This is an internet based Wonderland review. Detailed information about Wonderland in Korea is needed by teachers around the world. Wonderland is a Language Institute in Korea and it’s in need of ratings. Ratings and comments will help other teachers learn more about Wonderland. If someone was interested in teaching in Korea, would this school be a good place to start? Is Wonderland a great place to work or is it in need of improvement?
Name of School: Wonderland
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| Korea | |
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| Language Institute |
Overall Quick Rating: 
(47 votes, average: 2.28 out of 5)
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I worked for Wonderdland in Cheong-ju, in 2002-2003. It was a great experience the owner paid on time and we were treated very well. He even drove me to the airport when I was leaving. Aside from taking us places we were often invited to his home. Not all Wonderland’s are bad-it just depends on who own’s it, just like every other institute there.
I appreciate all these comments, invaluable.
Does anybody have any information on the Wonderland in Soedaemun? It’s run by Yang Kyung-hwa.
Does anybody have information about Wonderland in Gyeong-ju? I’ve spoken with one current teacher there who makes it sound fine, but these comments make me concerned!
I have been offered a job with wonderland in S Korea, is there a way to check on a particular school prior to arrival?
RYAN DO NOT WORK AT WONDERLAND UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE.. Ok not that extreme.. Look for another chain apart from wonderland, they’re not the best from what I went through. Make sure you do a thorough background check on the school before you agree to anything.
I worked at the Wonderland School in Kanseo Ku, Seoul in 2002. I only lasted 2 months. I was given extra teaching responsibilities even if I did not want them, although I did get some extra money for them (not much). I too had to stand the whole time I was in the classroom for several classes on end even though some of the native Korean teachers sat during their lessons. My fellow teachers and I could not write anything potentially negative about a student in an evaluation, to the point that the head Korean teacher used white out and rewrote comments written by a fellow teacher. The student in question regulary beat up his classmates and continually caused disruption, but the new comments said he was well loved by and a role model for his fellow classmates.
I had my youngest student (who showed serious signs of OCD) bite me quite hard. He was removed from my class for 10 minutes so that he could settle down and then returned. I was not allowed to tell his parents because they might think he was unhappy and withdraw him. I had no back up for any kind of disciplinary measures.
From the sounds of earlier comments, I could have had an even worse experience, and that is truly scary.
Hi,
My husband and I have been offered jobs with wonderland in Jecheon. Anyone know anything about this? It sounds pretty good, although we were a bit suspicious because they need people so soon that they’re going to fly us to Japan for visas… We’re not accepting anything though until we email teachers who have worked there.
I have been offered 2 positions within the Wonderland chain, one in Suji, and one in Kangdong. I need to find a job in Korea, ASAP, and as I am an undergraduate there are few positions available, despite my 6 years classroom experience, and english tutoring. Can anyone give me some advice?? please email me at i_can_be_me@hotmail.com
I am currently in my 7th month at a Wonderland. It has been alright, just your usual crap dealing with Hagwons…If you are experienced I’d recommend a University job. Less hours, okay pay, and months of paid time off. The only thing I kick myself for is not doing more research and getting paid more. Just keep in mind that their are jobs in Korea that can offer you 2.8-3.2 million….
HELP PLEASE, I am offered a job in south korea in a school called seodaegu wonderland…can anyone please let me know whats up with this franchise as im hearing lots of bad things. thank u
I have been contacted about a place here. Does anybody have any advice?
Jung-gu Wonderland Daejeon; I worked at this branch for nine months of my life. In this time, I learned how little and meaningless my life was from my employers. The husband wife team own and operate it, and they employ their two daughters in the classes to spy for them. There was no training, no support from employers. The bosses played on the other foreigner and I to want to make us hate each other. If there ever was a parent day, I was forbidden to ever speak to the parents, and if they ever said anything to me, the wife-boss came up and demanded to know what they said and yelled at me for not walking away from the parents.; She was , as I found out later, yelled at by the parents because she had promised the them their children would have daily milk and failed on that. My worst grudges against them would be lack of legal obligations, that is they refused to pay taxes and medical care for me. They of course yelled at me daily and threw books at me. Mind you, I was young, naive, this was my first job in Korea and having a Korean boyfriend I knew this was not their way.
So any advice for those who are found in similar situations as I was; I wanted out at Month three but he threatened to blacklist me and I would also have to pay airfare. So, I gave him a deal, he gave me a letter of transfer, I didn’t have to pay airfare, and I left at the new semester in September. I planned it for months before breaking it to him before summer break.
My advice would be to contact the foreign teachers who work their my asking for their e-mail. (I had to interview another teacher while the boss listened in), apply to all to the bigger schools because they have more weight, i.e. universities, WSI, Berlitz, and YBM. Hakgwons are still a pathetic excuse for lack of education the government should be providing.
Weigh your options carefully. Though kiddie hakgwons provide certain hours and accommodation, you could be in a nightmare situation. Adult ones expect you to do adult things, like find a place that you like and can afford. God forbid you have to do such in your OWN country!
Good luck! After teaching for three years in Korea, I moved on to better pastures.
Final word;
DO not deal with Wonderland. I have had to go to the labour board because they refuse to give me the final 5 days of vacation. Instead they are giving me only four. They make you work 180 classes a month at 40 min. Most hogwons operate under 40 min class = 1 teaching hour. Wonderland does not. The result is overworked for the same pay. They want cooperation on your part but aren’t willing to work with you when you need something. I have given up important funerals, my brother’s wedding for this company and when I ask for a class off to do personal stuff or a reference letter, their answer is no. This is not a company to work for. They are definitely not supportive of their employees.
I’ve just been offered a job at Wonderland in Jecheon, there’s not any comments here about it wondered if anyone had any feedback? My recruiter seems a good guy so i don’t think he’d send me anywhere bad but i’m concerned after reading your comments. Please contact me asap on theonlyhollyparker@hotmail.com
Thanks
For me, I worked at the Wonderland in Munsan… the furthest city in S. Korea, before you head to the DMZ.
It was good money, yes, but you had to fight for it. When I went through a recruiter he openly told me that I was rejected from 3 schools just because I’m not “white”, before Munsan (desperate for teachers, since they are way out in the countryside) finally hired me.
There was fighting to get my overtime, to get them to pay their half of the health insurance when I was sick, and a whole bunch of other stuff besides.
I wound up teaching around 120 students a week… but I really did fall in love with teaching the little kids. They can be little monsters that drain energy from you, and I don’t regret going to teach in Korea, just NOT with Wonderland (go with a public language school instead!!)
Hi, I am curious about Wonderland schools. Do they only hire teachers who are unable to construct 100-word posts that aren’t full of grammatical errors? Perhaps they are only pulling resumes that feature spelling and punctuation mistakes. Any ideas?
Any one know about Wonderland Kangdong?
Does anyone know about a school called “Fay Wonderland” in Seokchon-Dong, Songpa-Gu???! Is this a Wonderland branch?
I worked at Mapo Wonderland in Seoul. The school administration was ok, they treated me well, I was paid every month on time and I got my severance pay. The apartment was nice (it has changed since 2006). The problems are what many other schools have: overwork and pay was slightly below average; it was 9-12, with a half hour lunch that was wasted by serving the kids, then 1-4 and then 6-9. So that was pretty much your whole day. The kids were mostly slow working and sometimes behavior was awful. Lots of Korean spoken and little incentive to learn. Little respect was given to teachers as the admin tripped over each other trying to accommodate lousy parents. Still I hung in there and I guess I can’t complain too much. Try Korea Poly School instead. Its millions of times better.
I worked at Buk-Wonderland in Gwangju and had a great time. I have since worked at an ECC and prefer Wonderland. Both were hagwons and had the usual complaints from teachers. For me it was the program and the respect from the Supervisor which made me prefer Wonderland. It is easy to say go to POLY or Uni but places are increasingly putting restrictions on who they want to hire thinking this will help them get better teachers. eg: POLY will only take North Americans, Universities prefer those with M.As. I am now about to take my third contract at a Hagwon because I love teaching kindy and elementary kids.
The best way to get what you want is to take your time and know what you want in a contract/know what you can get. Good Luck!
Hi, my name is chris, i am currently looking to teach in japan or korea. I have been accepted as a ALTERNATE teacher for the JET program in japan. However, a korean lady came to my TESOL course and talked to us about wonderland in korea. I have been in communication with her, and have created a back up plan of teaching in a wonderland school. Does anyone have any advice in which school is best to teach at, what to watch out for…good and bad experience etc? If so please email me at chris_streak@hotmail.com, i wont be agreeing to anything for a few months^^
hi,
i have been offered a job at Buk- Wonderland in Gwangju, the Supervisor was lovely to chat too and so was the foreign teacher. does anyone have any information on this school as this is my first job in Korea and im a bit apprehensive.
thanks.
contact me on laurelletrishia@gmail.com please
I currently work at a wonderland in a suburb of Seoul and I do not recommend signing a contract with them. They have failed to provide an apartment after a few months, failure to pay on time on several occasions and now they are planning on changing the holiday dates which are only two weeks away. From my experience, I do not recommend this branch.
do not work at any wonderland period please do not make the same mistake my wife and I did I.E they never pay you on time or for the correct amount , they steal your pension , force you to work unpaid overtime , and also do not give you the 15 days paid overtime as required by Korean labor law.
I was offered a position with Wonderland in Suwan. Anyone know anything about this school?
All these comments are most likely completely correct, however everything that you read, you have to read with the awareness that not all of these wonderland schools are bad…and in fact most aren’t.
Firstly, the kind of people who comment are generally those that have had bad experiences. Secondly Wonderland schools are a chain and each individual school is run by an individual owner and his own supervisor. They may follow the general Wonderland curriculum but when it comes to te actual running of the school, then it is left to their own discretion. I recently was taken on a trip to Seoul for a wonderland training convention for their new English training program. There were wonderland Foreign teachers from all over the country and we were all very happy. Although there are always bad situations, there are these in any and every hagwon company and definitely heaps at the public schools
In my opinion. If you want to come here you have to be ready to leave your old expectations behind and embrace a new work ethic and living situation. after all…I get paid quite a bit for a very easy job and have free accomodation and free lunch…which is pretty good for straight out of uni. On top of that, this is meant to be an adventure! So take off you baby panties and get real. there are ups and downs in all of life and if you are in another country then you have to be willing to accept every aspect of this new experience. Once you can do that it is awesome. The foreign teachers create their own community within each city and we have a great time whether because of our despite our schools.
If there is one person out there who has never had a bad work experience in their own country, then I say you haven’t had enough jobs. Shit happens. But with Wonderland it doesn’t happen as much as other schools. If you don’t have it in you to take the plunge…then don’t come because you would’nt fit in anyway. The people who survive here are the sort of people who embrace challenges, love change, can cope with the occasional disaster and enjoy a once in a life time adventure. Its only a year people!!!!!
Take a risk….or don’t. But this can be great. I don’t regret it for a second
Hello. I’m getting interviewed for the Wonderland School in Daegu. If anyone out there has worked for this Wonderland location could you please divulge any information about it? These comments have made me more than apprehensive about this whole offer. Contact me at mstevenschutter@yahoo.com
I worked at Dongtan Wonderland until quite recently, when I quit my contract early after nine months of trying to stick it out–unbelievably, it just kept sucking more.
Because the supervisors are in it for the money, everything natural and good in a workplace/school is prohibited and punished at Dongtan W.: relationships with the parents of our students, having fun with students when the work is finished, organization, professionalism, communication between supervisors and subordinates, mutual respect, the quality of the education we attempt to give—hell, they tried to tell us we couldn’t leave the school on a daily basis for a quick walk or juice run (by the way, we have zero official breaks every day, so one of the few ways to stay sane is to leave the school for a breather in between teaching periods). The director and head teacher do not care what they sacrifice, so long as the tuition comes in. And the foreigner teachers make crap pay out of that tuition for the hours we work. And those two women can make your life a living hell when they want a scapegoat. Speaking as the latest scapegoat, I state that they will attack you both as an employee and as a person, insult your native culture, holler at you, call you names, interrupt you when you’re trying to explain yourself, smack the desk, threaten to fire you, make you write yourself senseless warning letters—all in an attempt to make you as docile as you are probably expecting a typical Korean student to be. When I say “typical,” I’m referring to students who run across the tables, smack me, and spit in my face. I don’t think students at a lot of other hogwons are like that–but, somehow, Dongtan W. ended up with a lot of the spoiled rotten, shitty ones.
I wasn’t the only one who had problems with the supervisors, either–one of my best friends accidentally locked herself out of her apartment one night because the electronic keypad’s batteries died, and she didn’t have her key on her. It was too late at night when we found out to do anything about it, so she slept on my floor, and we called the director the next morning (Saturday) at a reasonable hour. Instead of coming over with the spare key to let my friend in, the director waited until 6 that evening to provide the key. Ergo, she left friend-teacher locked out of her HOME for almost 24 hours. And that’s just one example.
I just wanted to be appreciated and respected for working my ass off for nine hours a day—at the very least, I wanted to be left alone. No more of this being written up or reamed until my ears are boxed for not understanding Head Teacher’s directions, written in very poor English. Or for not turning the lights on in a west-facing classroom on a very bright day an hour before sunset. Or for doing a textbook lesson the way the directions say. Or for contracting the swine flu in time to be quarantined for Christmas and (oh heaven help us) mandatorily miss a few days of work. If that’s what you’d like, too, DO NOT WORK AT THAT SCHOOL.
DO NOT work for Wonderland. I worked for Sanbon Wonderland back in ’99-’00. These people lied to my face and took my passport. I had to throw my supervisor against the wall to get my passport back — no big deal, considering I was twice her size.
One advantage being an overweight American vs. a 5 ft. tall Asian chick who only eats Kimchi, ha ha.
I’ve got other gripes, but I’d just assume forget them all. It’s your own fault if you read this page and work for them.
I worked at Wonderland in Jecheon city and it was the most aweful experience ever. The director and the supervisor couldn’t communicate in English, and their curriculum and the whole operation of this hagwon was a joke. Coming from a teaching background, Wonderland was a frustrating place to work with no solid teaching system in place. The director was also misoginistic and had no professional mannerism, he often yelled or gave “orders” as if his teachers were slaves becauase he isn’t educated. The teachers were forced to take on extra responsibilities which were all non paid. Vacations were not paid either. The accomodation was the most aweful, run down, cheapest and worst apartment in Jecheon city. Everytime I told somebody that I lived there, they laughed. It had no windows and horrible smells came up from the pipes. You really need to look into the accomodation and find out about the director before you take a job in hagwons like Wonderland. Stay away from Wonderland in Jecheon!!!
Wonderland Suwon – anyone worked here? Is it as bad as everyone says? Do they pay you during vacations and national holidays?
Cheers
nickwils@hotmail.com
I would like to find out about the sangin wonderland in daegu?
Been reading alot of reviews, and people have been saying stay away from the wonderland school chain!
Jaecheon wonderland
is one of best institute in korea
I have been offered a job in the Sangin Wonderland in Daegu. It all sounds good and i am currently speaking to 2 teachers at the school. However if anyone has any further information about this school please email me. I really want to know what the owners of this branch are like as an employer?
phillip.tweddle@blueyonder.co.uk
Don’t work at Wonderland. They’re not the worst schools in Korea, but if you research, you can find better. Go to eslcafe.com, check out the forums and find a better school.
it doesn’t matter which Wonderland campus–they’re all more or less the same. At Mapo, management is okay, they always treated me well, always paid on time. But you can’t control the kids–they don’t have to speak English, therefore, you’re powerless in controlling them without physically removing them from the classroom. Then they’ll come back in a few minutes anyway. Pay is average, but who wants to work for average pay? Worst of all, they don’t have to behave because management sucks up to lazy parents and forgives their bratty kids for everything. You’re a teacher with a degree and deserve some recognition for your efforts. You won’t get it here.
Try Koreapolyschool. They pay more, students are supposed to speak English at all times, curriculum is already laid out for you, and no babysitting. They’re there to learn. Some schools have waiting lists, so the kids are usually on their best behavior. You’ll see the progress quickly.
Don’t go for Korea Poly School or if you do, do your research. I worked at one of those and they stole from us, treated us like crap and had us work like slaves with no breaks everyday 9-7:30 take a pass on Poly school
Don’t don’t don’t work at Wonderland! It was so awful that I never made it through 2 months even. The Hongcheon campus has NO cirriculum (you follow a calender like scheddule with the book and pages indicated that ou have to cover; not real teaching in my opinion) and I had 5 books dumped on me to use to make lesson plans and materials (yes this is going at it backwards) for them for the next year! Somehow they thought that giving me 2 hours off in the week to do this was sufficient despite my explaining to the contrary. Oddly I was the only teacher doing this.
The classroom are also overcrowded and even on cool days heat up. They were so overcrowded that more than a few times I found myself tripping over school bags that the students had no where to stowaway.
The final kicker was getting screamed at for asking for a sick day off to see a doctor and sleep. I picked up a virus from one of he kids and was coughing so hard that I threw up a few times. I ended up with a warning letter appently because I disturbed their morning by making this request, and had to go to the hospital on my lunch hour. One person in the entire hospital spoke about 5 words of English (no, absolutely no one from the school went with me) and they gave me a perscription for the most noxious combination of medicines that I was barely able to keep down and never finished. I left overnight because I was getting NO help with my medical problems which were worsening. In fact at Wonderland not only are you not paid for your 3 (woo woo how generous) sick days you are DEDUCTED monies from your pay if you need more time off. Don’t do it…! If you get an offer run the other way. It is all about the money for the owner and the very scarry head teacher and that is all that they care about.
All this chain cares about is having a white native speaker in the front of the class with a pulse for window dressing. Really… someone that they can show off to the parents. Someone needs to remind this hogwon (and the south Korean government for that matter) that English speakers come in all shapes and sizes and colors from all over the world and to stop tricking foreigners into coming to Korea and getting trapped into a miserable workplaces!