Do teachers speak English at all in beginner class?

Most level 1 classes are taught almost entirely in Korean from day one, and it works better than it sounds. Here is why it is not the disaster you are picturing.

What the first days actually look like: the teacher speaks Korean, slowly, with enormous amounts of gesture, pictures, objects and repetition. A level 1 teacher's Korean is deliberately restricted to what you have been taught, and they are extremely skilled at this — it is the thing they do every single term.

You will not understand every word. You will understand what is being asked of you, which is different and sufficient.

Why schools do it this way: switching to English gives the class an escape hatch, and everyone takes it. Immersion from hour one is the reason students who cannot say a word in week one can hold a basic conversation by week six.

What softens it in practice:

1. Many level 1 teachers do use some English, or Chinese and Japanese, for grammar explanations in the first weeks. Policies differ by school — some are strictly Korean-only, most are pragmatic at the very beginning.
2. The textbook has English (and often Chinese and Japanese) grammar explanations. You read the explanation at home and the class is for using it.
3. Your classmates translate for each other constantly, and the office staff speak English for anything administrative.
4. Orientation and anything important — fees, attendance rules, visa matters — is handled in English or your language.

The honest first-week experience: disorienting for two or three days, then your brain adjusts faster than you expect. Almost every student describes the same thing — day two feeling hopeless, day ten realising they followed an entire instruction without translating it.

If it genuinely is not working for you by week two, say so to the teacher. But wait the two weeks first. The panic in day one is not a signal about the method; it is what the method feels like from inside on day one.