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Bud Powell
Joined: 11 Jul 2013
Posts: 1736
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 Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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| ESL104 wrote: |
| Bud Powell wrote: |
You'll make more at a language cent as well as at a high school, but you'll also put in a LOT more time and have a less flexible life. |
Well here's the crunch point. The uni is fine providing the hours are lower (as there's less runemeration).
If you're doing 3 hours prep for 3 different subjects, then having a few hours marking on top of 18 class lessons however, you will be working just as many hours as you would at the language centre. At that point, you're been screwed. That's why a university should expect 'less' from their teachers - because they don't pay as much so if teachers were ending up working 30+ hours a week including prep, the job wouldn't be competetive compared to others in the same sector.
Don't really see why this is an issue. Most people take these uni jobs so they will have a lot of free time (either to work side jobs, improve their chinese, sit back and play videogames, whatever). You don't have all this extra free time if you're doing hours and hours of prep each week, you're working. That's why it's not reasonable for a uni to expect too much in terms of prep. |
Work your job in China, and find out for yourself. There are pluses on both sides of the arguments.
You'll find that the higher paying language center jobs are in bigger cities where costs are higher.
It isn't true that most people take the university jobs because it requires less work so they can pursue other things. My experience is that university FTs tend to be older and don't want to teach young children and prefer the simplicity of living on campus and having a private apartment. Some language centers that I am familiar with will provide an apartment that must be shared.
"...it's not reasonable for a uni to expect too much in terms of prep..."
Younger folks are a plague to the universities for whom I have worked.They think that they can dictate what is reasonable and what is unreasonable. They operate under the belief that their mere presence is a gift to the university and that their purpose for being in the university is for "cultural exchange" in the form of playing games, singing songs, and telling stories. They find out pretty quickly that the university thinks otherwise.
Please, do yourself and the universities a favor and go work for a language center or a private school. Most people will be happier.
Maybe even the language center will be happier. |
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ESL104
Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 108
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:20 am Post subject: |
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| Non Sequitur wrote: |
I really cannot equate pay levels with quality.
I know what the pay is going in.
I cannot look at my students and think I'm going to do a crappy job because I feel an entitlement to more money. |
Don't see why not. It's pretty standard around the world. 
If I'm paid for 20 hours I'm not going to work for 50, etc. It's the same as having a 9-5 job in the West, but the boss somehow been under the impression that means 9-8pm. As far as I'm concerned...paid until 5...leave at 5.
[quote=Bud Powell]They think that they can dictate what is reasonable and what is unreasonable.[/quote]
Why shouldn't the employee be able to judge for themselves what is reasonable or unreasonable?
If you're working 30 hours a week for 5000rmb a month you're getting screwed over.
And it's pretty obvious a lot of people take university jobs for the free time. Just read any post about universities on this forum. |
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thechangling
Joined: 11 Apr 2013
Posts: 276
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:27 am Post subject: |
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| ESL104 wrote: |
| Bud Powell wrote: |
| ESL104 wrote: |
2-3 hours planning per subject lesson seems excessive given lessons are only 40 to 50 minutes long.
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At every university for whom I have worked, each class was comprised of TWO fifty minute periods. Sure, sometimes, one won't have to put in three hours per week per class. There WILL be times when the material necessitates greater preparation. The FT should be prepared to do that preparation.
Skimming a chapter in a history book may work for those who know the subject very well, but when someone in the class has a better grip on the subject than the teacher does, he'll let the teacher know it. That will result in a serious dip in the teacher's credibility.
Too many people come to China thinking that it's the Land of Milk and Honey and a nice pay check for minimal work. Not so. Those who come to China to play rather than work eventually have a difficult time with administration AND STUDENTS. Administrators may let things slide if all that the teacher is expected to do is teach Oral English and make the students work from a work book. I guarantee, though, that if they are given anything to teach besides a kiddie class of oral English with no book, they're going to have a difficult time. Even then, with no book, the teacher will have to design a curriculum. No curriculum= no show students.
Students know when FTs are full of BS. Teachers who show up for class poorly prepared are not regarded well.
But then, FTs are in the public schools by government mandate, and some schools have written off the FTs as incorrigible losers. I've seen that too. One guy wasn't fired until he came to class so drunk that he could barely stand up. Sure, you can get away with minimal work.
I think that the quality of one's work reflects his self esteem.
The "Fake It 'Til You Make It" philosophy doesn't work very well in China. |
I think it's more a case of 'you get what you pay for', and as universities pay peanuts, they can't expect too much.
For me, the amount of prep and work I put in is directly correlated to how much I'm paid.
In my current school, where hourly rate is peanuts = I don't do any prep at all really, and neither does anyone else. For the corporate class I teach two evenings after school, where the hourly rate is good = I do much more prep.
I still think considering what universities pay, if you're putting in 2 hours per class of prep, you're doing too much work.
For one class (i.e. just oral english) then it's not too big of a deal. But in the example above where you're teaching writing (more prep + more marking) and western history, putting in 2 hours of prep per class, alongside 18 class hours a week, plus the time to mark the writing + history papers, makes that pretty much a full time job that should be renumerated accordingly (i.e. 10k rmb+).
I don't see anything wrong with scaling back effort according to what the pay rate is. I mean the reason you picked the uni job anyway is for the free time, right? So if you're not getting that free time you're been screwed over. I certainly wouldn't be busting my ass for 5-6k a month + free accom, anyway. |
I agree wholeheartedly with this. In New Zealand and particularly in the private sector, pay is directly related to the 'perception' of ability, workload requirements, and support all of which are overlooked in China.
If you want quality, you have to pay for it otherwise a substandard job normally follows suit. A cheaply completed (low bid) contract always has corners cut and things missed out. |
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ESL104
Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 108
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 4:33 am Post subject: |
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| thechangling wrote: |
I agree wholeheartedly with this. In New Zealand and particularly in the private sector, pay is directly related to the 'perception' of ability, workload requirements, and support all of which are overlooked in China.
If you want quality, you have to pay for it otherwise a substandard job normally follows suit. A cheaply completed (low bid) contract always has corners cut and things missed out. |
Yep, exactly. Minimum pay means minimum work.
The multinational corporate client paying me 400rmb an hour to teach business english to their directors gets a lot more prep and a better thought out lesson than the kindergarten paying me 150rmb an hour to babysit their little emperors for a morning.
I'm pretty shocked that not everyone sees it the same way tbh. Everything else in life follows the general rule that price is correlated to quality.
If you buy cheap meat from the local market, don't expect it to taste as good as a fillet steak from a michelin star restaurant.
If you pay 100rmb a night for your hotel room, don't expect it to be a 5 star establishment with staff attending to your every need.
If you buy a cheap laptop for 2000rmb, you can't complain too much if it's outdated a year or two later.
If your pay is crap for your teachers, don't expect top quality brilliantly prepared lessons. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:33 am Post subject: |
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So the surgeon who does volunteer work for no pay in the 3rd world in his holiday time can butcher his way through cos hey quality and pay are correlated.  |
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litterascriptor
Joined: 17 Jan 2013
Posts: 360
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:07 am Post subject: |
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| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| So the surgeon who does volunteer work for no pay in the 3rd world in his holiday time can butcher his way through cos hey quality and pay are correlated. |
Nice appeal to my emotions, however, we are not doctors. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:41 am Post subject: |
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| Nor professional either.. |
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ESL104
Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 108
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:44 am Post subject: |
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| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| So the surgeon who does volunteer work for no pay in the 3rd world in his holiday time can butcher his way through cos hey quality and pay are correlated. |
Hyperbole notwithstanding - yes, pay and quality are correlated in the medical profession too.
The private hospitals have the better doctors than the public hospitals. Why? Because they pay more.
You'll get better service (i.e. seen quicker, have your problem dealt with faster) at a private hospital than a public hospital. Which makes sense, as you're paying more for a premium product.
Don't see why this is causing a stir with some members - it's a basic fact of life that more hours worked should = more pay, and that better quality work = more pay (with the reverse of these applying too). Which is why no one should be working 30 hours+ at a 5000-6000rmb a month university (unless paid overtime, of course).
Why do the international schools offer much more pay than anywhere else? Because they want to attract the better teachers, and have them be OK with all the office hours and extra admin crap. More hours + more quality = more renumeration. |
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thechangling
Joined: 11 Apr 2013
Posts: 276
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 8:17 am Post subject: |
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| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| So the surgeon who does volunteer work for no pay in the 3rd world in his holiday time can butcher his way through cos hey quality and pay are correlated. |
This is actually known as corporate welfare. The IMF, WB and the WTO and the UN should be collectively picking up the tab for poverty since capitalism or more precisely neo-liberal global capitalism, is responsible for creating inequity across the world in the first instance. |
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Voyeur
Joined: 03 Jul 2012
Posts: 431
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 9:40 am Post subject: |
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| This is clearly a spectrum and not an either/or scenario. Pay levels will affect how much work you put in, but at the same time we should be good human beings who take pride in their work and care about their students. |
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Bud Powell
Joined: 11 Jul 2013
Posts: 1736
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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Let the OP work for the 25,000 rmb per year job and report back to us if the school got its money's worth. Sorry, but as a teacher, I don't agree that a lower paid REAL teacher puts forth less worthy work.
It sounds to me like we're discussing someone who has no college, works for minimum wage in a convenience store, and has decided that he's going to work for the "idiot" Chinese.
Good luck. Let's see who laughs at whom. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 2:25 am Post subject: |
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| Exactly Bud. |
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jm21
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
Posts: 406
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 2:59 am Post subject: |
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| Bud Powell wrote: |
Let the OP work for the 25,000 rmb per year job and report back to us if the school got its money's worth. Sorry, but as a teacher, I don't agree that a lower paid REAL teacher puts forth less worthy work.
It sounds to me like we're discussing someone who has no college, works for minimum wage in a convenience store, and has decided that he's going to work for the "idiot" Chinese.
Good luck. Let's see who laughs at whom. |
I think you're getting the OP confused with someone else... |
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gwiffey
Joined: 17 Sep 2012
Posts: 12
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:27 am Post subject: |
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| oh my, this thread really got out of hand, but I suppose that's the inevitable fate of most internet forums. Anyway, thanks to all of you who did actually give useful responses, I do appreciate it. Food for thought indeed. |
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ESL104
Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 108
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 8:54 am Post subject: |
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| Bud Powell wrote: |
Let the OP work for the 25,000 rmb per year job and report back to us if the school got its money's worth. Sorry, but as a teacher, I don't agree that a lower paid REAL teacher puts forth less worthy work.
It sounds to me like we're discussing someone who has no college, works for minimum wage in a convenience store, and has decided that he's going to work for the "idiot" Chinese.
Good luck. Let's see who laughs at whom. |
Well I'd sure hope no one's working for that kind of money! 
Anyway if you don't agree that more hours at work should mean more pay, and less hours means less pay, I don't really know what to tell you. That's a basic labour 'rule' that exists in all countries in any industry you care to name. |
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