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Javelin of Radiance
Joined: 01 Jul 2009 Posts: 1187 Location: The West
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:38 am Post subject: |
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A few months in the muddy trenches with a place like Kids Castle is character building though and helps you appreciate a good job, like the one you have now, a whole lot more. I've done it myself and know the feeling. |
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MisterButtkins
Joined: 03 Oct 2009 Posts: 1221
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:57 am Post subject: |
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I am contracted to work 20 hours a week. This semester, I only work 16. Last semester, I worked 20. The semester before that, I worked 18. Note that each 'hour' is actually 45 minutes. They count a 90 minute class here as '2 hours', so I'm really only working 15 hours a week at most. |
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LarssonCrew
Joined: 06 Jun 2009 Posts: 1308
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:29 am Post subject: |
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Yes Javelin, couldn't agree more.
I remember my third month in KidCastle they moved to a new building ,and the paint wasn't dried for two weeks. I had no other work and essentially I worked full time for 2 1/2 weeks that month and I got 2900 RMB, even the Chinese teachers were laughing at me for earning such a little amount. |
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chinatimes
Joined: 27 May 2012 Posts: 478
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:41 am Post subject: |
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rioux wrote: |
How can you prevent your outings to English Corner from becoming more like teaching a class? |
I am actually combining the two. I guess if you prefer sticking to a curriculum, then doing these English corners might not be desirable.
As long as the students do work and give me something to grade, I don't care if they do it in the English corner room. A few hours extra in exchange for flexibility makes it overall easier. |
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kungfuman
Joined: 31 May 2012 Posts: 1749 Location: In My Own Private Idaho
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 12:42 pm Post subject: |
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rioux wrote: |
How can you prevent your outings to English Corner from becoming more like teaching a class? |
try to make it fun and try to get the students to do 90% of the talking |
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fred13331
Joined: 20 Feb 2012 Posts: 108 Location: Southern China
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Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 6:31 am Post subject: |
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Denim-Maniac wrote: |
I always say I would absolutely, never, under no circumstances, take a Chinese university job .... but I would be sorely tempted for the LarssonCrew position!
3 hours a week is nice drills buddy! |
I am always bemused my such postings
'under no circumstances, take a Chinese university job'
Personally, I only want Uni jobs. This is a genuine inquiry - why do you so oppose uni employment?
From my perspective - the better uni jobs (not 5000/pm out in the sticks) are hard to beat. I currently get 10K basic for 14 hours a week, 30 weeks a year. I get paid 12 months. I have a couple of side-lines within the university to bump this up.
This results in vast swathes of free time, which in turn gives you options. You can choose to live a reasonable quality of life on 10,000+ and spend your time chilling or traveling, or you can do privates and extras. Where I live, there are queues of private students looking for IELTS tutoring at 250/300 an hour.
You can make a fortune, or have an easy life, or anything in between. For me it seems ideal. So, my question - why are you so anti-university? What is the better option, in your opinion?
I realize my situation is not typical (I live in a 'university town, surrounded by 300,000 students, hence the ready availability of privates), but, by the same token it is not a unique position - there are many such 'towns' in China |
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Denim-Maniac
Joined: 31 Jan 2012 Posts: 1238
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Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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My position is quite well known on this forum And Im probably the odd one out too! The key thing for me is the teaching, and I dont believe university teaching would tick any of my boxes so I really dont want to do it. If I had a 3 hour a week job like LarssonCrew of course Id be tempted though! That would be great!
The reasons for me are quite simple, and are based on what I read on this forum about other teachers university experience and from my own experience in a vocational college with university age students and university sized classes.
I only want to teach adults (uni students are not adults), and I wont accept a class size of more than 10, with 6 being ideal really. 30 students? Or even more??? Forget it! I wont readily accept students of mixed ability either!
The type of teaching I do 'may' be different to what the average uni job expects too, and Im not prepared to do that type of teaching. There is a thread in the China off-topic forum that has ideas for conversation classes, and Im read that thread and see activities that are just warmers and fillers, singing songs, not actual lessons ... and Im not willing to do that.
Most of my teaching material comes from the Face2Face series of books, and I combine oral activities with gist/detailed reading/listening tasks, grammar and I have a real interest and enjoyment in working with small groups of students on sentence stress, ellision, intrusion etc. I just dont think any of that stuff will fly in the average uni and so for me, that kind of work would really be a last resort. |
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LarssonCrew
Joined: 06 Jun 2009 Posts: 1308
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Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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Denim. Some good points. However remember a group of thirty kids will understand they won't get as much attention.
My uni classes are a doddle though. Each class I'm told to do a chapter from my book. It involves topics group work activities and reading. I correct pronunciation etc. The students are fascinated with life abroad and want to learn the culture. So I intermingle with stories or ideas or thinking I might have. So discussing Halloween I might mention something I've read or did when I was younger. |
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Denim-Maniac
Joined: 31 Jan 2012 Posts: 1238
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Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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LarssonCrew wrote: |
However remember a group of thirty kids will understand they won't get as much attention.
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Yeah, I dont have a problem with their expectations ... it really is my expectations that are the stumbling block. When I was at a vocational college the work was 100 times easier than the work I do now. Student expectation and employer expectation was lower, and class contact time was minimal, but it wasnt very satisfying for me.
But three hours does sound pretty sweet tho! |
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Mister Al
Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 840 Location: In there
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Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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Not in China anymore but when I was I used to get 12k plus 3k apartment allowance a month for 16 ACH (12 real hours) a week, at a nice university in a very cool city. I was teaching subjects -Business Management and Law taught in the mornings between Mon and Thurs. Term times for me were end of Sept-end of Dec then a week after CNY to end of April, as students needed time to apply for visas to go abroad. All in all I had an average of around 7 months holiday a year on full pay. For six years! All in all a cushier (and more enjoyable) position you couldn't wish for.
I did consider myself a lucky b***ard. |
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MisterButtkins
Joined: 03 Oct 2009 Posts: 1221
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 8:14 am Post subject: |
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Funny how all of a sudden everyone is making double or triple the standard uni rate and working 12 hours a week when 20 has long since become normal... |
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fred13331
Joined: 20 Feb 2012 Posts: 108 Location: Southern China
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 10:01 am Post subject: |
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MisterButtkins wrote: |
Funny how all of a sudden everyone is making double or triple the standard uni rate and working 12 hours a week when 20 has long since become normal... |
I just had a quick look at one of my job websites which i monitor, from the top of the list (universities only) The hours requested were 18/16. 18/16 13/15, 14/16, 13/15, 13/15, 16/18.
Though I realize this is not an exhaustive list, it is at least somewhat more researched than the erroneous blanket statement above. The salaries mentioned on this thread seem reasonable to me, although there will always be schmucks who work for 4,500.
Funny how, every time someone mentions a decent work package on here, some other will always accuses them of lying. If people work 20 hours for 4,500, this does not give them the right to call other liars. |
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Shroob
Joined: 02 Aug 2010 Posts: 1339
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 10:13 am Post subject: |
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fred13331 wrote: |
MisterButtkins wrote: |
Funny how all of a sudden everyone is making double or triple the standard uni rate and working 12 hours a week when 20 has long since become normal... |
I just had a quick look at one of my job websites which i monitor, from the top of the list (universities only) The hours requested were 18/16. 18/16 13/15, 14/16, 13/15, 13/15, 16/18.
Though I realize this is not an exhaustive list, it is at least somewhat more researched than the erroneous blanket statement above. The salaries mentioned on this thread seem reasonable to me, although there will always be schmucks who work for 4,500.
Funny how, every time someone mentions a decent work package on here, some other will always accuses them of lying. If people work 20 hours for 4,500, this does not give them the right to call other liars. |
I'm a schmuck, but a happy schmuck. That's enough for me. |
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theponds
Joined: 12 Sep 2012 Posts: 2
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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Mister Al wrote: |
Not in China anymore but when I was I used to get 12k plus 3k apartment allowance a month for 16 ACH (12 real hours) a week, at a nice university in a very cool city. I was teaching subjects -Business Management and Law taught in the mornings between Mon and Thurs. Term times for me were end of Sept-end of Dec then a week after CNY to end of April, as students needed time to apply for visas to go abroad. All in all I had an average of around 7 months holiday a year on full pay. For six years! All in all a cushier (and more enjoyable) position you couldn't wish for.
I did consider myself a lucky b***ard. |
Hello first post here but I hope you don't mind me asking.
What city did you teach in? (can you pm me if you don't want to say on here)
Also what sort of qualifications do you have that enables you to teach Law? I don't mean that in an accusatory way I just want to know how you go about teaching other subjects besides oral english. |
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LarssonCrew
Joined: 06 Jun 2009 Posts: 1308
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Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2012 5:15 am Post subject: |
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theponds, perhaps I can help you too.
I teach Law in Xi'an.
In the UK I gained my LLB and then passed the bar but refused to do any client work or work towards being accredited and ended up here. |
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