Come again?

So today I started one of my new part-time jobs as an ESL teacher at a small English school in K-town (that's Korea-town for any non-New Yorkers reading this).

I've known since the "interview" that it wasn't a typical school. On the day that I interviewed for this job, I basically met my boss (we'll call him Mr. Pee) and then argued back and forth about which hours I was and was not willing to work. He wasn't interested in my past experience. He didn't seem to know a whole lot about class size, teaching materials, or measuring levels of language ability. He showed me the classrooms, then introduced me to his four secretaries and said, "I only hire for beauty." No, I am not making that up.

But the pay is good, so I decided to give it a shot.

I arrived fifteen minutes early today and spoke to all four "secretaries" who had no idea that it was my first day working there, had no HR paperwork for me to fill out, and generally seemed flabbergasted as to why I would even ask them questions in the first place.

Taking attendance and marking down who arrives late or leaves early seems to be the main concern of my employer. I've been shown where the attendance sheets are kept about three times now. And I still have no idea how many students are enrolled in either of my two classes, or how it was determined whether they were beginner, intermediate, or advanced.

For my "intermediate" conversation class today I had only two students. Apparently most of them just stopped showing up since the previous teacher quit. They were both very nice, but nowhere near intermediate, and so I scrapped the lesson plan I had written and we practiced much easier structures. Like "I like reading" instead of "I like read the book."

Speaking of lesson plans, the school doesn't provide any. I was told: "Maybe go to Barnes and Noble, pick out a book, or use the Internet, whatever you want to do." I get the feeling that you just select whatever resources you like and make photocopies. My fellow teachers have been my greatest source of information so far, but the unspoken code seems to be: this place is a mess, do the best you can, we get paid on Thursdays.

Homework? Quizzes? Progress? Madness? Will any of these things occur? Only time will tell.

So I'm trying to keep an open mind. I do enjoy teaching English, especially when students are keen to learn, but I don't know how much of my time and energy I'm willing to invest when the school I work for doesn't provide anything but classrooms and ornamental support staff.

I can't help but laugh at myself however: when I taught English in Japan, all I did was whine and moan about how many rules they had. Now I'm whining because there are no rules. What I really need to do is pull finger and work on my book some more, because if that goes well I can quit teaching altogether and find all new things to whine about.