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Any jobs available in Macau atm?
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GHL



Joined: 16 Jul 2017
Posts: 34

PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry but 30 mins prep for 7 hours of teaching is not the norm by any means, and to be honest I can't even see how it's possible.

Also, 40 frickin contact hours a week! And yeah, you're working 6 days a week which obviously really sucks.

Personally I got into this field to have an easy life and do the minimum amount of work, not to be running myself into the ground. Life's too short to spend it explaining the present continuous 6 days a week.

Give me a 12 hour contact week at a mainland Chinese uni for 7000rmb a month over that.
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Jmbf



Joined: 29 Jun 2014
Posts: 663

PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

GHL wrote:
Sorry but 30 mins prep for 7 hours of teaching is not the norm by any means, and to be honest I can't even see how it's possible.


Again, I think you are misunderstanding the differences between classroom teaching and tutoring. Although there is some overlap, they are often very different. Also, with experience prep time should go down for any organised teacher / tutor. With years of experience and resources to draw on, it's natural that experienced teachers can prep for lessons faster than newbies. If I were to prepare for a normal days lessons as a new teacher with no experience, of course it would take MUCH longer.

Let me break down today's lesson preparations to give you an example. Today I have 2 kindergarten students, 3 primary students and 2 adults.

For the kindergarten students, both have a focus on phonics. I'm currently running them through the Jolly Phonics program, the materials for which I have digitised and indexed on my computer for easy reference. So to prep for them, I quickly look up their student files, check their progress, load up the next materials / resources in the program on my computer into various tabs and windows, click click click and done. That's 6 - 7 minutes.

For the primary students, two just want help with their homework / course books. So no prep time needed at all here. If there's any particular information or materials that I need during the lesson, I can quickly load them up within the lesson. The other primary student is preparing to take a Cambridge exam so again, same deal there. I just review his file and load up the relevant materials on the computer. That's perhaps 3 minutes prep for all the primary students.

For the adults, one is looking for general English speaking improvement while the other wants to improve his IELTS score. I have various detailed lesson plans and programs prepared for both scenarios so again, check their files and load up the relevant materials on the computer. That's another 6 - 7 minutes.

So in total for those 7 hours of lessons I have approx 17 minutes of prep time. To be clear, a newbie teacher couldn't do this straight off the bat. The reason I'm so quick at prepping for lessons is due to experience, the accumulation of materials and resources that I've built up over the years plus the fact that I have developed a very well organised resource library sorted by program and age level.

GHL wrote:
Also, 40 frickin contact hours a week! And yeah, you're working 6 days a week which obviously really sucks.


It's a lot of teaching hours but again, I'm doing it by choice. The way I have my setup, I can do those hours, have a very decent income and still maintain some work / life balance. Remember, my schedule is flexible (within reason) and I'm at home. I can adjust my lessons to make time for various activities in the morning or afternoon as necessary. If I finish at 5 or 6pm, I can be doing something with my family 1 minute later. If I have a break I can take a nap, go to the gym, pop down to do some shopping or whatever. As an example I often take my daughter to school AND pick her up from school AND do things with her during the daytime, even if it's just lunch together, or a walk in the park in the afternoon. Over an average week, I probably spend more time with family than those working a normal Mon - Fri job.

GHL wrote:
Personally I got into this field to have an easy life and do the minimum amount of work, not to be running myself into the ground. Life's too short to spend it explaining the present continuous 6 days a week.Give me a 12 hour contact week at a mainland Chinese uni for 7000rmb a month over that.


Different people in life have different priorities and that's fine. If I were very young and single, I probably wouldn't be chasing after such a high income. As it is, I have a family to support and savings targets to hit so that I don't have to keep working into my 60s.

Another thing that people often overlook with tutoring is the scalability. At some point, I'm probably going to cut down my hours to make more time for other things. So let's take a look at how that would look.

At my present working level I'm looking at approx USD 130K / year at my current rates. If we do some simple maths:

40 working hours per week = USD 130K / year
30 working hours per week = USD 97.5K / year
20 working hours per week = USD 65K / year
10 working hours per week = USD 32.5K / year

In reality the figures would probably be a bit higher as naturally if you cut down lessons you are going to hang on to your higher paying / better clients. Thus if I choose to cut down my hours I'm also effectively increasing my average tuition rate by cutting out my lower paying students.

If we compare that to GHL's current example of 12 working hours per week at 7000 RMB / month you can quickly work out that for his workload he would make approx USD 12.5K / year vs my USD 32.5K / year at a similar working level. Naturally you have to figure in different costs of living, tax etc etc but on average thats more than twice the effective pay for the same work. In the same vein, I could easily cruise along at 20 working hours per week and still be in the top few percent of NET earners worldwide.
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GHL



Joined: 16 Jul 2017
Posts: 34

PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 12:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jmbf wrote:

If we compare that to GHL's current example of 12 working hours per week at 7000 RMB / month you can quickly work out that for his workload he would make approx USD 12.5K / year vs my USD 32.5K / year at a similar working level. Naturally you have to figure in different costs of living, tax etc etc but on average thats more than twice the effective pay for the same work. In the same vein, I could easily cruise along at 20 working hours per week and still be in the top few percent of NET earners worldwide.


Take out the extortionate cost of renting a place in HK (whereas a Chinese uni provides accomodation for free) and the fact that Chinese uni teacher gets 5 months vacation whereas any vacation you get is hitting you directly in the pocket, and I bet the effectively hourly doesn't look that different.

Let's say a uni teacher does 12 contact hours for 32 weeks of the year. That's 384 hours a year. If he earns 7000*12 that's 84000rmb, plus the flight/travel allowances make it up to around 90,000rmb. If we assign the monetary value of free accomodation in China at 3000rmb*12, that's total effective comp of 126,000rmb, or $18,750. $18750/384 hours = $49 an hour.

Yeah, if you charge an average of 500hkd an hour, that's $64, so you're still better off. But then figure that you'll have to pay 10000hkd a month for a decent place to stay, and the general cost of living in HK is higher, and I doubt the difference is that great the the end of the day. Of course your potential income is much higher if you work lots of hours, but I didn't get into ESL to work lots of hours.

Also, sorry but if your family requires you to earn $130k a year (5.5x the average HK salary!), to 'support' their needs then you need to be having a sit down with your partner and tell her to stop buying Prada handbags. No ones family 'needs' $130k a year to survive and be happy.
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Jmbf



Joined: 29 Jun 2014
Posts: 663

PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 4:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

GHL wrote:
the fact that Chinese uni teacher gets 5 months vacation


Since when has the average vacation for a uni teacher been 5 months? Sure, some might be able to get that, but it's far from the norm. The majority of uni teachers get approx 3 and 1/2 months of holiday.

GHL wrote:
Let's say a uni teacher does 12 contact hours for 32 weeks of the year. That's 384 hours a year... $18750/384 hours = $49 an hour.


So for the majority of teachers that would work out to 456 working hours per year which brings the hourly rate down to USD 41 / hr. That's assuming that they are paid for 12 months a year (some are paid for 10) and that they aren't charged for accommodation during the summer months (some are). In reality the effective rate probably works out to less than USD 40 / hr.

GHL wrote:
Yeah, if you charge an average of 500hkd an hour, that's $64, so you're still better off.


You could argue that an experienced tutor working a normal workload would be at around HKD 500 / hr on average. But in my example above, if you were to concentrate a tutor's student base down just to 10 hours per week, that's effectively cherry picking only the higher paying students. Certainly if I reduced my student load down to 10 hours per week the average would be higher than HKD 650 / hr. That's more than USD 83 / hr. So IMO the hourly rate in this situation would still be effectively more than double that of a China uni teacher.

GHL wrote:
But then figure that you'll have to pay 10000hkd a month for a decent place to stay, and the general cost of living in HK is higher, and I doubt the difference is that great the the end of the day.


From my experience, barely any teachers working entry-level work in HK pay HKD 10K for accommodation. Most in that situation either flat share or live a bit further out from town. Look at about HKD 5-7K / month on average. With frugal living they can still save a significant sum based on an entry-level HKD 20K / month income. However I do agree with you that if you are content to remain in an entry-level position and want an easier / more comfortable life then China makes more sense than HK.

GHL wrote:
Also, sorry but if your family requires you to earn $130k a year (5.5x the average HK salary!), to 'support' their needs then you need to be having a sit down with your partner and tell her to stop buying Prada handbags. No ones family 'needs' $130k a year to survive and be happy.


I never said that I needed USD 130K / year to survive. We could get by on a fraction of what I currently make. However, I'm not very interested in just 'getting by' after personally having seen friends and family run into severe financial difficulties after encountering major unexpected expenses. Notice that I said I need that income to not just support my family but also to plan ahead for early retirement. This is something not enough teachers do judging by all the threads of "I'm 60+ years old where can I work"
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GHL



Joined: 16 Jul 2017
Posts: 34

PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 2:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jmbf wrote:


Since when has the average vacation for a uni teacher been 5 months? Sure, some might be able to get that, but it's far from the norm. The majority of uni teachers get approx 3 and 1/2 months of holiday.


Because I'm comparing apples to apples, so I'm taking a decent uni position vs a decent private setup. Most semesters are 16 weeks and there's 2 semesters. That equates to 20 weeks of holidays a year, plus the random days off you get during term. 5 months.

Quote:

So for the majority of teachers that would work out to 456 working hours per year which brings the hourly rate down to USD 41 / hr. That's assuming that they are paid for 12 months a year (some are paid for 10) and that they aren't charged for accommodation during the summer months (some are). In reality the effective rate probably works out to less than USD 40 / hr.


But then you're lumping in crappy positions vs a streamlined private setup For example, getting all the classes back to back and having already sourced the students, which takes time. In that same time a China newbie could likely have found one of the decent positions I'm talking about, which isn't even really out of the ordinary. For example, many Chinese unis pay more than 7000rmb nowadays.
Quote:

You could argue that an experienced tutor working a normal workload would be at around HKD 500 / hr on average. But in my example above, if you were to concentrate a tutor's student base down just to 10 hours per week, that's effectively cherry picking only the higher paying students. Certainly if I reduced my student load down to 10 hours per week the average would be higher than HKD 650 / hr. That's more than USD 83 / hr. So IMO the hourly rate in this situation would still be effectively more than double that of a China uni teacher.


I seldom see much work in HK advertised at above 500hkd. If we're going to play that game though, I could point to universities in Beijing and Shenzhen that pay a lot more than the 7000rmb I've listed.

Quote:

From my experience, barely any teachers working entry-level work in HK pay HKD 10K for accommodation. Most in that situation either flat share or live a bit further out from town. Look at about HKD 5-7K / month on average. With frugal living they can still save a significant sum based on an entry-level HKD 20K / month income. However I do agree with you that if you are content to remain in an entry-level position and want an easier / more comfortable life then China makes more sense than HK.


I'm comparing having your own place in HK because the Chinese uni guy will have his own place. Thus I'm comparing the same situation. Saying that you can flatshare isn't a valid argument, since flatsharing absolutely sucks and you take a huge hit on your quality of life. Plus, getting private students to some to your place is going to be a more difficult sell if you're flat sharing.
Quote:

I never said that I needed USD 130K / year to survive. We could get by on a fraction of what I currently make. However, I'm not very interested in just 'getting by' after personally having seen friends and family run into severe financial difficulties after encountering major unexpected expenses. Notice that I said I need that income to not just support my family but also to plan ahead for early retirement. This is something not enough teachers do judging by all the threads of "I'm 60+ years old where can I work"


You need several times the average net income of most westerners back home to plan for retirement? You're confusing need with want.

The thing is as well, this early retirement doesn't mean you're actually working less. The 60+ guy still working probably wasn't doing 40 contact hours a week. You may well retire 'early' using your strategy, but I doubt you worked significantly less hours overall. And given life is better when you're young, I wouldn't waste that time working. Better to work until a later age, but only do a few hours a week - that way you still have plenty of free time for the truly important things in life - women, beer, and football. Razz
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yurii



Joined: 12 Jan 2017
Posts: 106

PostPosted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 12:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GHL wrote:
That equates to 20 weeks of holidays a year, plus the random days off you get during term. 5 months.


How many of those people at Chinese university gigs get 12 months' salary along with their 5 months off?

Quote:

From my experience, barely any teachers working entry-level work in HK pay HKD 10K for accommodation. Most in that situation either flat share or live a bit further out from town. Look at about HKD 5-7K / month on average. With frugal living they can still save a significant sum based on an entry-level HKD 20K / month income. However I do agree with you that if you are content to remain in an entry-level position and want an easier / more comfortable life then China makes more sense than HK.


To be honest what is the point going all the way to HK if all you can attain is entry-level work due to a lack of experience/qualifications? Then once you get there you'll need to live frugally. I've seen some of the dumps in HK if you don't have much money. Wouldn't you be better off staying in your home country or going somewhere where you can have a better salary in relation to the cost of living? And even if the flat is a little better further out how much commuting will that be each day?



Quote:
You need several times the average net income of most westerners back home to plan for retirement? You're confusing need with want.


It's his choice, everyone is different. Let's just leave it at that. Actually, in a way this discussion is going nowhere: Jmbf prefers his route and GHL prefers his. No amount of discussion is going to change the other's opinion, so frankly...is there any point?
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nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world

PostPosted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 2:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

yurii wrote:
Let's just leave it at that. Actually, in a way this discussion is going nowhere: Jmbf prefers his route and GHL prefers his. No amount of discussion is going to change the other's opinion, so frankly...is there any point?

Plus, the OP specifically asked about Macau. This thread also should have been posted on the China forum since Macau is under China's sovereignty. Confused
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Alien abductee



Joined: 08 Jun 2014
Posts: 527
Location: Kuala Lumpur

PostPosted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 3:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nomad soul wrote:
yurii wrote:
Let's just leave it at that. Actually, in a way this discussion is going nowhere: Jmbf prefers his route and GHL prefers his. No amount of discussion is going to change the other's opinion, so frankly...is there any point?

Plus, the OP specifically asked about Macau. This thread also should have been posted on the China forum since Macau is under China's sovereignty. Confused

No, this thread is fine where it is. Most of the time Macau and HK are lumped together for the sake of convenience since a. they're right next to one another, b. they share more in common with one another than they do with the mainland, and c. both have the same status in China - special administrative region. Starting a Macau related thread here is totally appropriate.
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nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 3:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yet, the discussion quickly veered off topic with personal experience in Hong Kong and China as the focus.
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Mr. Kalgukshi
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Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 10:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Future postings not directly related to the stated subject title of this thread will result in sanctions that can and do include permanent bans along with ISPs.
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Jmbf



Joined: 29 Jun 2014
Posts: 663

PostPosted: Sat Aug 05, 2017 3:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Macau is less than 1/10th the size of HK by population and doesn't have quite the same demand for English, thus there are correspondingly less opportunities there. As the OP is experienced and familiar with HK, I would advise him to first re-look at his setup / strategy to see what he can do to improve his income locally rather than setting off for pastures new.
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siologen



Joined: 25 Oct 2016
Posts: 336

PostPosted: Sun Aug 06, 2017 11:18 am    Post subject: re: jobs in macau... Reply with quote

I have looked at Macau before as a change from teaching in mainland china, and as an alternative to it's fast paced financial centre neighbour to the east. I did actually have an interview at one place there.I would like to hear from anyone having a positive experience teaching TEFL there though?
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