Job Discussion Forums

[inotu-unotme]

The hours put into a teaching jobs has come up quite a few times. The school I worked at was from 7am - 2pm. But, the truth is I put in many more hours than that. Theres lesson planning, correcting papers, giving exams, computing report card information, correcting workbooks, being expected to attend outside school activities, parent/teacher meetings, travel time and school meetings.

Schools may state things like, 'You will be working 20 hours per week.' But, how many hours are you really working?

The questions are:
What country do you work in? How many hours do you put in each week teaching/ working? How close do you live to where you work?

People have commented in past forums saying they don't have time to enjoy or experience the location they are at. I didn't start off feeling like that. But, once the school year was going strong and all the papers, exams and meetings started that was all I had time to think about. Do you have time to breathe and enjoy your location?

[spiral78]

Most (well, many) teachers find themselves a bit overwhelmed by the demands of the job in their first year teaching - and in their first year in a new location. In most (many) cases, it all gets a bit easier - and therefore, less time-consuming as one gets established at a school and in a country/city.

So, my answer to the question of 'how many hours' after a few years in my location would be quite different than my answer in the first year.

[scepticalbee]

I'm jobless for the moment and I still can't tell how the job goes abroad too.
However, from my past teaching experience I can say that the classroom time could go up to 25 hours a week but the real span you spend on the whole job goes up to 40 or even 50 hours a week, sometimes...
Some schools are honest enough to state it in advance in their job offers, though...

[inotu-unotme]

[scepticalbee]

Interesting...However, be aware of the language schools as you might spend more time on studying the teaching method, especially if it's one of those which don't follow the ESL lesson planning. You could also spend hours preparing your lessons, furthermore if the classes time doesn't exceed 30 minutes.And, of course, once again, you could find yourself working in a school with an outward administrative team and that would force you to do some extra work that you shouldn't be doing just because someone has to do it... And this someone could unfortunately be you...

[sicklyman]

I do the 40 hours I'm paid for and I teach 5 x 45 min classes a day. There's no need to do more where I work (a certain oil company in the Middle East).

I've done jobs where I worked 60+ hours a week. In retrospect, I didn't need to do more there either, but I thought I did at the time. I should have just relaxed and stopped trying to be the most popular teacher among the students. I think I took their praise (and myself!) a little too seriously.

I've been teaching for 16 years and the language hasn't changed that much during that time. Things get a whole lot easier when you've done lesson plans for pretty much every teaching situation you can think of.

And doing a DELTA didn't hurt to give me an inbuilt array of ideas for every language point under the sun.

A simple rule of thumb for lesson planning that I have found useful: if you are planning/preparing materials for more than 20 mins of every hour you're in class, you're reinventing the wheel and need to rethink your approach. Photocopying doesn't take that long

[inotu-unotme]

I've never done DELTA myself but I've been thinking about researching it a little more. I've heard some things that interest me about it. Looking back on it I think the thing that got to me and the other teachers the most were the lesson planning and the endless amounts of grading. The particular language school a friend of mine is works lets teachers work straight out of the language books, no lesson planning needed. Thats what she says so I can only take her word for it.

Someone once said if they figured out how much they made per hour including 'grading' and so forth they would probably make around $2.00 per hour. I find this concept interesting because I never looked at it like that before. Now I totally figure all that into if its worth it or not.

[MotherF]

What country do you work in?
Mexico.

How many hours do you put in each week teaching/ working?
Teaching is usually 15 hours, but it has been ten some semesters and it has been 20 other semesters.
Working, exactly 40 (including the formentioned teaching hours) with a split morning-evening schedule.

How close do you live to where you work?
It takes me 15 to 30 minutes depending on traffic (time of day), river levels, street fairs, demonostrations, road work, etc. I chose to live on the opposite side of town and am the owner of my house. If I wasn't the owner, I would have moved a lot closer by now as the times when it's 30 minutes, 4 times a day have really gotten to me.

BTW this is the most I've ever worked in a week. In Japan, at my first school I worked 35 hours a week, but that was usually 30 hours of teaching. Then I worked 25 hours a week, with like 22.5 hours a week of teaching. In Ecuador I never worked more than 15 hours a week.

[inotu-unotme]

[MotherF]

[HLJHLJ]

I don't think the country matters much, it's about the job and the school, there is massive variation between them within a country.

I'm in Japan and I have a language school job with pretty much zero prep/marking, and a university job where I spend about 1-2 hours on prep and marking for every hour I teach. I'd go crazy if I had to do the language school job every day, and I'd find it hard to keep up if I had a lot more hours at the university.

The balance works well for me, but might not suit everyone. I also have more options than some because I have additional qualifications and experience, so I can pick and choose to some extent.

In the past I've also worked at places where you just taught straight out of the book, and ones where you have a book to work from but can supplement it with your own stuff, the latter increases your prep time of course.

Yes, just teaching straight from a book is quicker and easier, with no prep and virtually no marking, but I hated it. I've yet to see a course book that is adequate without being significantly supplemented with extra material. It's embarrassing to have to give such poor quality lessons, and I would find it soul destroying in the long term. That approach also only works if you are in a school that invests heavily in marketing, as you need a constant stream of new students to replace the ones that give up when they realise how little they are learning.

[Denim-Maniac]

Im at an adult training centre in China. I live very close to the school and walk there in under 3 minutes each day.

I teach 2 x 90 minute classes per day, so 15 hours in class per week.

I attend a 20 minute meeting once a fortnight.

I attend a social night for 90 minutes once a week. (English corner for adults with beer and snacks).

My lesson planning, printing and admin work take around 90 minutes a week I guess. I have put a lot of work in to get to this position though....I wasnt working for several months this year and used that time to collate and prepare a lot of material. Now I pretty much print and teach the vast majority of my lessons.

The job isnt perfect, but I certainly have a lot of free time.

[inotu-unotme]

[scepticalbee]

The magic word: SCHEDULE...
You'll see, with time you'll have to make a schedule for everything, even for your diners with friends... I haven't worked in a school where there wasn't some extra work to do, which wasn't only about photocopying manuals or whatever, but most of the times about making researches on the net, making sometimes my own visual resources to simplify the lessons , etc...

[scepticalbee]

The good news is that you won't do the preparation twice because you'll use it for the whole level. Besides, you also have to follow your students' learning pace while trying to conform the material to the real students' level and also while trying to correct your students' learning disabilities, sometimes, etc...