Job Discussion Forums

[mairinriyadh]

Hello,

New to forum so sorry if this is a repeat request...

Is anyone working for GAB
Need to find out information outside of major metropolis

What is the pay like?

[Pitarou]

[HungryteacherY]

I heard GABA makes you compete with other teachers for lessons. Not sure how

[rxk22]

[Pitarou]

Mind you, at least they don't flog the teachers when a student quits. I've noticed a lot of AEON teachers wincing when they sit down lately.

[rxk22]

[Pitarou]

[Rooster.]

They only pay for the lessons that you teach. Say that you expect eight classes one day and no one shows up, you get nothing.

[HLJHLJ]

I work part time for GABA on the outskirts of Tokyo. The basic pay is 1,500 yen per 40 min lesson. There are various bonuses, etc available for things like teaching extra lessons in peak time, or over a certain level each month. Some of it comes under 'belting up' which is basically a pay rise if you've hit those targets. I've never belted up because I never teach enough hours with them but everyone I know who works there full time are several levels higher than me, so they get paid more.

The way it works is that you submit your schedule each month for whatever hours you want to work the following month. You can choose whatever schedule you want, and you can ask for hours at more than one center if you want to work outside the opening hours of your home center.

This flexibility is the primary benefit of working for GABA. I use it to pad out my earnings from another job, so it's perfect for me. I can do more hours during quiet times in my other job, less hours when I'm busy, and take vacations whenever it suits me. The downside is relatively low pay (compared to better/non-eikaiwa work), unpaid training, uncertainty over hours and the whole contractor status thing. Personally, the contractor thing is a non issue for me, because I feel like I really am a contractor. But IMHO it's just plain wrong if you are there full time, especially if you are on a GABA sponsored visa.

Anyway, that's a tangent. All regular classes are one-to-one. After you submit your schedule it gets posted on their site and students book their lessons. Students can choose which instructor they take a lesson with, and most do choose, but some just select 'any' and get allocated an instructor by the computer system. New instructors get allocated all of those 'any' bookings for the first month or so, while they a building up their own client base. There's also a decent number of students who actively seek out new instructors, and the admin staff will send them your way as well.

So this is what is meant by competing with other instructors. If students don't like you, they won't book lessons with you. However, from my limited experience of about 4 or 5 centers most places are running pretty much at capacity, and it's rare for there to be many unbooked slots. It does happen sometimes though, last Saturday there were a lot of unbooked lessons at my center, even 'top level' instructors had lessons that didn't book. It caused a lot of consternation and no-one seemed to know why it happened, I can only assume there was something going on locally. As it was it suited me for various reasons, so I just closed down my unbooked classes and went home early. If you don't close them you have to stay there until the start of the lesson in case it books at the last minute, if it doesn't book, you don't get paid.

In general, assuming your center is busy, and as far as I know they all are, you would have to be really really bad for students to actively avoid booking you. I've heard that that it does happen sometimes, but I've not seen it myself. The other side of that coin is that if someone is *that* bad, they probably shouldn't be teaching anywhere. But it will become obvious a lot faster at GABA than it does in a school that assigns students to group classes.

So the summary. They pay what they say they will and they pay on time. Your schedule is flexible and the work is easy. Lots of hours are generally available if you are willing to work during peak times (mornings, evenings, weekends) or take kids classes to get afternoon hours. If you put those hours in you can earn a good wage. There's no selling involved, that side of things is done by admin staff.

The main downsides are the contractor status issues and if you are a really crap teacher you will struggle to get enough work.

My personal feeling is that as an employer they are no worse than any of the other eikaiwa chains. In some respects they are a little better, in others a little worse. Hardly a ringing endorsement I guess, but if you are aiming for eikaiwa work, that's about as good as you will get for any of the big chains.

[Rooster.]

What do you mean by "contractor status"?

[HLJHLJ]

[Inflames]

[HLJHLJ]

They still pay for no-shows or late cancellations, but if a lesson isn't booked at all, then you don't get paid.

[Pitarou]

[jmatt]