Job Discussion Forums

[JimJam]

English teachers must be the laziest people in the world.

I've noticed a few times on these boards people asking where the best place for money is and when told suddenly eveyone goes on a rant.

"More than 25 hours per week? My god, that's impossible!"

If you want to earn big money, you can. BUT, you will have to work. You know, like what people who aren't English teachers do.

Many of the business people I teach work 10 or more hours a day and when I first came to Moscow I started at 9am and finished at 10pm. I paid off my student loan in 3 months.

[Sashadroogie]

[Sashadroogie]

[naturegirl321]

[Sashadroogie]

25 hours per week may very well burn out a school teacher at home, one who is teaching the kiddies. I have every sympathy for my previous teachers who had to deal with me and my classmates in our teenage years. But a one-to-one lesson with a businessman or uni student should surely rank as one of the easier teaching contexts. It doesn't require that much prep (well not when you are halfway through your second decade of experience...) and homework is modest when dealing with individuals. Meetings? Ha! A waste of time that freelancers don't have to bother with.

You are correct about working smart. But that includes not just fees, but logistics. Why travel 3 hours return when there is a similar client willing to travel to you? Block them one after the other and hey presto, you've got a total of 25 plus hours a week with minimum transport.

Seriously. 30 hours a week is nothing here. Most teachers choose to do more because it is quite well-paid. I myself once set a personal record of 60 hours. (Wouldn't recommend it, mind.) Certainly the hourly rate is far better than any freelance work I know of anywhere else in Europe. 15 EU per 60 mins is what my buddies in Germanyland quote me, and even then that's resented by their students.

Come on comrades! Work!!

[naturegirl321]

[Sashadroogie]

That's fair enough. It's good to progress up the ladder, and of course you have to 'pay your dues' as you do so. However, we were talking about burn-out and the travel-related causes of such. My total travel time is about 60 mins return to my school. Some days there are split shifts, but usually not more than 2 per week. So travelling is not really an issue for me, thus allowing me to pile on hours if I wish to. Burn-out really doesn't enter the equation, as it would assuredly for teachers tracing star-sign patterns on the metro lines and getting buses to boot, all for school-rates too!

60 hours was by freakish chance. Usually do 40 to 45 in the high season. Then I was covering a few colleague's classes and all my privates wanted lessons (I usually overbook to offset cancellations, but this time no one cancelled!) Some privates even wanted extra lessons, and there was one IELTS last-minute emergency lad, begging for help. I worked 7 days solid, but was well-rewarded. Despite schools not having any concept of overtime rates.

Did end up cancelling my Monday morning class the following week though. Couldn't be bothered. Does that count as burn-out?

[Hod]

[Sashadroogie]

Provided an accident or emergency doesn't befall you, a plane trip back to Blighty and National Health for a serious medical issue will nearly always be cheaper than the cost of insurance abroad, especially when calculated over several years. Not so false an economy. Americans don't have that option, owing to geography and utter lack of understanding of 'socialised medicine' at home.

Insurance is about gambling with risks and paying not to have to face them. Touch wood, some of us have managed well enough without having to take out insurance.

So to the OP, if you are planning to come to Russia, insurance may be something you want to have, maybe not. Think there's some initial visa requirement, but travel insurance will do.

[Hod]

Apart from the false economy, it's top of the very bad idea league to live overseas without health insurance. I've not had a heart attack, but I can't imagine boarding a plane to Britain in that condition is a bag of laughs. As for throwing myself at the mercy of the UK NHS, no thanks.

Poor Trebek�s nationality is irrelevant. Send him a message now asking if he wished he were insured.

[Sashadroogie]

Every sympathy to the other poster, and I wish him well. But if you are working legally, one should have insurance from your employer. Taking out private insurance, while on subsistence wages, is very often not really feasible. From my own side, I have had to go to hospital twice in about 15 years, and while it cost a pretty penny in a private hospital, I was still quids-in compared to having paid insurance for that same period. Like I said, it is a risk. My ailments weren't life-threatening. The treatment cost could have been more exorbitant. Lucky, this time.

Yet, I am reminded of Lermontov's episode in 'The Fatalist' where Russian officers play 'Russian Roulette'. Lieutenant Vulich successfully demonstrates his reason for belief in predestination by pulling the trigger of a pistol pointed at his temple and there following only a 'flash in the pan', but no bullet. It wasn't his time, he said. Sadly for him, of course, he is murdered that very night by a crazed sabre-wielding Cossack. You just can never tell...

[Glenski]

[tttompatz]

[Sashadroogie]

[gaijinalways]

Sashadroogie posted