Guaranteed Paid Job Placement to Teach English in South Korea
- South Korea
About Program
Embark on the ultimate adventure and teach in South Korea! Experience a new culture and make valuable connections, all while earning a competitive salary, with your flights reimbursed, bonus pay, paid vacation, and free furnished apartment, not to mention full health coverage.
We walk you through everything you need to know before you depart to South Korea and from the moment you touch down, you'll receive 24/7 support from our in-country team who will be on hand for you throughout your teaching placement for anything you need help with - be it big or small.
Our In-Class TEFL & Placement, Online TEFL & Placement and Placement Only program options cater for those who require an accredited TEFL certification as well as those who hold existing TEFL Accreditation. You’ll get informed, first-hand advice to guide, prepare and support you before, during and after your experience.
Video and Photos
Program Highlights
- JOB SECURITY: TravelBud guarantees you a teaching job in carefully vetted schools where every effort is made to match placement preferences. Earn salaries of $1600 – $1900 USD per month.
- SUPPORT: We walk you through everything you need to know before you depart to South Korea and from the moment you touch down, you'll continue to receive 24/7 support from our in-country team who will be on hand for you throughout your placement.
- TEFL & PLACEMENT OPTIONS: Our internationally accredited In-Class TEFL & Placement, Online TEFL & Placment and Placement Only program options cater for those who require an accredited TEFL certification as well as those who hold existing TEFL Accreditatio
- TEACHER NETWORK: A support network of fellow teachers where you can meet other like-minded individuals who are experiencing the same pleasures and challenges you are.
- LIFETIME PLACEMENT: Once you’ve completed your contract, we can guarantee you a position at another partner school throughout Asia for which you are eligible on your program line, at no additional charge to you.
Current Teaching Jobs
View the latest teaching job postings by TravelBud.
Response from TravelBud
Hi Gemma
Our entire team has taken the time to thoroughly read through your review and to understand not only your concerns, but see how we can use this as an opportunity to address them and make improvements to our program.
As with your partner Tom, we would like to reiterate that we take this seriously and that while hundreds of teachers have had positive experiences with our program, we value feedback and do not take these negative experiences lightly.
We are incredibly saddened and deeply sorry to hear that your time in South Korea was not the experience that you had hoped it would be.
We ask respectfully that we are given the opportunity to respond to your points from our perspective, as you have been given the chance to do.
Overall, we would like to make it clear that there are certain elements of the experience that are in our control and that we are investigating, and then there are elements that simply cannot be considered the responsibility of a single organization, such as government efficacy and cultural norms pertaining to another country.
Our goal as an institution is to offer support and guidance within the realm of what we can control and to navigate the logistical elements of moving to another country, but we do feel it would be deemed unreasonable to place blame squarely at the door of TravelBud for elements of an experience that has innumerable factors across cultures and individuals.
Teaching abroad offers a unique opportunity to embrace a very different culture from one's own and openness and adaptability are qualities that make for teachers that thrive in new environments and under the pressures of moving abroad.
Having all taught abroad before, we can truly understand that the experience has challenges and it’s not all Instagrammable views - there are days when you miss your family and home and when adapting to new cultures can feel overwhelming. In most cases, however, the good outweighs the bad and the challenges. I’m sorry to hear that this was not the case in your experience teaching in South Korea.
The first point we would like to address is the idea of multiple, disconnected companies. The work that goes into each applicant for the entire journey prior to departure, upon arrival and throughout your time is extensive. As such, we have taken the various aspects of the process and divided it between ourselves and our closely aligned partners with whom we have worked for years, to ensure that those with expertise specific to a particular process are handling that specific aspect.
That being said, we are transparent about the fact that TravelBud is your main point of contact throughout your journey, regardless of what stage you are in. We ask that our applicants reach out to us first and foremost in the event of any feedback, be it positive or negative.
You mentioned that you reached out to us several times with no response, but we have the correspondence of the numerous emails between yourself and our support team. There is no correspondence that indicates that you were looking to leave and we had to hear from another teacher at your school that you had left Korea. It is very difficult to assist teachers if we do not have open and honest communication with our team to be able to best assist.
We have looked into the hostility mentioned by the staff member at one of our partner companies and I can assure you that that particular staff member has been let go. We are looking into ways to ensure that the level of communication across the board is at a standard that TravelBud is happy with.
We do need to acknowledge that while we have dealt with that particular staff member and that we do apologise for their conduct, teachers also need to understand that the Korean staff can come off very direct as a result of direct translations from Korean and cultural differences in their means of communication.
In terms of placements within the same proximity, I understand that you feel that it was not close enough. There are a number of moving parts that need to align in order to place teachers in the same school. Under normal circumstances, it can be challenging to take on couples, but we are one of the few companies willing to do so and we, unfortunately, cannot overlook the extenuating circumstances and challenges posed during the world pandemic. In light of that, we did our best to ensure you were as close as physically possible at the time.
We are working on the following plans that are as a result of your feedback:
- A clear and transparent infographic to showcase our connections with our entire team and their process responsibilities
- Management of expectations regarding what is feasible in the teaching landscape when it comes to placing couples
- Broadening the scope of understanding the means of communication across cultures
I will be reaching out to you and Tom personally via email to hopefully open a dialogue to address some of your points and see how we can navigate this process together in order to improve.
Warm Regards,
Tristan Owen
CEO