Job Discussion Forums

[beetlil]

okay, I know you guys get annoyed with people asking the same old questions... but I have honestly searched this site (back to 2005) and haven't come up with the answers i'm looking for.

My situation has changed since my last post and now the kids are going to stay in Oz with the ex for 12 months or so. I sent out a heap of Cvs and have been a little overwhelmed by the response. I've basically been offered jobs with Seameo, ILA, Apollo, Rmit etc and was wondering...

Previous posts have said that you can earn UP to $2000/month in Vietnam. Can someone tell me how many hours this entails? I am used to working 50-60 hours per wk and only getting paid for 36.5 so i'm not afraid of hard work and long hours and was wondering if it's feasible to earn more than this working 2 or 3 jobs ( weekdays, nights, and/or weekends) . What sort of pay should I accept in a contract?

I really love teaching so without my kids with me I will be looking to work as many hours as possible and do what I enjoy to fill in the days.

What do you think?

For those that didn't read my previous post... I have B.A. Communication, Honours Communication & lit, Tesol and 5 years teaching academic writing and comm at OZ uni.

[ajc19810]

Earning potential is only limited by hours in the day. If for example RMIT offered you a job they probably offered something like $20 / hour working 20 hours a week. Maybe a little a more. So if you were to do this there would be more time, probably in the evenings to work in a language center for an extra few hours a night + weekends. Privates are the other options where you can demand a chunky hourly rate. ($20-$40hr, I'm sure people work for less than this or more, but this is just my experience with privates)

If you want to work in schools and earn good cash, you need a teaching job that you can do during the day and then have the option of teaching in the evenings. I did that a while back when I was keen and eager. I did 4 hours at one school between 10 - 4:30 and then I made a short trip to a language center to teach an extra 3 hours between the times 5:30 - 9:00.
I even worked on saturday mornings for another 2 hours. (I had a wedding to pay for)

7 hours / day / $20/hr + Saturday morning = Nett $2960 usd. I ended up dropping the saturday morning and I was able to work those hours comfortably Mon-Fri. They were all adult classes mind you except the sat morning, which makes it a little easier to do.

It is not always easy to manage your time like this, but I did by simply securing a daytime position and then went on the search for a langauge center with good hourly rates with a consistent workload.

[beetlil]

Thanks ajc. What you have described is what I'm hoping to do. I have been a single mum for 10 years, working full time, so I'm a little worried that I just won't know what to do with myself if I'm only working 20 hours a week.

So my plan is to accept one of the offers and then have a look around for a 'decent' language school (is this an oxymoron?),once I arrive to teach in the evenings.

Thanks for the help

[inky]

Be careful, I think you might be getting the schools mixed up; you already have contact with 'decent' language schools (and, no, that is not an oxymoron). Your list of schools is a mix of the types of settings described by acj. ILA and Apollo are "decent" language schools, and most of their hours will be evenings and weekends. RMIT is a more 9-5 M-F type of setting.

I think you'll be surprised at how quickly your day will fill up with teaching, doing lesson prep and marking tests and homework, placement testing, and just watching the world go by at a cafe. Don't overcommit until you've settled in and have a feel for the daily pace.

[beetlil]

Thanks Inky. I didn't realize this, so your post has been invaluable! I will now rethink my options.

I've also had an offer from SEAMEO RETRAC. Does anyone know anything about this place? Any good or bad stories would be helpful

[owly jr]

I can tell you that I have found ILA to be a real pleasure to work for, although it seems hours can be a little hard to come by - most teachers work 20-24 hours a week, with weekends accounting for a large proportion of that time (12-16 hours). Of course there's always the option of additional private lessons! but ILA give you all the support you could ask for and they are completely reliable and decent in their employment practices, at least in my experience and the experience of those I know.

[thomas123]

owly,

Why so few hours at ILA? Is there some reason that the school wants more teachers teaching fewer hours? Is this typical of school in Vietnam?

By the way, how many unpaid hours do teachers typically put in for preparation, grading, etc?

[owly jr]

[ajc19810]

[skarper]

I think, from my experience the 1 hour per 2 hour class is fair - for a beginning teacher.

If you are teaching a lesson you have never taught before, and unwilling to follow the set curriculum slavishly, then at least one hour planning for 2 hours teaching.

Actually, many of my home made lessons took 2-3 hours to prepare and only 50 minutes to teach! But when it is time to teach the same language points again prep time is as much time as it takes to locate the folder and make any photocopies....

If you're repeating a lot of the same levels/classes prep time will drop fast. If every lesson is more or less a one off (a common ILA/Apollo experience I gather) then your 24 hours of teaching time might equal a 36 hour week. Add in travel time, admin, meetings, test marking and reports and you could easily find yourself busy over 50 hours some weeks and only being in class for about 24 of them. Bigger schools are also apt to spring cover on you at short notice.

From what I hear, many people don't last long enough at Apollo/ILA to ever repeat the same age/level of course. During my brief time working at Apollo I found my prep time to teach a maximum of 18 hours a week greater than teaching 30 hours a week in Korea. Add in the poor IT and printers/photocopiers that could mean it could take an hour or more to produce a single page of A4 handouts....

Bottom line. Don't overload yourself at first. 24 hours really is full time - at Apollo that could be some 7-9am off site classes, some 2-4pm classes, evenings from 5-9pm, Sat/Sun from 7am to 5pm. These classes could be business English, IELTS prep, Kindergarten, Young Learners, Teenagers, Adults, a pronunciation clinic.... then factor in assorted meetings/training/orientation and team building nonsense. They can demand you come in and cover for a sick/absent teacher at quite short notice too. If you sign up full-time at Apollo/ILA/RMIT then they feel they own you 24/7. If you take on so much as a private 1:1 and they find out it could be trouble.

Many people advise against taking on a full time Apollo/ILA gig and just working hourly. That usually pays more and you can skip out on all the training/meetings etc. It also leaves you free to take on other work without them crying foul. There are rumours that Apollo/ILA are going 'all legit' on Work Permits so part time/hourly is not available. You'll just have to approach each branch directly to find out.

[inky]

[owly jr]

[ajc19810]

I guess I'm going on your observation list

I suppose it's up the person, curriculum and class really.

Anyhoo, just as a matter of interest do you pay your teachers for lesson prep? I've spoken to lots of schools whose teachers are on hourly rates and they are getting a few hours a month tagged onto their base hours for lesson prep.

[AnnMouse]

"just as a matter of interest do you pay your teachers for lesson prep?"

This is something I have never understood about people's expectations re. pay and I've been teaching English for a decade now.

It has always been my understanding that the so-called hourly pay rate already includes your prep time and I have never expected to be paid more for actually preparing my classes before teaching them

[saigon cowboy]

You really don't need more than 20 hours a week to live comfortably. If you come to vietnam with a lot of bills to pay back home then I would advise against coming here.

We don't just teach for the money. Most teachers are here NOT for money, but for love of the vietnamese people and their culture.