Job Discussion Forums

[Adam Fotza]

Hi

My girlfriend and I are considering relocating to Vietnam this year. She is a qualified primary school teacher in the UK. I hold a BA degree and I am looking to take a CELTA course. She is hoping to find a primary school teaching job which will be (I am assuming) during normal school hours with weekends off.

After doing a little research, I have found that ESL jobs require you work weekday evenings and weekend mornings/afternoons. My question is, are there jobs available whereby I could work primarily weekday daytime teaching English to match the hours my girlfriend would be working as otherwise it looks like we'd be working completely opposite hours and seeing very little of one another. Are the working hours in language schools, public schools and international schools all the same?

Can anyone who has worked in Vietnam please shed any light on the above?

Thanks

Adam

[I'm With Stupid]

RMIT generally work Monday to Friday. You might struggle to get in there straight off a CELTA though.

[ExpatLuke]

Yeah, it can be done. But you will probably have to work with local private schools or universities. These kinds of jobs are usually not the best places to work, but they give you normal daytime hours with nights and weekends off.

Some of the language centers like Apollo and ILA will can schedule you to teach at several schools as well. The school I was teaching at in Hanoi had several Apollo and ILA teachers that would come in three times a week.

I did that for one school year when I first came to Vietnam, and I hated every minute of it. The students were just awful. I suppose it depends on which school you get.

[Adam Fotza]

Thanks for the info guys.

ExpatLuke, you mention that universities and private schools are not the best places to work... is that because the kids are more of a handful or because the working conditions/pay aren't so good? I expect that when looking for my first job the hours I work won't be such a high priority as the initial hurdle will be to find work and get things rolling but ultimately we're gooing to want to be working roughly the same hours.

[mark_in_saigon]

My guess is that it will be difficult to coordinate your hours and locations. The main issue is finding a decent employer. It could be anywhere and with any schedule. It can take YEARS to work your way into a very good job that you are truly happy with. Either of you may get one you like, be there a while, then find it blows up in your face and you are starting over. To expect 2 people to be able to coordinate that is the problem. There are other reasons that this usually works out better for individuals rather than couples. Guys who are dead serious about their western wives/girlfriends and can avoid the temptations (and this does end some relationships) may find that their best life would be letting the wife/gf stay home (or let her work and you stay home). My guess is that trying to force the schedule to suit the relationship will really limit your options. Not to say it is impossible, but it just seems like when you move over here, you have much more important issues to consider, and having a coordinated schedule is more like a dream and a long term goal than a realistic part of your early career in this.

[ExpatLuke]

In general private/public schools and universities are bad places to work because they are run by Vietnamese. They love to have a white face in the classroom because it gives their school more respect and prestige, and then they can charge the parents who want their kids to study with a foreigner an obscene amount of money. This is what the private school I was working for in Hanoi did. I taught 2 or 3 classes in each grade level, and the parents paid a lot of money to get their kids in my classes.

However, because the parents are paying so much, there's no disciplining the kids, so their behavior gets out of control. If a child is sent out of class for bad behavior, the school will get all over the teacher for it.

Furthermore, the Vietnamese don't view Westerners as serious teachers. They don't think their classes are really that beneficial. You're just there to play games, sing songs, and teach native pronunciation. Even though I was more qualified to teach than any of the other Vietnamese teachers in school, they'd treat me like I was some circus act sent to make the kids laugh while they taught the real grammar and vocabulary. Because of this, the grades I gave in my class only counted towards perhaps 10% of their overall English grade.

The students are aware of this too, so they treat your class like a joke. Good luck getting them to do any work whatsoever, or if they're uninterested in the game you're trying to get them to play, they just refuse to participate.

On top of all of that, when I finally did give my final tests and submitted my grades to the school, the Vietnamese staff came back to me asking me to change the grades of some of the kids to make them higher. These were kids who couldn't string together 2 sentences in English after a year of study, and didn't participate whatsoever in the classes. I gave them 10% for showing up in class each day. The Vietnamese teachers basically told me that the parents wouldn't accept these grades because they'd paid so much money for their kids to study with me, so I had to give them higher scores. I ended up telling them change them themselves if they wanted them changed, because I gave the scores they earned.

I don't know if all public/private schools are like that, but from what I've heard from friends who still work in them, they're largely similar to my experience. At least in the bigger cities (Hanoi and HCMC). The smaller cities seems to have much better students. Needless to say, I would never go back to teaching in one of these schools. I consider it my time spent at the bottom of the barrel when I first arrived. Nowhere to go but up from there.

[VietCanada]

You didn't mention your qualifications.

If you have a bachelors and TEFL (or equivalent) there are some private schools you can work at that pay well in the sense that they pay a salary for full time work. These are highly sought after positions. Some simply pay a high hourly rate.

There are companies that send you out to public schools during the day during the school year (late August or September to May). The hourly rate is a bit low but the monthly can pay the bills and leave a bit to save. They pay nothing in the summer (June to August) so you must save to survive that.

There are private schools that only operate in the evenings and on weekends. Their hourly rates can be a bit higher but their monthly pay isn't really enough to live on.

There isn't really any money here in Vietnam unless you get into admin such as a hiring director/principle. Those positions are quite high paying. Three or four thousand a month compared to the 1500 (typical hourly pay with experience) to 2500 (typical private school salary with experience) or the 1000 (hard working newb) that teachers make here.

[I'm With Stupid]

[VietCanada]