Job Discussion Forums

[struelle]

What do you sonsider to be long teaching days? What's the longest number of teaching hours you've done in a day?

Wednesday's in the week tend to be very busy, because I start classes at 8am and don't finish until 9pm at night. However, I only teach 5 actual hours during this time, and the day is riddled with short breaks. These short breaks often get filled with other stuff, so really, it's close to 6 or 7 hours of teaching. Not surprisingly, it's exhausting for the day and the breaks are pointless.

On the other hand, last year I often did 6 hour teaching days on Saturday. Start at 9am, finish at 4:30 with a lunch break. These were much easier to handle because of the compact hours. In theory, I could pull off an 8 hour teaching day with few problems if the hours were compact and a nice lunch break were thrown in.

It's the 12 or 13 hour days with pointless 'split shifts' that are the longest and most tiring because the breaks can't be optimized.

How about you guys?

Steve

[surrealia]

I have a friend who teaches at a crummy university in central Taiwan. He teaches 10 hours on Monday. 10 hours, that's right. 4 hours, lunch, 4 hours, dinner, then 2 more hours. And on some Mondays, he has to get up for a special reading hour with the students, an hour HE DOESN'T GET PAID FOR, which means 11 hours on those days. And he has to teach classes the very next day. That's probably the worst schedule I've ever heard of.

[donfan]

In Taiwan I worked from 8.30am to 10.30pm five days a week plus three hours on Sat and Sun. I was working two jobs which I chose to do but it was still long.

[ls650]

During the July school break, I had one 80-minute class that started at 10 AM Monday through Friday. I'd then not teach again until 3 PM, but usually had to teach until 7:30 or 9 PM
That sucked.

Now I generally teach from roughly 3 PM until 9 PM. When I have to teach Saturdays (about half), I only teach until 7:30 PM.

[Mike_2003]

I agree with Strelle - it's the long days rather than the busy days that I dislike the most. At the weekend I wake up, put on my teachering head, and work from about 8am until 6pm. It's a lot of hours but I don't mind it at all. During the week I often have an afternoon lesson and then one or two evening lessons, sometimes finishing at 11pm. Although they are shorter in terms of actually teaching hours, they seem a lot more tiring.

Mike

[basiltherat]

hi
by agreeing to do split shifts, one has to assume ur being flexible.i approach it like this.
if the boss wants me to do split shifts, i say i dont mind as long as he fills the gaps between them with extra classes/sessions. in other words, while ur at it, do a long day of continual teaching. it gets a lot of the weekly hours over with in one day and can often result in overtime hours (= extra $$$).
generally, bosses will agree to this, at least it is the case here. my hours here can get as high as 42 contact a week sometimes more.
regards
basil

[Frater]

[basiltherat]

yes, sorry my post wasnt put very eloquently. in other words, if ur dos has ever been assigned split shifts himself (and is aware of how rough it can be ), from my experience he/she is more likely to agree to have or allow you to do extra classes (to fill the gaps) than having to get into a protracted argument with you about your being assigned split shifts. lets face it, split shifts do s@ck. nothing worse than hanging around doing things in the workplace for lengthy peroids and not getting paid for it.
i think thats being reasonable. compromising can still work if ur dealing with an ''adult'' dos
rgrds
basil

[basiltherat]

dear surrealia
at least your friend doesnt have a split shift on mondays. admirable !
rgrds
basil

[ntropy]

When I worked in Yemen, we went from 6 am to 6 pm 7 days a week for five weeks straight. Of course, we then got 35 days off at home with pay to make up for it.

And that was an improvement from what was previous. At the beginning of my time there, people were working 7 days a week for 8 weeks with only 3 weeks off

[richard ame]

Hi
A 10 or 12 hour day is something as a teacher you are not expected to put up with or endure in a real teaching position ,however there are those who take advantage (bosses) and those who do anything for money (us). Before I got into this line of work an 18 hour day was the norm for me and its surprising what you get used especially when bills need to be paid I can rember doing in excess of 85 hrs aweek so whatever this industry throws at me now is a picnic ,go back homeand try it out .

[Roger]

Over here in China, you consider a day as 'long' when you have done 5 periods, all within walking distance from your home.
That frees you up for extra work elsewhere.

But personally, I consider working more than 5 hours too exhausting.

Yet, I had to give my first private employer some kind of knockback when he was trying to get 12 hours of my precious presence every single day of a six-day workweek;
we had to compromise on six hours a day, most of it wasted as an office pet in his cramped office so he could show me off to visitors.
I actually put in maybe ten or twelve lessons a week.

Currently, I am part-timing, and my biggest waste of time is travelling around. On some days, the ratio between actual teaching and being away from home for work is somewhere near to 1:4 (four hours away, one hour taught; it decreases somewhat if I teach two hours in the same school - 5 hours away, 2 hours taught/paid for).

[khmerhit]

I used to have 43 contact hours in a very hot climate, no aircon. I would still be there doing it if I thought there was a future in it.

Enough of that: I am trying to change careers. Merry Christmas!

[Lynn]

At my previous school in New York City:
M-F 8:30am-5pm
first class 8:30-12:30 with one 20 min break
last class 1:00-5:00 with one 20 min break

Two 4 hour classes back to back... I expereinced extreme burn out. I woke up nervous thinking of the day ahead of me.

I got paid $15 an hour, no prep time and our breaks were so short. Students usually asked questions during the break and I just couldn't say no.

It was sureal. I spent more hours of the day with these students than I did with my husband. Emotions ran high, really high and it was my job to keep peace in the classroom. I felt like I was much more than an ESL teacher. I was a counselor to these young adults living away from their home countries for the first time.

They really went all out on my birthday and for my farewell party and for international teacher's day.

[Wolf]

At NOVA I had to teach 8 lessons a day, every day, five times a week, 51 weeks a year (I didn't quite last a year, though.) I had a part time job on Tuesdays, so I'd teach the 8 lessons with only a 40 minute break, and then go to my next job and teach for 2 more hours.

I also was a part time student in the mornings. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I went to class as a student for 2 hours - before work. So that meant a lot of long days.

I got sick because if it, actually.

I admit not being flexible enough to do split shifts. If they want me to teach mornings, I teach morings. If they want me to teach evenings and weekends every week of my life, well I did that for 3 years, so no big deal there. But, if they want me to haul myself out of bed before dawn and not finish my last class until after dark; um, no. I've seen jobs like that (6:30 am start for first class, 9 or 10 pm end for last class.) I know I wouldn't adapt to that, and as I get older that won't get any easier. Every weekend of my life for 3 years was enough as it was.