Teaching abroad has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Really, ever since I was 7-years-old, and listened enraptured to my Uncle’s stories of teaching abroad in Japan. This year, teaching in another country started to seem more attainable, and what’s even better is I have someone who wants to go on this adventure with me. Sometime around August we started looking for jobs, here’s our experience so far:

After searching around online, we decided upon applying through two different websites: Disney English and Aclipse. Disney English is based in China and prefers upbeat, performer type personalities, and Aclipse is a recruiting agency for Chungdahm Learning based in South Korea. We both ended up more interested in the opportunity for South Korea and Chungdahm Learning.

Chundahm Learning, according to their website, is the ESL knowledge industry leader. Boasting over 60,000 students, Chungdahm states a mission “to provide a unique program based in critical thinking and cognitive language development to help (students) realize their potential” in 125 locations spread throughout South Korea. The students range from elementary to high school age. Sounds pretty good, right? Live in another country, housing provided – earning about $2000 a month. Awesome.

The application process for Aclipse was pretty straightforward, I just filled in a simple form with my name, e-mail, country preference (Aclipse also places prospective teachers in China), and attached a resume. I received an e-mail pretty quickly upon applying, inviting me to take a GRE level reading comprehension-type quiz. Once that was submitted, I scheduled a phone interview which involved typical interview questions, and a role-play activity where the recruiter acted as a student for a short lesson I had to semi-prepare beforehand. Throughout this process, my significant other and I communicated our desire to be placed together, and our recruiter relayed to us that Chungdahm can usually place partners either in the same school or near to each other in the same city – as long as we were both individually accepted for the job.

Some time later (with fingers crossed), both my partner and I received our acceptance to Chungdahm and were directed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (essentially a “yes” to the job offer), and gather the paperwork needed

A note about the paperwork: it can seem like a lot. We had to obtain notarized copies of our Bachelor’s Degrees which then had to be apostilled at the state level, an FBI criminal background check that needed to be apostilled at the federal level by the Department of State, a proof of graduation (which was done through a website and was the easiest part of the process), and two passport photos. The longest wait time was for the FBI background check to be apostilled, although it was a much shorter wait than other blogs I read implied (It only took about a week or so to get back to us). Overall, mostly painless, but my advice to those going through the process is to start as soon as possible upon getting the job offer. Then you won’t have to wait longer for your ultimate placement.

We got word a couple days ago that they’re starting the placement process (with priority to those like us with our documents ready for the visa process). Once we get the official offer, we’ll know our official pay rate and start date – I can’t wait 🙂

So why South Korea? There are a lot of reasons South Korea seemed like the best option… namely my interest in the culture, love for the food, and the bonus of having a couple friends living there already. I’m looking forward to living in another country, growing as a person through experiencing a different culture, and (hopefully) learning a new language. I’ll make another update on the process once we get our placement and begin the final steps to obtain the E2 visa. Wish us luck!