adaptibility. There is no one size fits all. Usually it is inexperienced and unskilled management that thinks a rules system is all they need.

Doesn't this describe pretty much any bureaucracy and most corporate structures? I don't think obsessive record keeping is unique to Korean academies.

"Why are they so obsessed with rules? Gets in the way."
"Why aren't they following the rules? It creates chaos!"

"Why are they having us keeping records of everything?"
"Why are there no records? Who is organizing things here?"

Middle management is indeed a problem, but you have to have someone in charge...

Doesn't this describe pretty much any bureaucracy and most corporate structures? I don't think obsessive record keeping is unique to Korean academies.

depends on the corporate structure, i guess. some of those silicon valley types like to get weird with it.

What with the new president's suggestion of scrapping the minimum wage and drastically increasing work-week hours, we can expect more low-ball slave job offers soon.
In three or four years we'll all be like "Remember back in the day when all the new ESL teachers were being paid 2.1 million? And for only 40 hours a week! Man, they just didn't know how good they had it!"