1. NATHANIEL G. GIDO
2. DEBRA P. MANSUETO
3. CYNTHIA DILAG
4. PRISCILLA CANOY
5. CLARISSA ALBAN
This research is conducted to explore the experiences of Filipino English teachers in South Korea. An interpretive phenomenological design by Martin Heidegger is used in this study to transform the lived experiences into textual expressions of five Filipino English teachers who are currently teaching in South Korea. The title of the research is “The Lived Experiences of Filipino English Teachers in South Korea”. With reference to the title, the first chapter presents the introduction as to why the study was conducted and the useful background of the study. The second chapter present the research methodology which discusses and uses phenomenological method. The environment of the respondents which is in South Korea, the instrument used on the conduct of the study, data gathering procedures and the data analysis which the researcher uses Van Manen’s process for phenomenological data analysis. The third chapter is the discussion of the lived experiences of the five participants in this study. These teacher-participants were selected using snowball sampling. The age range of the participants are from 31 to 43 years old. In this chapter, the researcher discussed the unique experiences of each Filipino English teachers as educators in South Korea. The fourth chapter presents the challenges each respondent experience which was categorized into seven themes: (a) Some Korean students are poorly motivated to learn, (b) Korean parents high expectation, (c) Limited Korean language skill, (d) Weather condition, (e) Homesickness, (f) Economic discrimination ( g) Dealing with Korean kids with temper tantrums. The fifth chapter presents the coping mechanism employed by Filipino English teachers as they continue teaching Korean students. These coping mechanism were categorized into nine themes such as : (a) Giving small gifts to students, (b) Monitoring and feed backing of student performance to the parents, (c ) Exposure to Korean community , (d) Adjusting to Korea’s winter season, ( e) Constant communication on their origin home, ( f) Seek out supplementary job, ( g) Going out with Filipino close friends, ( h) Attend Filipino Community gatherings, ( i) Watch Filipino movies and shows on a Filipino channel. South Korea’s satisfied, financially stable, welladjusted and generous Filipino English teachers faces winter season, Korean language skill and economic discrimination as challenges but deal with the challenges through exposure to Korean community, seek out supplementary jobs and adjusting to Korea’s winter season.
Filipino English teachers, Heidegerrian, lived experience, phenomenology, South Korea