Question about Teaching Abroad

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Have a look around the forum, especially Sanantone's posts, about TESC degrees because there are ways to get the cost right down.

From everyone I have talked to over the years, the CELTA is the gold standard cert to have, and Cambridge is a big player in the world of English. The CELTA is the most expensive course, but you will usually recover the cost in first year of teaching because your starting salary will by higher with a CELTA. The CELTA is also good if you want to move on to different countries later because it is accepted everywhere in the world. If you do a random TEFL course somewhere it might not be recognized in another country.

The most important part of the teaching courses, TEFL, TESOL, CELTA etc. is that they are 100+ hours with usually 20 hours of observed teaching practice. You can get online courses in TEFL but most employers prefer the proper course to be done.

CELTA courses are held in many countries, the British Council is a good place to check out and courses are available in South Korea. Another option is to complete your course in another country and save money. Courses and costs are usually cheaper in Vietnam, or Thailand. Take a month holiday in South Asia and complete the course before heading off to South Korea.

Have a look at https://www.epik.go.kr/index.do under the job description heading. It will give you an idea of salaries, important when negotiating with an employer or looking a job ads. Most places in South Korea follow roughly the same as Epik salary standard.

The link you provided is pretty much the standard for all international teachers. The teaching packages are the same for most countries, and all the decent employers will offer most of those benefits. If benefits are missing and pay is low then it's probably a good idea to look elsewhere. Of course you still need to get some experience, but there is no need to accept a terrible package to get it. Some people do just that and they end up going home poor, and exhausted, after six months. Start off right and teaching abroad is the greatest job in the world.

Daves esl cafe always has lots of information. Dave's ESL Cafe
Look under stuff for teachers - there is a section for South Korea and also job forums.

TES is also a good site https://www.tes.co.uk/

Teachaway has an agent in South Korea http://www.teachaway.com/teach-english-korea


I have never been to South Korea personally, but I do have a few SK friends here, 4 pro footballers, a factory owner, 2 restaurant owners. I teach their kids and play futsal with them. They are wonderful people, very friendly, and interesting. They have a few strange cultural habits which exclude foreigners, but not offensive, more interesting to observe.
12 South Korean guys turn up to play football, there are also 5 professional Brazilians there, and 5 English guys.
The Koreans get together in a circle to discuss and find out who is of higher social standing. It is all very polite and they are all happy with the situation. Once they decide, some disappear off, they go to play football on their own. The guys left are higher up in social order and stay to play football with the foreigners.

I know a few teachers here that spent some time living in South Korea and they were very happy living there. One went back this year because he missed it so much.
I have visited Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, all over Indonesia, Borneo, and Malaysia.
South Korea and Japan are pretty much top of the list for teaching. China is a bit more hit and miss with quality of employers. Another teacher friend here lived in Japan for 6 years and loved every minute, but it is hard place to save money, everything is very expensive there. A lot of people go on the Jet Programme to get started in Japan. http://www.jetprogramme.org/