Job Discussion Forums

[Fitzgerald]

Since language schools will generally not guarantee hours for part-timers, one can face the possibility of working for more than one school. philipjmorgan42 commented in another thread that some schools demand exclusivity, which I think is unrealistic.

Right now, coming off a three-month exclusive arrangement with one outfit that did not give me enough hours and did not pay me on time, I am looking at a combination of working for two schools and doing some private lessons (plus online teaching if I can ever get any - that is proving surprisingly difficult).

For those of you who have experience with this kind of set-up: When schools approached you with a class and you replied that you were already booked during those hours, did they roll with it and keep making you offers, or did they get peeved off and scratch you off their list? I would like to avoid this problem as much as possible by working for one school in the morning and another in the late afternoon / early evening, but even so, I can tell that the issue is going to come up.

[BadBeagleBad]

Some of both. I had one place insist I give one day´s notice and start working for her. Another place would send me emails with what was available and I could say yes or no, I wasn´t the only one being asked, though, so a couple of times when I was going to say yes, someone else got there first. Another place I told them when I was available and that was that. I would update them when there was a change. I was fortunate to find pretty good, stable long term classes with good companies that paid on time, so I wasn´t really looking too often.

[Fitzgerald]

It turns out that one school wanted to secure my exclusive services and made me a reasonable full-time offer, which I accepted. I will also have one private student to start, and probably more over time.

Teaching "live" full-time, online gigs become trickier; but I am looking at Skimatalk, which allows teachers to indicate their available hours on a daily basis. Online editing and proofreading work is more time-flexible, of course, so I will definitely be doing some of that.

[esl_prof]

You might also look into online tutoring services such as Smarthinking, NetTutor, or Brainfuse where, basically, you just give feedback on rough drafts of student papers so they can revise them before submitting them to their instructors for a grade.

Here's a review of one such service that I pulled from the Chronicle of Higher Education about six months ago:

[Fitzgerald]

[esl_prof]

[AGoodStory]

[Fitzgerald]

I have already sent inquiries to Brainfuse and NetTutor. The Smarthinking situation is a little more complicated, for a couple of reasons. You need to submit an I-9 eligibility form in order to qualify, and it has to be "verified by [a] US notary." Only border commuters from Canada and Mexico are allowed to fill in an international address on an I-9.

BadBeagleBad had earlier recommended to me the possibility of doing test assessments for Pearson Education, one of the largest textbook publishers and the owner of Smarthinking. That job also presents the "making it look like you are living in the U.S." problem, and I'm not sure it's a game that I want to play.

On top of that, I have some qualms about what Pearson represents in the educational world (in the U.S., its home base in the U.K., and around the globe). It is a juggernaut sort of a company, and I tend not to like those. I'm not saying that I wouldn't work for them, perhaps, only that if it is difficult to qualify to work for them, I might not go to the trouble. They also have one of those cumbersome multi-page applicant registration systems where they ask for all sorts of information, which is a little off-putting (and typical of invasive juggernaut corporations these days).

[esl_prof]