Job Discussion Forums

[scepticalbee]

The teaching job seems to be a sum of many other occupations such as: social worker, psychologist, trainer, pedagogical freak, communication manager, supervisor, material maker, photocopier as well, etc, etc...
That means a lot of work, in fact...

[Sashadroogie]

No, actually, I find that just concentrating on teaching English seems to be the sum of my duties. Others' conditions may vary, but then one could argue that they are not really employed as teachers.

[santi84]

When teaching new immigrant ESL programs here in North America, teachers often encounter queries from students that should be handled by social workers, psychologists, and other professionals. A teacher's standards should require them to refer students to appropriate resources and not exceed the scope of their profession. Or, depending on the age of the student, contact the appropriate agencies themselves if there is an issue requiring mandatory reporting.

Needless to say, I think the original question refers more directly to the job.

[MotherF]

Yes, Santi, I've met people doing all those rolls. I work in Mexico in an area that has a large number of its residents in the US. A ESL teacher from New York came here once on her vacation because she wanted to see the place all her students were from. I thought that was the ultimate in teacher dedication, until she went on to tell me that she attended the birth of one of her students' babies.

[scepticalbee]

In some places in the world, having multiple duties is a part of the Teacher's job, especially when working with kids in the public schools.
I think that it's mandatory that teachers who wish to work abroad be aware of that.

[santi84]

I'm unaware of any location where foreign EFL instructors are expected to provide psychiatric, psychological, or other specialized professional advice to students. Perhaps you would care to let us know where to expect that so that teachers can avoid those locations? I'm sure they exist in places where the infrastructure doesn't exist.

If such expectations exist in the classrooms at those locations, it seems a local teacher who is well-versed in local custom would be better suited anyways, rather than a western foreigner who probably has no understanding of the issue.

EFL teachers from the big five (or six, or whatever) such as the USA, Canada, UK, and so on, are taught to avoid advising students on such delicate matters that could have severe consequences. "We" are taught to refer the issue/student to professionals on the subject and not pretend to be something we are not.

[spiral78]

I've been teaching abroad for over fifteen years now and have never been called upon to deal with anything other than language and communication issues. I'd refuse if asked; I'm not qualified, and would not want to be responsible.

I dunno why anyone thinks that an EFL teacher would be called upon to do any such things anyway; as santi points out, a qualified local who speaks the students' L1 would certainly be strongly preferable.

[inotu-unotme]

In the school I was in there was a on staff child psychologist. She would have certain children and appointment times she would take the child out of the classroom to talk to them. The thing about it was that it did impress me that there was an on staff psychologist. And it did impress the parents. But, as some serious behavior issues came to light - I mean SERIOUS - and I brought it to the psychologist's attention nothing was done. It's like she was just there for looks. The school expected teachers to deal with things. Even if the issue was way out of our expertise. The school director told me as much. I guess my only point is that dealing with students who should not even be sitting in the classroom surely sucked up a fair amount of my time. Because at that point I was not really teaching. In a perfect world if the staff psychologist stepped in when she was supposed to I could have graded more papers instead of dealing with 'psychologist' issues which would have enabled me to go out to dinner some nights - instead of grading papers because I didn't have time in class because of dealing with other issues.

[coledavis]

I add occasional careers guidance because I am also qualified in that area, although even then I have to be careful as the labour market differs in different countries.

Otherwise, the only non-linguistic advice is the sort of motherly/fatherly advice where it is obvious to you and not to the student and not of a clearly specialist nature. E.g. Teenage girl says that with the internet it seems more difficult just to meet boys in the traditional way and that she feels pressurised by those she does meet to act stupid to meet the local conventions. My advice is to wait until she meets a boy who respects her intelligence, as a relationship based on deceit and submission is not likely to last and is unlikely to be enjoyable.

That sort of level I think is reasonable. Drink and drugs I wouldn't if I were you, rock and roll maybe.

[Harbin]

Country: China
Facility type: private language school
Hours: 40-50 clock hours per week including admin and lesson planning time

My contract is actually for something like 35 hours per week, but I can make about 900 kuai on overtime days, so I have no real complaints.

This is only my third year teaching English, so I'm still building my materials portfolios. My first job didn't require a lot of planning because we had excellent materials to work from, so I didn't build a proper materials catalog and now I'm paying for it My current employer has poor materials and we have zero time between classes, so I've spent a lot of time doing what I should have started 3 years ago.

The upside to all of this is that I now have 4 large binders full of ready to use materials for almost every situation. Pronunciation lesson? No problem - I have ready made dominoes and bingo games ready to go. Apartment search lesson? Pre-made copies of an apartment search activity are waiting. Last minute scheduling of an upper-intermediate class, you say? Let's do a TBL activity about cooking!

[sprightly]

i worked a summer camp once where we had to designed all materials for a two week course; we were given topics to cover and only taught one group, and had lots of physical resources. still, a couple of teachers were up till midnight every night--and then changed their program drastically when teh next session started!
one was stressed about not having enough material for a lesson, so i gave her a drill game to kill 10 minutes--keep in mind these are 12 yr old kids. her answer, "this looks good, but what is the pedagogical goal?"
um, the goal is to keep the kids thinking you're a good pedagogicker, so they don't revolt?

anyhoo:
last year, UK, sixth form international school.
max 26 contact hours, including a tutor group.
required to stay at work from 8.30 to 5pm, regardless of teaching schedule. did not have own classroom, did have access to staff-only computers.
5 wks hols, could only be taken during school holidays (half term, easter, summer, etc) and could not work from home during school holidays. some staff came in and played facebook all day because they had nothing else to do.

routinely worked until 6pm, working through lunch. often at work until kicked out at 7pm. often worked from home weekends, especially in report season.

very little of this was lesson planning--most was photocopying, marking work, or writing paperwork/answering parent emails/chasing up naughty students.

[GeminiTiger]

14 x 40 minute classes per week.

9 hours per week.

Thankfully, I've got hobbies.

[Chancellor]

Where I am, 150 classroom hours is expected per month. Each class is three classroom hours, which works out to two real hours and there are generally two, three or (occasionally) four classes a day. An additional two real hours a day is expected for things like class preparation, speaking tests for potential students, administrative stuff, etc.