Job Discussion Forums

[Demonietto]

Hi! I signed up with a company offering me a full time contract. They are promising 20-25 paid hours a week. The first gig involves 4 contact hours Mon-Wed and 2 contact hours on Thursday, with break times/lunch in between, totalling 14 contact hours. They are working on finding me a school for Fri to get up to the full time level. The school they placed me at is expecting me to be there from 7:30 to 4:30, including the 2-hour lunch, with a weekly lesson plan write-up thrown in, too. This basically means 9 hours at the school for 4 paid hours, and seems to me to be a horrible waste of time. Is this kind of schedule the norm? I'm thinking about turning it down but don't want to just find the same thing at the next school. I work at a large language center on weekends which seems to be a much better deal, but it is only nights/weekends. I want to be busy working during the week, but not that busy for that pay. I'm considering looking into VAS, does anyone have anything to share about that company? Thanks so much!

[ExpatLuke]

Not normal for any school I've worked at here. And you're right, that's a huge waste of time especially for Thursdays. What do they expect you to do all day for no pay, sit at your desk looking busy?

[Demonietto]

Thanks for the feedback! I would love to hear more from you or others. What is a 'normal' day at a non-language center job? Shouldn't you get paid for all/most of it? I'm sure no one minds trying to take advantage of teachers, but the language center I work at seems much more straight forward. Show up when you're scheduled and we'll pay you for it. I just feel like public/private school is the only way to get weekday hours.

[vabeckele]

There are a couple of universities doing prep year English courses for their international programmes. Perhaps you could do a search for these. These are quite easy as it is mostly walk in and teach, once you become familiar with the teaching materials. No obligatory desk hours or anything, just walk in, teach and leave.

[I'm With Stupid]

It depends on what you mean by "expect me to be there." If you mean that they've given you a schedule where you effectively stuck in school all day (because there's nothing else to do), then obviously that's not ideal. But if you're saying that they've actually told you that you must be in school during this time, then they really should be paying you. I've done the dreaded split shift when covering other people, but I wouldn't sign up to it as my actual schedule, unless it fits around me (sometimes I like to have a 2 hour break between classes because it sets aside time for planning, and I know other teachers who use this time to go to the gym or study something that they might otherwise find excuses for).

[Mushroom Druid]

[Demonietto]

[I'm With Stupid]

Yeah if they're asking you to stay on site, then you should be getting paid, even if it's a slightly lower "non-teaching" rate (pretty common).

[cb400]