Job Discussion Forums

[some waygug-in]

What are the actual hours worked per day/week?
When do you start/finish?
How long does it take to and from work?

(quote:)

I teach 25 classes/ week. Classes are 40 mins. each. Sometimes I have to stay to help prepare students for speech contests or other things, but most weeks I'm only at the 25.

However, I am required to be at the school after classes, which I wouldn't mind so much if there were actually something for me to do in that time.

Officially the school says that I am supposed to prep for future classes. Realistically however, the classes are set by the textbook and they won't let me do much outside of that. Even if I prepare the most elaborate lessons, they won't let me use them. So for what I actually do in the classroom, I can prepare in a few minutes each day.

Classes start at 9:00 am, and I am supposed to be there by at least 8:40, however traffic being what it is means I have to get up at 6:30 to get a bus early enough that it won't be crowded like a can of sardines and also so it won't be creeping through traffic at a snail's pace.

It usually takes about an hour to get to work, but that depends on traffic.

Right now, I am required to stay 1 hour after my last class, so that means I stay until 2:30. I am lucky, some people are required to stay to 4:30 or 5. (I had to do that my first year and it sucked big time)
We are in the midst of contract negotiations and the education office has made it quite clear that they want us all to stay until 5:00 like last year.
However, as part of this year's contract we were all told that we could leave 1 hour after our last class. Many of us would not have renewed our contracts if not for that clause, now they want to back out of their offer, among other things.

Sick days..we have 15 sick days in our contract, but they want to drop this number down to 8 because they feel we were taking too many sick days. I took 1 myself. They expect people to come to work coughing and sputtering, spreading our germs amongst all our students. They give us sick days, but God help us if we actually try and use them.

Going home is easier at 2:30 as the buses are less crowed and traffic is not so bad. So I can sometimes get home by 3:15. If I stay till 5:00, then buses are very crowed again and traffic is heavy, I get home around 6:15 - 6:30. The school is run like a prison. I am required to get permission to leave the school grounds before hometime, so that means if I need to go to the bank or something, I have to get special permission. Leaving at 2:30 makes my life a lot easier, I usually have time to get to the bank or do other things before businesses close, having to stay till 5:00 makes my life difficult.

I hope this paints a clear enough picture of what teaching is like for me here in Korea.

[dixie]

[some waygug-in]

8 is plenty for me. There are some older teachers who do need to take more sick days though.

Private schools (hagwans) usually don't give any. I've worked at enough of those places to appreciate that I now am given some.

The point is, if I use a sick day, I have to face a gauntlet of questions about why I wasn't at work, was I really sick, did I go see a doctor, if so, what was the diagnosis, and a bunch of other prying into my personal life.

The money/benefits may seem good in Korea, but the quality of life certainly isn't.

[ontoit]

Some waygug-in,

To summarize, then:

What are the actual hours worked per day/week?

25 forty-minute classes per week = 5 classes per day?

When do you start/finish?

Best case scenario = Up at 6:30 AM, home at 3:30 PM
Worst case scenario = Up at 6:30 AM, home at 6:30 PM
Teaching hours are between 9:00 AM and 1:30 PM

How long does it take to and from work?

0ne hour, give or take, depending on traffic conditions
You choose to catch the early bus to avoid crowding and longer
commute time


In other areas:

Required to be at the school after classes for one hour, but you have nothing to do during that time.

You are supposed to prep for future classes, which you can prepare in a few minutes each day.

You are supposed to be at school 20 minutes before school starts.

You require permission to leave work before close of business hours.


Now, can we hear from the teachers in Mexico?

[dixie]

[pe666]

I spent 5 years in Russia before coming to Mexico. I can say that if you are not particularly interested in Mexican culture before you go, I would go S. Korea for the money. I found it really tedious dealing with the �circular Spanish thinking,� the dishonesty. and the inability to co-ordinate the simplest things. Alot of my free time was spent waiting for calls that didn�t come, waiting for people to not show up, waiting in a car while my girlfriend ran various work-related errands, waiting for mechanics to incompetently fix my car, being stuck in traffic, and such-like silliness and nonsense. I also found the work there very stressful, probably because the work was with teen-agers, and not at all rewarding. My school wasn�t too outrageous with �penalty clauses,� although we probably had them and I just ignored them, but the school I was fired from for having long hair had plenty of penalty clauses. I�m not trying to say that Mexico is any worse than anywhere else in the world, what I would say that I came here without any particular interest in the culture, and so there wasn�t much of a benefit compared to all the annoyances.

[MO39]

So, pe66, would you say that compared to Mexico, things in Russia went more to your liking?

[john_n_carolina]

....it seems to me Russian would be a far far harder language to learn. therefore, you wouldn't know if the people are honest/dishonest, or if your car was fixed, or even how to go about simple tasks like paying for your laundry. at least in Spanish you can understand when someone is dishonest. so, you're goal should be to find the 'least dishonest' person kind of a fun game actually.

as for S.Korea, the jabbering gives me a headache. i spent a day in Chinatown in Montreal during my honeymoon and had to take about 6 advils to get rid of the migraines.

[pe666]

You know, I picked up Russian in about three months, but I never really got Spanish. Part of that is I was always interested in Russian literature and part of that is I was alot older when I went to Mexico. I was in Russia back before the economy took off and I had some really really rough times, to the point where I didn�t have enough money to eat a few times, but I always still loved the place. I also got to the point with people in Russia to where I felt like I was making a bond, and getting beyond the point where it was ��ou�re forgeign, I�m native, let�s talk.� I think alot of that was because I wanted to be in Russia and become involved with the place, whereas I went to Mexico thinking it wouldn�t be a bad place to spend a few months. I would also say that, being a man, you�re first sort of contacts with another culture in terms of friendship are with other men. And mexican men are generally adolescent in their approach to life and competitive in terms of trying to prove their manhood. It got really really tiring listening to stories (alot of them false,) about the women guys slept with and being challenged to drink alot of beer really fast. Whereas with Russian dudes you can talk about God, philosophy, and just about anything. And no matter how bad it got there, someone would come through and help me out. Russia is also such a vast amazing place, there is always something going on, for good or ill. Now, I�m not saying go to Russia because it�s �better than Mexico,� I�m saying both places you need a better reason to go there than just having a place to be outside of the states for awhile, because both places present a lot of challenges, and basically no financial reward. Whereas, if you go to South Korea, chances are it will suck but you can pretty easily save up a few thousand dollars.