I haven't written any articles for OutsideInKorea in a good long while. Rather than offer the usual excuses, let me point you to my new project, one that has taken up most of my time in recent months, and something I'm pretty excited about: jobsee.kr.

There are, to put it bluntly, a lot of ESL textbooks for adult learners that are, to varying degrees, crap. There are many and varied reasons why these books are awful. Many of them are weighed down under more than one layer of language guano. You're waist-deep before you even get started, digging through the stink to find something useful.

I can count on one hand the number of English teachers I've met in the ten years since I first came to Korea who were actually certified teachers back in their home country. If the proportion topped 2%, I'd be shocked.

For the vast majority of people entering Korea to work as teachers, the E-2 is what they will be applying for. If you are offered a job, you can either apply for and get the E-2 before you leave your home country, or come to Korea without a visa and do The Visa Run later. The most common destinations for visa runs are Fukuoka and Osaka, in Japan. Both Korean embassies are well-used to the constant, endless stream of E-2 applicants trooping through, and are quite efficient. The do tend to have odd opening hours, but if you time things right, you can leave Korea one day and be back the next, E-2 in hand.