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An ESL Teacher's Handbook For South Korea: What The Recruiter Probably Never Told You
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price:
$9.95
Asia Trips Trips Price: $9.95
Subject To Change Without Notice
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 371
EAN: 9780595403103
ISBN: 0595403107
Label: iUniverse, Inc.
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 72
Publication Date: 2006-07-07
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
Studio: iUniverse, Inc.
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Editorial Reviews:
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What did the recruiter tell you? What is the truth? The truth is that everybody has a different experience. But, many recruiters are paid to fill positions. This book is about how to function. How to understand the way things work with phones and money, contracts and jobs. Having a drama will help you understand some of the idiosyncrises of different relationships. Sometimes you need a pinch to know you are sane. Then you read the “You know you are in…” section and find that you will laugh and relax, writing your own list of things to add to the list. Most everything depends on attitude. I can’t help you with that. But I can help your stress become more manageable so that you get the most of your experience and maybe stay awhile longer.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not worth your money.
Comment: When I received this book in the mail, I was surprised at the size of the book. I expected something more substantial for ten dollars; it's only 63 pages. The first section of the book is the most informative but at 14 pages it's brief. As an experienced teacher and traveller, I found the tone to be a bit condescending. There is really nothing revealing about his info. Then the second section is a fictional worst-case-scenario for English teachers. And, for some reason, 'Professor Paul' decides to write it as a play. The conversations are awkward and corny at times. I like that he is preparing you for possibly bad situations but it's difficult to read. And then there is the grammar. I know sometimes teachers pick up mistakes from thier students but this is ridiculous. I question if this man is even who he says he is. He could be some highschool dropout, who put this book together from internet research. I wouldn't let this man teach my dog to play catch let alone teach my children English. Don't waste your money or as 'Professor Paul' would write: Doesn't waste your money!
Customer Rating:
Summary: 14 pages of information the rest is fluff
Comment: I was supremely disappointed when I received this book. I am planning on going to Korea to teach english as a second language, and was looking for a good source of information; the title of this book was enough to sucker me in. A brief look into the table of contents will show that the actual content is up to page 14 and then after are two sections, which are completely worthless: Section II, and III.
Section II is the author recounting of true stories of experiences in Korea, but in play form! This is a very tedious read with little to no information.
Section III is entitled "You Know You are in Korea..."; little needs to be said about this. I am sure a list of one liners similar to this could be easily found on the internet.
As a final complain the informative section of the book has only 2 or 3 sections actually dealing with situations specific to teaching english as a second language. These sections are each about a page in length, and are hardly informative outside what you will most likely find at a casual glance across internet sites.
In short this book was a tremendous, uninformative, waste of money, and offers nothing unique or illuminating. Furthermore it is a grammatical mess (I'm not saying my grammar is perfect, but I am not publishing books).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't Go into it Blind. Get this Handbook.
Comment: This is a neat, slim little volume with the potential to save you from many a headache. Korea, for many, is a conundrum; even long-time journalists admit to not having it pegged. Also, the world of ESL in general can be a rather bizarre one, and this book examines what can happen when it collides with Korean ethics and business practices: naive, well-meaning foreign teachers are often left in the lurch. This book should help aleviate or prevent typical problems.
Troy Parfitt, author
Customer Rating:
Summary: English???
Comment: I am a student who is seriously considering going overseas to teach English in Korea. After my recent trip there, I was completely entranced by the culture and the landscape. So I began doing a lot of research into the matter and I stumbled upon this book.
This book starts off interestingly enough with a slightly awkward introduction where the dialogue is at a pseudo-conversational level. But then it finally gets going and the (unlabeled) first section gives a very brief (and slightly circumstatial) handful of tips for someone who is completely new to the Korean culture. These tips are clearly drawn from a single persons experience, but experience nonetheless; they are presented in a friendly, suggestive manner. Then the book presents a "play" which was basically a re-cap of all of his tips but in a "typical" situation that a reader might find themselves in. While the play offers a nice view of how things might be, it hardly answers any questions. The book then closes with a short list of the authors observances and acquired stereotypes of the Korean culture and people. While a few are amusingly true enough, most are a lot more circumstantial and can't be a shared laugh with anyone (as they seem to have been intended).
The thing that bothered me the most about this book, is that it seems to have been submitted for publishing without any sort of grammatical editing whatsoever. I can understand a few slipping by but some sentances are just plain difficult to figure out. Either the author is not as prolific in English as many would expect of a teacher, or he has just been in Korea for too long. Or perhaps he just wrote this book in like, 20 minutes.
Regardless of the reason, this book (to me) is worth maybe a glance through, but I wouldn't pay more than $3 for it. There are many better books on teaching ESL out there. This "handbook" offers a few up-to-date tips but hardly any insight and probably the shallowest glimpse at Korean culture I've seen in a book so far. Better luck elsewhere.
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