Job Discussion Forums

[777]

Can anyone tell me what the normal weekly workload for HCT (English Faculty) is? How many hours per week and how it is divided up (how many classes)?

I Appreciate it!

[helenl]

After 1st year (foundations) most English teachers have 2 x 10hr classroom hours (total 20hrs) with 2 separate classes at the same level in the Diploma program. This changes for the Higher diploma program.

Of course, it can vary depending on the number of sections and the number of teachers available.

[adorabilly]

777

Understand you will be teaching about 20 hours a week, but you will need to be on campus for a full 40 hours a week at most campuses. YOu will have lots of committee work and other things that you will have to be there for.

again like Helen said... depending on which program you are teaching in (diploma foundations, higher foundations, etc..) you will have different breakdowns of students, and classes taught.

[tmac-100]

There are other benefits to teaching with HCT:

1. I have forgotten what it is like to have students cursing and swearing as in MOD EDIT
2. I have forgotten what it is like to walk down a hallway full of students with a few groping each other.
3. I have forgotten what it is l;ike to have no administrative support when I experience points 1 and 2..
4. I LIKE working with polite and quiet students - some of whom are willing and quite able to learn and be attentive - and some of whom are less able to learn, and quite frankly are not particularly attentive.
5. I am reminded that the "Bell curve" applies to everyone on this planet, and that no nation is immume to it's descriptions..

IFF you come to the UAE and work for HCT you will have an experience that you and only you will have to deal with. Some have hated it. I, quite frankly, like it .. warts and all

[globalnomad2]

Students in the UAE are polite?! Give me a break. Not women students, if you're a male teacher.

[tmac-100]

Yup, in my experience at a womens' HCT college the students are polite!!

Your mileage may vary - after all we react differently to the same environment

BUT, I have basically forgotten what it is like to have cursing students walking the hallways and having administrators do nothing - except to not support staff who work in such an environment

I have it GOOD with HCT - trust me, I am a doctor

[777]

Polite students, 20 hours a week class time, meetings, projects, etc. Not bad.

When they say 48 days holiday, does that mean weekdays or are they counting the weekends as some of those, and is that for the summer? Or is this the total number of days combined (Eids, National Holidays including summer)?

[helenl]

Typically you get 7 - 8 weeks holidays in the summer and a 2 week semester break in January. Eids and national holidays are on top of this.

I don't know if you can access the academic calendar from outside the colleges' intranet system - that would give you a better idea.

[tmac-100]

[metateacher]

[helenl]

colleges where the "bum on seat" rule for 40hrs is relaxed tend to be the men's colleges. At the women's colleges which are larger the rules are enforced more often and a few of your colleagues (as is the case in any office situation) will be sure to take note of your comings and goings and how long you spend at college.

I remember one teacher getting a call at 1005 from her supervisor asking why she felt it was OK to arrive at 10am instead of 8 - as the supervisor worked in another block, someone had to be watching either the gate or the teacher's cubicle to see what time she arrived

[ckhl]

I remember one teacher getting a call at 1005 from her supervisor asking why she felt it was OK to arrive at 10am instead of 8 - as the supervisor worked in another block, someone had to be watching either the gate or the teacher's cubicle to see what time she arrived

those paranoid brown nosers. they'd do it too except they're scared. Typically I put in about 33 hours a week at the HCT and did only what was necessary. No need to go the extra mile unless you've got guilt issues, or you're interanally driven. I could never understand it. Well, I could, actually. Going the extra mile for some had little to do with the external reality of the situation. It had more to do with personal issues.

[tmac-100]

Several folks have speculated that times when your computer are "on" can be monitored. This may explain why a supervisor called a staff member 5 minutes after arrival - and the computer seemed to be turned on for that e-mail to be received.

One contributor (and I forget which one) stated that their computer was never turned off. I can only suppose that it was locked from prying eyes and fingers when away from the desk... Last year I learned the hard way to lock my computer when getting a coffee because someone started writing nonsense in the application I had not locked when I momentarily went away from my desk. Oh well, all sorts of people are in the workplace

[abudhabi]

My experience is aligned with T-mac's. I've found the women students are great to teach - this from a male perspective. Can't imagine what Globalnomad2 is talking about.

[globalnomad2]

Here's what I'm talking about: it's not only me. I know a content teacher (IT), a Brit, who, like me, also needed a cultural change and went to China to teach for a while. Then he returned to DWC to actually earn a real salary, but he couldn't stand the disrespect from the students anymore and soon he left again and went back to China to at least be with real students. You think we're the only two to feel that way? That we're paranoid malcontents? I survived 13 years of Gulf teaching, but 5 years at DWC was maximum for me. The Petroleum Institute male students were much more affable and easygoing.