SMOE Reviews in Seoul

Former Employee – worked at SMOE full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great benefits for foreign worker in South Korea.

Cons – Korean work culture is quite different from western counterpart. You are expected to arrive to work early and leave late. be ready for last minute changes and accept it all with a smile.

Advice to Senior Management – Management won't read this.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at SMOE full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – good first step into the world of ESL teaching. Depending on who you get as your co-teachers/administration, your time spent in Korea can be really great or downright miserable. Considering the actual amount of work you do, the pay is actually decent.

Cons – SMOE isn't really an education office that looks after their NETs. They recently have been implementing changes that are financially impacting the current teachers. A lot of the articles in your contract doesn't matter due to your school's principal holding most of the power(i.e. when you can use your vacation days)

Advice to Senior Management – Instead of going to the first idea that comes to mind when it comes to budget restraints(which usually ends up leaving a lot of NETs unhappy), please think of other cost-saving ideas.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at SMOE full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – great hub to get out and see a/several different country/ies with excellent vacation time given as well as accomodations

Cons – many projects will be thrown at you out of nowhere; learn to be flexible and get over the fact. it will happen to everyone

Advice to Senior Management – give greater representation to native teachers to voice their concerns and influence policy

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at SMOE full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great benefits and compensation! Good Company

Cons – Getting harder and harder to stay in Seoul. They require more and more as each semester comes!

Advice to Senior Management – It cost less to keep a current teacher then to recruit a new teacher from overseas... If a teacher decided not renew the contract but a month or so down the road has a change of heart you should work with that teacher to secure another position even if they have to take a cut in benefits... Be more flexible to current teacher!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at SMOE full-time for more than a year

Pros – The pay is pretty good for the living standards of Korea and the degree of difficulty isn't too hard... many people didn't even have teaching experience before coming here and learned how to teach English on the fly. Vacat

Cons – While the rest of the teachers and kids are on vacation, the Native English Teacher (NET) must teach 5 weeks of English camp each break. However, the camp itself isn't too bad and is actually more fun than regular class. Also, the cultural gap is pretty big and some people find it hard to adjust in Korea.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at SMOE full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good support
Consistent Pay
Always fair
They actually hire foreigners for the office and offer extra classes to make money

Cons – schools they place you in is random
I heard things are getting worse for benefits
Some schools are nightmares and shouldn't have a foreign teacher

Advice to Senior Management – Allows foreigners to participate more in decision making instead of the silly meetings organized every 3 weeks. Remove schools that clearly do not want a foreigner placed in them.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at SMOE full-time for more than a year

Pros – ~ 1 week orientation allows you to meet other Foreign English teachers and build your network and friends in Korea. The orientation also introduces different teaching methods for you to spice up your lesson plans and give Korean students a more fun and engaging learning environment. You can also swap lesson planning ideas with other teachers.

~ Decent salary 2 000 000won ($2 000 CDN per month)

~ SMOE pays for housing, and you are only in charge of utilities. Hence, you can really save up a lot of $$$ to pay off student loan debts.

~ Decent Vacation breaks (21 days) and on top of that, you get the Korean holiday breaks as well.

~ Awesome students (luck of the draw)

~ Wonderful co-teachers (luck of the draw)

~ Depending on the school, work conditions can be very relaxed. Some days you might arrive at school all prepared to teach only to find that all of your classes have been cancelled because your students have to write an exam.

~ You are not expected to juggle administrations responsibilities on top of teaching like Korean teachers. Your only responsibility is to come up with 1 - 2 lesson plan(s) per week.

~ School office politics are deaf to you because everyone speaks Korean. So not knowing is bliss.

Cons – ~ You don't get to choose what grade. SMOE will ask you for your grade preference (Elementary, Junior High, Senior High), but it is not guaranteed that you will get your first choice.

~ You don't get to choose which school you get placed in. This means you can't research your school's background nor get into contact with past teachers whom had taught at that school. It's all about luck of the draw. If you're lucky, you will get a great school that's organized, friendly, and professional. If you're unlucky you will get a poor, disorganized school who will disregard your contract and demand that you take on extra classes, and who also fails to pay you on time.

~ You don't get to choose where you live since the school is in charge of finding you a place to live. So if you are lucky, you will find yourself living in a clean apartment in a convenient location within walking distance to your school with the subway and supermarket nearby. If you're unlucky, you might find yourself in an apartment with bedbugs, cockroaches or ants. I had one friend who had an apartment that smells like smoke with an ant problem,because the previous occupant was a smoker and never took care of the apt's upkeep. I had another friend who's apt was infested with cockroaches because the landlady let her dogs run wild and pee and poo in the halls. So you never know. If you don't like your place, then you're in charge of finding a new apt yourself. rarely will the school help you.

~ You will be the only English speaker in the entire school so you will feel a bit isolated with everyone around you speaking Korean.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at SMOE

Pros – It's better than being back at home and unemployed. They pay for housing and depending on your school, sometimes you get a decent amount of vacation.

Cons – It's really a crapshoot, I've heard of some people hating their schools, and other loving it and staying longer than they expected.

Advice to Senior Management – No real leadership, your picked from Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, and they place you into any school that has openings.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at SMOE

Pros – * working in the culture, getting to see how things are really run from a native korean's point of view
*some really enthusiastic students
*not having to deal with the parents
*not a lot of pressure since kids are not paying for public school
*a decent amount of freedom when it comes to lesson planning
*a lot of random holidays or days when you go to work but don't teach classes
*a fairly light work load

Cons – *absolutely poor communication from the top down
*not enough monetary support from administration to run programs at the level they expect and demand
*hard to develop good relations with students since you see each class only once or twice a week
*very poorly run districts
*sudden and strange changes in plans
*sometimes very strange requests for school-related projects and activities

Advice to Senior Management – *have better lesson-planning sharing ideas for teachers
*offer discounts on korean-language courses
*better preparation for new teachers