Job Discussion Forums

[Angel.Ro]

Hey just wondering what the work schedule is normally like for training centers?

And what is typically the best route to go if one wants a good work/life balance? When I go to China it'd be awesome to have ample time to see the city etc.

Thanks

[vikeologist]

Typically training centres will give you 2 days off during the week. You'd want those 2 days to be concurrent, and ideally Monday / Tuesday, so you can recover from the weekend.

[Angel.Ro]

How about hours? Is it mostly evenings?

[Listerine]

Depends. Some might want you to do promotion type crap during the day like teach a couple of classes at a public school or whatever. Or have you teach adults in the day. Some of the big chains like WEB sometimes even have day shift teachers and evening shift teachers. General rule (if there is one) though is work your ass off Sat. & Sun. Monday and Tuesday off. 2~3 hours each day (afternoon / evening) Wed~Friday. You've gotta ask the particular school though as there's just too many variables.

[Angel.Ro]

I know it's hard to say exactly and that there are a lot of variables, but generally speaking, which teaching route would you say offers the most flexibility in schedule: universities, international schools, public schools or training centers?

I'm just trying to see where the middle ground lies between the people that say teaching in China is a breeze, working 20-25 hours a week, and then the others that say that schools try to squeeze every hour out of you and work you into the ground.

[kungfuman]

Hours are usually 9-5 or 1-9 pm

expect office hours - means no class you still need to be there

expect to be bossed around by a bunch of girls that may have finished high school and have no formal experience in anything

expect that the janitor will have a job there for a long time but you most likely wont

expect students that figure they ( or most likely their parents) have spent much money for them to be there and they will openly talk on their phone while you try to give a class - and if you dare correct their poor manners they while report you for being a poor quality teacher

expect schedule changes and overtime without compensation

expect a host of reasons why your salary will be wrong and it will never be corrected

expect to work illegally on a tourist visa while the promised residence permit still never materializes

to sum it up - have lots of expectations while working in a training center but don't expect too much

[Dan123]

[Non Sequitur]

[KnockoutNed]

I have a full-time job at a public school and work part-time at a training center. I love it because all I have to do is show up 5 minutes before the lesson starts, teach, then go home. No office hours and the pay is tax free. As the other guy said though, working full-time is a different story, and something I would definitely try to avoid. I worked for one in Japan and Thailand and will never (hopefully) do it again

[wuliuchiba]

It boggles the mind why anyone would want to work for a training center when there are so many uni and high/middle school jobs out there. If you want to sit in a cubicle all day, wearing a suit and tie, for 40 hours a week, you might as well have stayed in your home country for a much better salary. Given the inconvenient 1 to 9 weekday/working on the weekends hours, you will not have a good work/life balance. You'll live the life of an office drone 5 days a week and the 2 days off (often non-consecutively) will barely be enough to recover before you start the grind again.

Oh, and did I mention vacations? Unlike most other jobs in China where you get an entire month off in the winter and two months off in the summer (often paid), you'll be lucky to get 10 days off during Chinese New Year -- and that's more or less it, aside from the occasional extra day off due to national public holidays.

[Angel.Ro]

Alright thanks for the feedback everyone.

[kungfuman]

I already got my got 2015-2016 schedule at my school. Almost 4 months of fully paid vacation for the next school year - including two weeks at Christmas and july and august.

I was talking to a teacher at my part time job. They all work 6 days a week for 40 hours at that training school - even the full time foreign teacher.

I remember going there one day and the full time foreign teacher was sitting at his desk playing computer games. I asked him WHY he was playing on the shitty school computer instead of home to be on his good computer. He told me he has to teach 23 classes a week and MUST stay in the office a total of 17 hours a week for lesson planning - he did none - and so that the parents could see that the school had a full time trained monkey. I laughed AT HIM (not with him) as I came in 5 minutes early to do my classes and left 35 seconds after the class was done.

BTW this school cycles through full time teachers about every four months - they typically quit on a 4 month cycle. None have stayed longer.

[hdeth]

My uni gig had pretty good hours...1-2 2-hour classes in the morning, with a day off every other week. Would be a good schedule if you could line up some part time work...some senior teachers had 3-4 day weeks.

At my current "international" school it's 5 days a week full time. Long lunch break but we have classes in the evening here which I was unaware of when I signed on.

I signed on a couple weeks before winter break and they are paying me for winter and summer break which is nice, but I'm not sure I'll renew my contract. Thinking a uni gig, especially one teaching American culture or history or something, with some part time gig would be better...less hours and about the same money. The problem is all the places I want to teach pay really low for uni gigs...like 5k for most of them.

[kungfuman]

I was recently offered a uni gig - pay was 12,000 a month after tax inc housing. 16 classes a week only business classes. But only a 10 month contract. A friend works there for 8 years - they never paid him for the summer.

Plus when I asked about health insurance The answer was sidestepped and I never got a real answer. My friend's wife said the contract DOES say health insurance but he never actually got it.

My current gig is 18,000 a month paid for a whole year and includes real health insurance - when I go to the hospital I never have to pay as long as the cost is 1000 per visit or less. I need to pay anything over 1000y

[Non Sequitur]