Teaching in March

Thursday, February 15th,

Today, I met with the HR Director. She talked to me about switching locations and teaching role. In March, I will start teaching "Real Business" English. I believe that I will only teach that course. It does mean that my schedule will be quite different and not exactly ideal. I will teach from 7AM to 10AM and 7PM to 10PM. It would be nice if I could live closer to work, but for now, I will continue to live with Dr. Kim and have a 45 minute commute. It will be nice to only teach one subject, but I was told that there isn't a formal book. The previous teacher has built up a collection of material that I hope he will pass onto me since he is leaving for a regular corporate job. I will observe his class next week and receive some formal training. This class will be challenging because I will teach business people with English levels that should be closer to fluent. To begin, I will receive an hourly wage for the first three months. After that time, Pagoda will determine if I should go to a commission-based pay rate based on student enrollment. If I do a good job and I am able to retain and recruit students, then I should earn a better salary by working on commission.

On another note: Dr. Kim's wife passed her driver's license exam. She and Dr. Kim went car shopping. Dr. Kim was kind enough to inform me that they were shopping for a used car because he expects that she will have a few "bumps and scratches" when she is driving to work. Many of the roads are quite narrow in Seoul, so driving is quite a challenge. I see many cars that have bolt-on extras to protect from minor bumps and side-swiping, but there are still numerous cars that have visible damage from scratching other cars.