Job Discussion Forums

[chengdu619]

The universities I will be applying to will have teaching hours in the 10-14 hrs/week range. My questions are:
(1) How are these hours proportioned over the week? I know it is on a case by case basis, so if any one has any stories I would love to hear them. For example, with a 14 hour work week did you have to be at school everyday? Was your working day inconveniently divided into early morning classes and evening ones, making it unable for you to really leave campus during the day?

(2) Were the hours to be worked per week specified on the contract the amount of hours you ended up working?

Thanks

[Tainan]

In my case I had a very unusual arrangement. My contract was for 16 "hours" (they were really 45 or 50 minutes each) a week. When I arrived I was asked to teach a mix of undergraduate and graduate students. The undergrads I taught every week, and the graduate students every other week--so on even weeks I taught about 22 hours a week and on odd weeks about 12. That still came to more than I was contracted to do and they paid me some extra, although I had to negotiate a bit to get something appropriate. In the second year it was straightforward, about 15 hours a week.

I did have to be at school every day. Within limits it was sometimes possible to arrange directly with the students to change the scheduled time of a class; I think one of my foreign colleagues arranged to move his Friday class to another day in order to have a three-day weekend. Actually there was a lot of variety even among the foreign teachers at this one university: there was one teacher who taught for eight hours on Wednesday and not much the rest of the week. But nobody, that I know of, had much in the way of inconvenient distribution. I think when I was teaching graduate students some of the classes were in the evening, but that was only once every other week, one or two evenings. The rest of the time classes were either 8:00 to 9:30, or 10:00 to 11:30, or 1:30 to 3:00, or (very occasionally) 3:00 to 5:30.

It was absolutely nothing like teaching for a hagwon in Korea where they almost delight in keeping you tied up from early morning until late night!

[Angel46]

I am contracted to teach 16 hours per week at my university. Prep time can be done at home, whenever I feel like it, so no office hours are required.

My university usually schedules my classes within a 4-day period (one semester I got really lucky, teaching just 3 days per week, but they still scheduled a free day in between, so I didn't have 4-day weekends). My school does make every effort to schedule my classes together so I don't have to go back and forth throughout the day.

For example, this semester my heavy days are Monday/Tuesday, with afternoons off on Wednesday/Thursday and no classes on Fridays. I like this schedule very much. I can take short trips starting at noon on Thursday and not return until late Sunday evening!

[Songbird]

I've worked at 3 unis now here in China, and never been asked to to 'office hours' (English Corner doesn't count!). I do all my prep and marking at home, though sometimes if I have to mark stuff I will do it in the staffroom Friday morning after my 2 hour morning class (none after this), just so I don't have to think about it on the weekend.

My 1st uni my classes were everywhere, mornings arvos, odd times. Never at night. I would have like an 8am class then a 2.30 class, though it was only a 10min walk on campus so it wasn't that bad. My 2nd contract because I lived on the old campus, worked on the new all classes were 'lumped' into 4 periods where possible, so you wouldn't be going in twice a day (unless it couldn't be avoided). I had classes mornings and arvos. At this uni, both this and last term, ALL my classes are in the mornings which is quite nice! I'm on a 20 hour contract, so last term it was full on, everyday 8-12. This term they've only given me 16 hours with Mondays off, but still all in the mornings. I'm happy with this, but didn't ask for it!

[roadwalker]

It really does vary from school to school. In general, I would say ask for what you want: you may get some or all of it, for example Fridays off. Then again, you may not, particularly if you're the new guy/gal.

One thing to watch for is which school or department you will be teaching. If you teach English majors, you will most likely have the easiest classes to teach and the highest English level, though I wouldn't count on it. If you teach non- English majors, you might be looking at off hours, even night classes. Some of the non-majors chose wisely, but some of them will have very good English.

Universities may have 'self-study' classes for non-matriculating students. Those students may have a wide variety of levels and many students are there to absorb English by osmosis in a last ditch effort to pass an English exam to help them get or keep a job. Look for phrases like "English Training Class". These could be fun but may be more difficult and may require more preparation on your part.

[bradley]

I teach 14 but can teach more if I want. I have Fridays off and don't teach until Monday evening until Seven. I don't have office hours.

[eddy-cool]

I worked at the same university for several years and always saw my workload compressed into four work days; I had 3 days off.

I now have a slightly annoying timetable - working five days a week, with only one day having a class in the morning and afternoon, each. All other classes are in mornings.

It's a very enjoyable timetable, thogh.

[Hansen]

"Very enjoyable" or "slightly annoying," which is it?

[eddy-cool]

Yes, Hans, my timetable is both - enjoyable and annoying. The latter 'just a little'.

Annoying because I have to be on campus on five consecutive days; enjoyable because my workload is very light.
It does prevent me from spending long weekends away, though. I do manage to take a train on Friday and to return from my weekend getaway on Monday morning, just in time for my class on the afternoon. Previously I could spend an extra night away.