December 2020
This month's voice:
Luis R. Caballero, "Get Out and Go for It! Pathways Beyond Korea"
Introduction
Lindsay Herron
Editor, KOTESOL Voices
When Luis Caballero told me last year that he was moving back to the U.S., I was incredibly conflicted. On the one hand, I'd be losing Luis, a respected KOTESOL colleague with whom I'd worked closely on both the KOTESOL National Council and the International Conference Committee and a friend whose opinions and company I valued and enjoyed. On the other hand, I was unduly excited to follow his transition back home, a choice full of promise for him and a move I'd had in the back of my mind ever since arriving in Korea fifteen years ago. As soon as KOTESOL Voices began to gel last winter, I invited Luis to contribute his unique perspective to it—perhaps detailing his experiences returning to the U.S., I suggested. Of course, when the pandemic hit, this idea was effectively rendered moot, and other concerns were pushed to the fore. As 2020 draws to a close, however, and with a vaccine on the horizon, it seems a good time to look forward to the coming year and the manifold pathways unfolding before us.
The piece Luis contributed for this month's issue of KOTESOL Voices is keenly relevant and thoughtfully incisive as it lays out some alternatives for those of us contemplating our futures. It also meshes beautifully with the Membership Committee's new video series "Paths, Passions, and Possibilities: The People of ELT," which explores via interviews the intersections of personal and professional in shaping our choices and offers insights into a variety of education-related professions. I'm sure Luis's words will resonate with many of us—the restless and the ambitious; the lonely and those longing for home; those craving greater security, responsibilities, or recognition; and intrepid seekers of new situations, new challenges. Want to know what's out there? Read on.
Get Out and Go for It! Pathways Beyond Korea
Luis R. Caballero
It’s hard to imagine an entire year has passed since I returned to North America. Could anyone have predicted that 2020 would turn out the way it did? I often think back to the start of the year and can’t help but laugh at the hope and excitement I felt being back in Chicago after so many years abroad. All of those aspirations about where I wanted to live and what I wanted to be doing got derailed in an instant once the entire country came to a screeching halt.
If there’s one thing my year-long bout of cabin fever has taught me, however, it’s that life is too short to sit by idly and wish for something better to fall into your lap. I’ve never really been one to buy into the sentiment that good things come to those who wait.
Good things come to those who seek them out. And what I want more than anything in 2021 is for you to explore ways to leave Korea. As someone who felt like I overstayed my duration in the R.O.K., I am willing to bet that you’ve grown tired of the annual kick-the-can ritual for expats. You get that email from work, or get called into your boss’s office for your annual review; they present you with an opportunity to renew your contract; and in spite of all the daydreaming you did throughout the year of moving on to somewhere new, you take a deep breath and tell yourself, “Just one more year here, and then we’ll see.” In fact, I’m willing to bet that by the time this gets posted on the KOTESOL Voices page, many of you will have just gone through your contract renewals exactly how I’ve described. “Just one more year here, and then we’ll see.”
Now don’t get me wrong. I fully understand that many of you reading this have more than earned your trailblazer merit badge. You moved to Korea, or even came of age there, long before it was considered trendy to do so. Many of you now have families, children, a successful career, a business, or other deep connections to Korea. And to you I say, that is fantastic! You have found for yourself what so many others spend their entire lives seeking: purpose, community, and stability. Truly a “Land of the Morning Calm” that extends to all hours of the day. For that, I am genuinely jealous of you for having found it in Korea of all places.
Yet I also know that many of you reading this are restless agents. A sense of calm is ever-fleeting until you feel you’ve fully made your mark on what’s around you. And once you feel you’ve done it all, or done enough of it to know the lay of the land, you are eager to take your life in new directions. Maybe you’ve grown tired of living life one employment contract at a time, never knowing what you might be doing six months from now. Maybe you’ve reached a limit on the job front and find yourself yearning for greater career mobility. Maybe you’re bored from repeatedly having the same banal, self-introductory conversation with the rotating cast of characters coming in and out of your life every few months. Or maybe you just feel homesick for the things you miss the most, and you don’t have very much keeping you tied down in Korea (I mean besides the current pandemic, of course).
Well, I’m talking directly to you, restless agents, and I’m going to tell you one of the best pieces of advice I learned at a KOTESOL conference in early 2019. With your incredible list of accomplishments and experiences from your time living abroad, there’s no reason for you to stick around in places that don’t excite you anymore. Move on. Go. Find a new place to plant roots. Get involved in something different. Take a leap of faith and know that wherever you end up next, you will find a way to make it work. Because that’s just what you do, and you’ll be better off for it.
Now, I’ll also be completely honest here. From the moment I decided to move on, back in summer 2019, I was surprised by how few resources there were to help one put a plan like that into motion. The Internet contains so many stories of people’s adventures in Korea—from the initial visa process and Skype recruiter interviews to the day-to-day musings filled with hweshiks and noraebangs. Yet when seeking information on what it’s like to leave Korea and/or return home, it seems that people are noticeably less forthcoming about their experiences going through with it, especially when it comes to identifying career prospects. So allow me to share my own observations from my move and job hunt in the midst of this pandemic, and hopefully, it will map out a few pathways for you to consider in 2021.
1) Continuing Your Teaching Career
If you’re reading this as a KOTESOL member, you probably moved to Korea on a teaching visa. Some of you may have taught in other countries before Korea, while others of you may have had your first experience teaching while in a hagwon or as part of the EPIK program. Regardless of the route you took to get here, the teacher track need not reach an end once you leave Korea.
Other jobs you could transition into include teaching public primary or secondary school, university instruction, working in an adult education ESL/literacy program (such as at a library, community college, or non-profit), doing EFL again in a country other than Korea, or landing a highly coveted spot in an international school (for which you usually need a public school teaching credential from your home country.) Obviously, if you already have an advanced degree or a teaching license in your home country, these doors will open for you more easily once you leave Korea. Otherwise, this leads me to discuss another post-Korea pathway option, which I think is actually my favorite one on this list.
2) Going Back to School
Don’t dismiss your teaching experience as somehow irrelevant or unrelated to your own educational journey. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many who leave Korea do so to pursue a master's or a doctoral degree in a related academic discipline. (This was certainly my plan when I left.) Although many go on to enroll in TESOL or applied linguistics programs, it’s not uncommon to see post-Korea graduate students moving into other fields of study: business administration, library science, life sciences, fine arts, or social studies. These tend to be folks who completed a bachelor's degree in an area similar to these, prior to finding themselves in Korea.
Then there’s the holy grail of teaching I mentioned above: gaining a public school teaching credential with the goal of moving back abroad for an international school job. Many people get bitten by the travel bug in Korea and never recover. International schools are widely considered to be rather cushy gigs to work in, thanks in large part to the opportunity to join a diverse faculty and student body, have lively discussions in the classroom, earn comfortable pay, and feel an endless sense of thrill to be working abroad. Consider it an opportunity to do the things you may enjoy now, but with more stability and mobility to go literally anywhere in the world.
Whatever long-term career or academic aspirations you have in mind, the experiences you gained living and working in Korea are worth solid gold on your graduate school applications. And as someone who currently works in higher education, believe me when I say that academia desperately needs more applicants with global perspectives and with experience working with students from diverse backgrounds. There are dozens of ways you can craft a compelling graduate school admission essay simply by telling your personal story living in Korea. Plus, all of that experience you gained in the classroom can put you in the running for graduate assistantships, teaching assistantships, and other funding sources that pay your way through grad school.
3) Other Jobs in the Education Sector
This is a reality many people don’t seem to like discussing amongst KOTESOL circles. And that is the fact that some, if not the majority, of teachers in Korea actually have next to no interest in teaching. They may find the work rewarding and genuinely enjoy interacting with their students every day, but when it comes to making a lifelong career of it, there are very few who actually end up doing so. And to be frank, I think that’s for the best. Those of you who have heard me rant in person know how much I advocate for people who aren’t serious about teaching to stop doing it for a living. If nothing else, it’s not fair to your students.
That being said, I have had the pleasure of meeting many bright, committed non-teaching school professionals over the years who spent time teaching abroad. They ultimately decided teaching wasn’t for them, but in doing so, they realized how much they enjoyed working in a school or on a university campus. Just think back to your own experiences as a student, and you will likely lose count of the number of non-teaching personnel with whom you regularly interacted. Every school needs administrative staff and educational leaders: counselors, librarians, security guards, receptionists, event planners, payroll accountants, human resources coordinators, union liaisons, policy compliance officers, and many more.
For those of you thinking you may want to take a break from teaching, be it for a brief period or a permanent vacation, then a job in educational administration would probably be the easiest transition for you to make. Your experiences in the classroom will really inform the way you serve and support the students in your school, and I for one am surprised more school personnel jobs don’t actively list teaching experience as a preferred qualification on their postings. You are even likely to find many international students from Korea enrolled in the school where you work. Best of all, these positions could qualify you for student loan relief or tuition waivers for you to continue your own education.
4) Leaving the Education Sector
And just as there are plenty of people who want to call it quits on teaching, there are even plenty more who want to leave education altogether. Again, your experience abroad opens up an endless range of job prospects. Non-profit and non-governmental organizations will take an interest in your time out in Korea, especially if their mission statements contain language on global collaboration. Corporate settings will also value your perspectives, especially if you picked up any Korean language skills or cultural customs along the way. One thing many people don’t realize before they leave Korea is how relevant Korea is on the world stage. Global corporations want to do business with Korean companies and in Korean consumer markets. Government agencies regularly watch how Korea handles global issues, especially now in the middle of this pandemic. In fact, Korea has been heralded as one of the leaders in exemplifying the way countries ought to respond to a national crisis.
Put it on your resume. You not only taught Korean students how to communicate in English; you also taught them how to communicate across cultures, not unlike the way you needed to do so all this time you’ve been living there.
Perhaps you’ve noticed a recurring theme across these many pathways. The experiences you gained working in Korea are the single biggest key to getting you in the driver seat and moving toward new endeavors. When I was in Korea, I met way too many people who just sort of lingered around indefinitely because they didn’t know what else to do. “Just one more year here, and then we’ll see” turned into two more years, then four, then ten. And truth be told, I found myself falling into that very trap the longer I stayed.
All the same, looking back on everything now, I realize how incredibly fortunate I was to have lived through all of my experiences abroad, surrounded by some really amazing friends I had met along the way. But in life, you should never hold yourself back from becoming the person you want to be. As we look to the coming year with a newfound sense of hope we thought we’d lost, we ought to take a moment to look within and find the drive, the grit, and the determination to reinvent ourselves. There is life beyond Korea, and all it takes for you to find it is the will to seek it out.
This is obviously a very complex topic with so many items to unpack. I am delighted to announce that during the next year, I’ll be joining you all in the KOTESOL Membership Lounge for an AMA. There are some really interesting ideas in the works that I think will support KOTESOL’s international (and international-bound) members. Be sure to watch this space.
In the meantime, here’s to 2021—a year of new directions!
About the Author
Luis R. Caballero is an academic advisor at a community college in Illinois (USA). He is also completing his second master's degree in TESOL with a graduate research assistantship, ahead of beginning a doctoral program in international education for fall of 2021. He credits much of his professional and academic success to his experiences living abroad, especially during his five years teaching in Korea. During his time there, he wore many hats within KOTESOL—vice president of the Busan-Gyeongnam Chapter, national Diversity Committee chair, and program director of the 2019 KOTESOL International Conference. He left Korea in late 2019, just in time for the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
