Adventure Teaching Review

The last year has been an extremely memorable year teaching English in South Korea with Adventure Teaching. I'll try to be honest in explaining a couple of the real successes and struggles that I've experienced.
While you are still in your home country, Adventure Teaching really helps the school application/getting a visa process to go smoothly. They are really friendly people with ample experience with Korean school. There is plenty of support and advice by email and phone to coach you through each step of a rather complicated process. Also you should definitely use The Arrival Store, especially for a phone, because it will be ready when you arrive and this makes it a lot easier to start maintaining contacts, and meeting up with anyone you know in Korea. I actually really found my smart phone useful for navigation by bus, subway, walking, everything.
Also AT will give you different options for schools, and so you can choose between a couple different schools after you have done your interviews. In my case, I was ready to choose after two interviews, but in retrospect I wish I would have been more patient in waiting for a really unique offer.
At the end of the day, AT will assist you with each step, and give you advice and tips when you need them, but you have to be prepared for living in a different culture and working in a different culture. The hagwon (private academy system) in Korea is really competitive and demanding so don't expect to be on a year long holiday. I imagined that my previous experience and training as an English teacher would make this job easy, but it was very challenging and Korean bosses are tough. So all I'm saying is be deferential and agreeable and cheerful with your boss if you want to succeed. I learned the hard way. The Korean education system is different and its based on 1000's of years of history and culture. You are not going to walk in and be the exception (unless your academy is very unique). But maybe if you prove that you are willing to follow directions cheerfully first, and you learn to frame your suggestions or criticisms as questions, you can make some improvements.
Anyways, I could go on, but every teacher will have their own unique experience. Adventure Teaching will do everything they can to help you, but at the end of the day, make sure you take your teaching responsibilities seriously, get to know all your co-workers, and there will still be time to experience Korea as well.