Job Discussion Forums

[flyingkiwi]

Hi all.

I saw the post on the typical day in an ALT's life. ATM, I am an ALT, but am looking at moving to an eikaiwa after August. Can anyone working at one of the 'big four' send in your typical day at an eikaiwa? Is it really 29.5 hours a week, meaning 29.5 hours of classes? Coming from JET, that's a major step up.

Cheers.

[Sweetsee]

Do you get any pumping surf down there?

[movinaround]

For AEON,

Come into work atleast 10 minutes early (I always came in 30 minutes early atleast, which tended to save me a lot of stress). Teach 1 or two classes before your "lunch/dinner" break, then usually 3 or 4 classes after that (all 50 minutes). I taught Monday to Friday, but I would have prefered the Tuesday to Saturday schedule more, even though Saturday has more classes. I never actually made it to my maximum amount of hours in a week, but it can happen.

If you have any specific questions, don't hesitate to ask.

[flyingkiwi]

I don't surf myself, but I hear the waves are good

[Sweetsee]

How far are you from the beach?

[flyingkiwi]

[womblingfree]

[movinaround]

[Dipso]

Aeon have recently changed contracts for new teachers, by the way. Teachers now have 36 hour per week contracts - 25 hours of which are teaching hours.

http://www.aeonet.com/application/contract.html

[flyingkiwi]

What do you have to do for a consultation interview?

Also, could you perhaps send me details of a typical lesson plan for adults and details of what you do in the class?

That would help me a lot, thank you.

[movinaround]

[canuck]

Here's another perspective. LOL

http://www.jobweb.com/resources/feaemp/nova_0806.htm

[craven]

Hmmm...I'd heard that Aeon was now requiring staff to be enrolled in Shakai Hoken...about time! I also notice that while they've bumped up the starting salary from Y260000-Y270000, they've also bumped up what they charge you for housing from Y42000-Y55000. New employs are losing Y3000 overall I guess. The bonuses are now higher too...about Y20000 more on average.

I agree that having the Tues-Sat rotation is better, even though it's busier and you have fewer holidays (most national holidays in Japan are on mondays...since it's your regular day off, you get the shaft. Aeon usually gives you one "compensation day" to cover it, but it doesn't come close to working out). Having a Monday off is great for doing things like banking, hospital visits, or anything else official.

I needed at least 30 min ahead of time to get ready for classes. More if I was having to work with a "new" book that I hadn't dealt with before. All in all, it's not difficult work, but it is definitely physically draining to put in 6 or 7 lessons in a day. A HUGE increase from JET

[gaijinalways]

Berlitz is similar, but a little different. Teach 40 minute classes, on a contract would be 40 lessons in a week minimum over 5 days. 5 minute breaks in between, if a student doesn't come (and sometimes we know ahead of time) then you get paid and are not asked to do other work during that time (unlike some of the other big schools). Contract teachers tend to have schedules with no big gaps, so that you're not hanging around all day with big breaks.

Recently on my per lesson contract (so my schedule is lot more flexible to accomodate my uni schedules) I'm teaching as many as 11 lessons in a day (surprising really, usually winter is not that busy, though our branch has been running intensive campaigns, something left more up to local branches staring 2 years ago). Taking time off has gotten a little more difficult, whith my manager asking for 1 week notice in most cases (in the past some people used to abuse taking time off and made making our schedules a nightmare). Travel is also paid if you teach at other branches or at companies. This in addition to commutation pay which you receive every month.

How busy one would be would depend on your branch and the number of lessons one wanted to teach in a week. As to canuck's link, yeah, I would say some aspects of the job are fun in the variety of people you meet, of course most Japanese though of course we teach the occasional Chinese or Korean student. Doctors, lawyers, businessmen from all backgrounds, artists, etc.

The downside is of course, some of the people that come have 'issues'. Sometimes they are referred by a boss or counselor and told that learning English will 'help' them. What it means instead is that we end up 'teaching' some people who would be better off with a different type of teacher . And of course, burn out. It's a lot of contact time in a day, though the classes are more manageble when there are usually only 1 to 3 students in a class, but still, I think you do need a certain perosnality to deal with that. But, that being said, there are certainly worse jobs.

[keister]