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[Chris_Crossley]

TEFL 302A: Essay: �Summer can seem like slavery�

Would you willingly sign a contract that may say that you have to work an extra day per week during the peak summer season and/or teach a few extra hours a week � FOR NO MORE PAY?!

Speaking with the benefit of hindsight, I would say that it is utterly ludicrous for private language schools to insist that their teachers be made to do more for no more pay just because it happens to be the peak season when more students come to study. Yet there are plenty of expatriates who have signed a full-time contract which says � in effect � that they must do more work for no more plenty during the very time when one would think that teachers should receive more money for more teaching.

After all, summer is the peak time when private language schools generate more than enough revenue to satisfy even the greediest of investors � and yet the successes of summer schools are based mostly on the sweat, frustration, fatigue and tears of full-timers who have signed contracts which condemn them to work more for no more money (to a certain extent).

I had signed two 12-month contracts for a private school, a franchisee, in which signers were expected to work up to one more day per week (six instead of five) and teach up to five more real hours per week � for NO more money. Having been through the rigors of two summer schools, I used to hear bitter mutterings from my fellow teachers, who described the situation as �sheer slavery�. What, they asked themselves, possessed them to do something they never would have dreamed of doing in a million years back home? Yes, they realized that they had signed the contracts, and signing implies that they have read and understood the conditions, and that they therefore had to abide by those conditions.

Of course, these people, undoubtedly hungry to start or continue their TEFL career, had been recruited during the off-peak season, a time of relatively low teaching loads. Perhaps they thought that there was nothing to make a fuss about. �An extra five hours of teaching a week for no more pay? OK, so long as it�s just for a few weeks�� Maybe that was something that they didn�t fully understand at the time � yet, by the time they realized that they had to deal with more classes full of kids who don�t understand and don�t want to be there and don�t want to learn and who want just to talk and talk, it was far too late.

I can be thankful that I have, since February this year, gone over to the public sector, which means that I now have the benefit of a full summer�s vacation where, if I teach at a summer school, be it in the public or the private sector (and I have done both already this summer), I get PAID for EVERY lesson I do, and I mean EVERY. In one summer school lasting seven days, I earned the equivalent of a MONTH�S salary based on what I receive from my public school.

THIS is what we expatriates should be doing when we come to teach English in foreign countries. To me, the private schools, which want people to sign up as full-time teachers to do more work in the summer for no more money, are guilty of exploitation. I should know, because fellow colleagues used to tell me that they felt no better off than slaves. Yet, as I said, the conditions were laid out in the contracts � the summer work conditions came as no surprise to them, and so it was basically their own lookout, and they had therefore little choice but to swallow their annoyance.

This is one way of learning about the realities of teaching abroad for private language schools. Thank heaven I am no longer in this �mock-slavery� position now � if I want to do more, I get PAID � provided, of course, that the opportunities to do more work exist during your well-earned vacation (shop around!). So, fellow expatriates, if you feel a little disgruntled this summer because of this �more-work-and-no-more-pay� situation, take heart: your contract will eventually expire and you can seek other opportunities where you may not have to be in that situation again. I did, and I�m more than a little grateful for it.

[Oscar]

[Chris_Crossley]

I understand - from your previous posts on this forum - that you seem either to defend EF or else imply that EF must be bad. You have mentioned to people that EF is the largest private language organization in the world ("FACT", you write) (maybe it is, but I'm not disputing it), and you once wrote to someone that it was good that he wrote something sensible about EF and then you talked about the then new-pay scales (no problem with that). At the same time, however, you wrote a short message to someone, who commented on (Chinese) people he cared about, saying that you hoped that "they weren't at an EF school somewhere in China". To me, this last statement seems totally contradictory. Are you for EF or against it? For myself, I am neither "for" nor "against" it.

I don't mind taking a bit of criticism, even if, as far as I am concerned, it is totally unwarranted. Yet what I do not want or expect is for people to make defamatory or insulting remarks about posters in this forum. When you signed up to be a poster, you agreed not to post insulting messages or even such remarks within messages. You have, in my opinion, violated this rule by openly insulting me. You may have your "reasons", but, given their tone, it is clear to me that you are clearly "cheesed-off' (a good old British English expression!) with people or things or both.

In my message, I was talking about certain contract terms. I believe that private language schools, be they EF or not, should not be asking people to do a few more hours of teaching per week at peak times for no more money. I was making a general point. You, "Oscar" (hiding behind a false name, I do not doubt), on the other hand, have totally missed the point and have deluded yourself into believing that this must be a personal attack on my part against EF - it isn't. You said that I "couldn't hack it at EF". That is your opinion and you are entitled to it. However, this message had NOTHING to do with whether or not I could "hack it". Your comments, apart from being insulting and degrading, are IRRELEVANT to the subject of the topic.

Why don't you just grow up?

[kev7161]

You know, the easiest way to alleviate the problems of extra hours is to have the contract read:

"The teacher will teach up to 'x' amount of periods per week. The teacher will be responsible for an additional 'x' amount of hours per week for other duties (but never more than 'x' hours). The teacher will be paid 'x' amount per hour/period for any additional hours worked/periods taught."

This covers both the employer and the employee. The employee could reasonably ask for a clause such as this added into their contract and thus wouldn't be blindsided by a boat-load of extra hours. The employer can put their cards on the table right up front so there is no confusion on how much a teacher could possibly work during any given week.

My contract states I will teach up to 18 periods per week (and won't be penalized if there are less). Anything beyond that is extra pay. Spring semester I worked only 12 per week (and sometimes not even that!).

[ContemporaryDog]

Good posts, Chris. I don't know why this guy has attacked you personally for no reason.

On the thread topic, schools which make their teachers do extra hours for no money should quite frankly be abolished.

[TEAM_PAPUA]

I'm in the same boat, but for the rest of the year we do very little indeed. Unlike other EF schools in china, we have no office hours so we just come & teach, then go home. For me it's ok to make up the hours during the intensive as we do not have many classes or students for the rest of the year - in fact (due to the lack of office hours) our intensive is probably less than the regular periods experienced in other Ef schools. This is my experience, and is unique to my school I guess. Nevertheless, I do agree that, generally, it is very bad practice and should be avoided.



T_P