I will probably have my bachelor’s in a year, and I’m contemplating going to South Korea to teach English shortly after. I’m white, male, and can communicate (halfassedly) in Korean.
I’d like to know about your experiences as instructors in English hagwons.
Since the OP is looking for informed opinions, let’s go to IMHO.
samclem GQ moderator
Hagworts? Sorry man I got nothing, but while you wait for a response you can search for threads about English teachers in Japan. We got plenty of those.
Thanks for the idea, Autolycus, but I’m specifically interested in working in Korea.
Calling Monty.
I went the hagwon route for a couple years in Seoul… one year teaching and one year as academic director.
Your experience working for hagwons is going to vary wildly depending on what hagwon you work for (unless things have changed a lot in the past seven or eight years); some are great and some suck major donkey appendages… if you have any specific questions, I’d be glad to address them from my limited experiences.
Browse through some fora like Dave’s ESL Cafe for more up-to-date information.
Of course, Monty, unless I mis-remember, is there now. 
Well, what would you like to hear?
I taught at hagwons for about 5 years while I was living in Seoul. My experiences may be a bit different from what you are looking for, as I am ethnically Korean and had already been living in Korea for 6 years before I started work as an ESL teacher. But I had plenty of American and Canadian co-workers and for a while was pretty active in the ESL teachers’ community in Seoul. Plus my mom works as a Program Director for one of the Kids Herald Schools.
I would advise you try to find a job in Seoul, as the rest of Korea is pretty boring. Be very careful of middle-man agents and smaller hagwons as they can screw you over if you don’t know what you’re doing. Dave’s ESL Cafe and WorknPlay.co.kr are two sites worth checking out, especially the forums at Dave’s. You can probably find links to specific hagwons that you should avoid.
I worked for both Kids Herald and CDI. At the time, CDI paid better than Kids Herald, but Kids Herald offered more benefits, I think. I can give you more information if you have any specific questions.
Thanks for responding.
Did you enjoy the job?
Were the hagwons where you have worked geared towards adults or children? If the latter, what age group, and how widespread were the disciplinary problems? Are the work hours in the late afternoon/evening to accommodate the students’ schedules?
How much flexibility is there in the curriculum? Do you get to improvise at all or just teach out of the book?
Did the job come with room and board? What is the health insurance situation there? How were workplace relations between the administration and the teachers?
Overall, yes. Most of my foreigner friends did as well, and they enjoyed being able to actually experience a different culture by living in the midst of it (as opposed to simply visiting for a week). There were plenty of frustrations stemming from the fact that hagwons are usually run by businesspeople who don’t know anything about education and couldn’t care less; but no more trouble than what you’d run into at any job, I’d say. It really makes things easier if you are friends with whoever happens to be billingual at the institution you end up working at. 
The administrators usually don’t speak much English.
I taught mostly children, from grades 3 to 11. My classes were from 4-10pm. Discipline is not a huge problem usually - the kids do tend to be brats, but teachers still manage to command more respect in Korea than they do here in the US. (One problem you might run into is the fact that the kids know you can’t beat them so they might be bolder about crossing the line with you as opposed to with their school teachers. I would advise being on the strict side when you first start teaching.) During summer/winter breaks most hagwons have morning classes as well. Kids Herald had classes from 2-7pm, I think.
It depends on the hagwon. CDI has a very strict curriculum that is imposed everywhere, but Kids Herald leaves a lot up to the individual schools. (And then there are the schools that more or less tell you you’re on your own from Day 1.)
Again, depends on the individual hagwon. CDI paid 30/hr but had no benefits whatsoever. Other schools pay less than that but will provide room and board. (I would suggest seeing their living options before making a decision.)
As for workplace relations . . . dear God, I could write a book. Suffice it to say that it’ll be less of a headache for you if you are laidback and have a relatively thick skin. My mom has a wonderful relationship with her teachers - she invites them over to dinner, helps them settle in when they first get here, and generally treats them like her own children outside of work - but the place I worked at had the most incompetent Assistant Director I’d ever seen. She knew nothing about the curriculum and made unreasonable demands on the teachers constantly, and the resulting arguments always gave me a migraine because I would inevitably get caught in the middle (I was the only bilingual person there). So it’s pretty hit-and-miss. I would advise that you ask if you can talk to some of the teachers already working there; they can usually give you an idea of what the workplace is like.
Astroboy can probably give you a better account from a foriegner’s perspective, but there is also a lot of general (albeit mild) racism in Korea. No one’s going to beat you up for not being Korean or anything like that, but Koreans do have preconceptions of white people that are not always positive.
I hope I’m not scaring you off. It’s a great place to live and work for a year, and it’s good money as well. I’m jaded, but that’s mostly because I had to go to school there, which is a completely different experience from working there as an ESL teacher.
Actually, here’s a thread I started last year on teaching ESL in Korea:
I’d have to agree that there is some racism in S. Korea against foreign-looking people; but as HazelNut says, it’s not that bad, and, in fact, changed a lot in the time that I was there. My first year or so in Seoul ('95 or '96), my then-girlfriend (now wife), who is a native Korean, and I would have rude things yelled at us if we were holding hands walking down the street. We even had a police car follow us for several blocks once, just keeping an eye on us. But now that wouldn’t be a problem at all, at least as of 2003, which is when we came to the US.
Thanks so much