I just got hired through aclipse. They are great.

Holy Christ. Enough with the ridiculous flame-warring. You both sound silly and could use work on your grammar AND punctuation, so chill out.

If anyone actually HAS information on these programs, I'd be interested in hearing it.

I was actually pointing out how all of your criticisms actually apply to yourself better than anyone else you try to apply them too, but that apparently went over your head. Congratulations on keeping your intellect down to the minimum amount needed to function. To prove my point "What a winner. Not." fits you quite perfectly. Keep describing yourself, it just proves how incapable you are of constructive conversation. I don't need to say anymore, because you'll just continue to prove MY point.

What exactly is your point Chortle? Cause I didn't see anything of meaning, or are you, as usual, simply talking to hear yourself speak?

Seriously Chortle you need to get a grip. I stated many times in my post that it was what I found when looking for information about the teaching situation in Korea, so how exactly am I talking like some old hand? Although you are saying that I use better grammar than you do and therefore constitute sounding like I've taught English for a while then thank you. As for the government funded jobs having less leeway to cheat you on payments... they're government jobs which means that the government monitors the money flow on all of their transactions, and lack thereof, whereas private institutions don't have that monkey on their back monitoring them so they are more apt to not pay if they can get away with it. It's common sense... which obviously you lack, if anyone is acting like a know it all it would be you.

As for the "way to go for proving us all right", if YOU (singular) constitute US (plural) you have a bigger ego than anyone could have feared, or do you count your gut as a second person, even so that would be "both of us"... although if you listen to the voices in your head that might give you a few more to count towards your "us" bit. Nice try though, why not try to contribute something of value next time, I don't see anywhere in your post where you try to help the person asking the question. Next time get your head out of your ass before you start typing.

I have also received a similar offer from Aclipse. From talking with them on the phone it seems the represent a few ESL opportunities in Korea. CDI (chungdahm institute), EPIK (English Program in Korea), and SMOE (Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education), the latter two being government funded. As far as I can tell it's legit.

I have found a lot of horror stories about CDI, but none that involve non-payment, mostly about badly run branches. So all I can recommend is decide which branch (area) you want to work at before applying and do your research. Overall it looks like CDI is one of the better private companies to work for in Korea (I've heard the best things about YBM, but again it depends what branch you go to). It looks like CDI works you the hardest but you also have the best chance for financial gain, so it really depends on your priorities.

EPIK was formally Koretta, Korean's version of the Japanese JET Program, however, like most Korean versions of Japanese things, a little less planned out. I haven't been able to find too much information as to the current situation of the institution but pre-2004 it looks pretty bad. They could have changed for the better, could not. However EPIK would place you in public schools so if that's what you're looking for this would probably be your best bet.

SMOE is for Seoul public institutions, I've heard bad things about the living situation but that's about it. I don't know too much about the working side of SMOE but again it's government funded so they have a little less leeway to do shady things, although the possibility is obviously still there.

I haven't heard anything about Bridge to Korea but their website looks a little sketchy to me. I can just recommend to do your homework and if you choose one of the national ones know where you want to go and look into that branch before hand.