Hi,

I can understand your grievances with this place at the time, but DEC (as it's commonly known as) has changed a lot and is no longer like the place you mentioned. I currently work there and really enjoy the position. The staff you mentioned have moved on a long time ago (Korean teachers rotate every 2 years) and the people working there now are all lovely. The setup is also different and many of the things you complained about are no longer relevant (working overnight, abuse from supervisors, etc.).

The salary you mentioned and teaching privates is a thing of the past. This role now has one of the best salaries going for foreign teachers in Daejeon / Korea and there certainly is no need to teach private students in your extra time.

I'm not really sure how you could complain about a free ride to work (the savings!) and I'm not sure who would ever get paid to commute to any job, anywhere?! The hours are slightly longer than regular EPIK teachers, who finish at 4.30, but the salary is higher to compensate for this fact. I certainly never feel like I'm missing out on anything and I've got plenty of time to do what I need to. We even leave around 2pm on Friday at the end of the camp, which means I get time to do banking, etc., which most EPIK teachers would never get the chance to do.

I don't know who that supervisor was, he sounds like a difficult person to deal with, but the teachers and supervisors we have now all work together well and support each other a lot. We're free to make changes to our classes and get to design our own textbooks for the year with a lot of freedom over what goes into the classes and what we teach. There's a lot more freedom in this sense than you'd find in a regular school.

Also, what we do when we teach is a lot of fun. I teach lots of different classes, from science to cooking, sports and drama, a CSI type class, Golden Bell and many more. I designed a lot of the classes that I teach and I worked with others to design the ones we teach as a team. From the horror stories that I've heard from other EPIK teachers about lack of support, I'd say that DEC is the complete opposite of that.

We never teach at other schools. Our role is solely at DEC and the time we're not teaching camps is spent developing textbooks, preparing materials, improving classes, walking on the mountain after lunch (one of the best perks for me!), and generally enjoying being at work in a lovely environment. DEC is located in the mountains of Gyeryongsan National Park and is stunningly beautiful in every season.

Sure, work during camps can be hard, but I think if you're kind and polite to others, then other people will help you out and support you when you need it. You also need to have a positive attitude, otherwise any job is going to be a downer for you.

During camps we have long hours but the teamwork by the teachers makes it pass by productively. Students usually leave the camp in tears - of happiness, not anger as your camps seemed to have caused - and students keep in touch with the foreign teachers by email. I still have some students emailing me 6 months after their camp ended.

I can understand how bad situations breed bad environments / feelings and can make everything seem bad. I'm sorry you had this at DEC in that time. I can assure the original poster or anyone else reading this now that this certainly isn't the case anymore.

For anyone thinking about joining DEC, please feel free to email me at joelmarrinan@googlemail.com and I'll be happy to tell you about the current situation.