Job Discussion Forums

[kalulu]

Second term started last week and my schedule (delivered 17 hours before the first class) has me teaching four 90-minute "Listening & Speaking" classes to Class A each week, and four 90-minute IELTS classes to Class B each week, all students I had last semester, and all students not English majors.

My sister and I are the only two FTs at our (low tier) college. She has four Oral English classes each week, each with a different class, and after this month will get two Culture classes, each with a different class. Soooo, this means, she will have a total of 2 lesson plans to repeat throughout the week, and I have 8.

Our contract says nothing of out-of-classroom working hours, and of course, we've been provided terribly inadequate teaching material. My FAO does not seem to realize the enormity of lesson planning my schedule requires and said the schedule is "not his authority." It's also not the English Dept.'s because my classes belong to another dept. (I have zilch interaction with the English Dept. anyway.)

What recourse do I have when on the surface my schedule abides the contract's limit of 16 teaching hours per week?

Any advice will be much appreciated!

[ttorriel]

Where is the problem? Why not just do the work you've agreed to do? 16 hours is nothing and you admit that there is no conflict contractually. You agreed to do the work, so why not just do it?

[kalulu]

Let me clarify: the problem is that the schedule requires a LOT of out-of-classroom work that I'm not compensated for and that I don't have materials from the school to help me. I'm drowning in lesson planning every night bc I've never done this teaching thing before and don't have guidance from the school.

If I were able to repeat one Oral English lesson plan and one Writing lesson plan throughout the week like the other FTs I know I wouldn't have a problem with 16 hours. But creating two new lesson plans every night for the next day seems an unreasonable and uncompensated demand of my time.

[MisterButtkins]

That's rough but at least you get the same kids 4 times a week. You can actually get to know them. Right now I have seven 90 minute classes per week, all with different students, which is great because it's not a lot of work, but I doubt I'll learn more than a few of the kids' names before the end of the semester, much less get to know them as people.

Really your course of action here depends on how seriously you take your job as a teacher. If you are okay with using 'less than optimal' teaching methods it's quite easy to lesson plan for many hours in a small amount of time. If you have a textbook you can even just wing it on the spot, if you're good at improvising. Of course this is probably not a responsible thing to do, you are contributing to China's educational problems, you are making a bad name for foreign teachers, etc...

[johntpartee]

Question: Have they violated the contract you signed?

If the answer is "no", ....

[gene]

[Silent Shadow]

[johntpartee]

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

if you're expected to prepare and deliver a different lesson for each class every week, its too much. not sure what i can add to help out, but i can tell you (if you dont already know) there are tons of lesson plans available online that can be downloaded and used with minimal adjustment. at least it will save you some time. failing that, if the school isn't prepared to help you out by lessening the burden on you, tell them to pound salt and find a new job. and take your sister with you. the school might actually see the light.

good luck anyway.

[Sugar & Spice]

"...if your school suddenly sprang this schedule on you 17 hours before the new semester you would just suck it up? ..."

Notice is always nice. They could have told/asked her last term if she/he could do it.

Since the school's management didn't deem fit to tell you that you would teach the same group 4x a week for 90 minutes each, let the kids suffer.

In the end, most schools really don't care about Oral English classes. It is just something that they must do, at the last minute no less!

Something similar happened to me in the past and I quit. I said I was told 1 class a week and now you want 2 a week, 3 days before school began. If they had told me sooner, I would have prepared and been ready, but...

I'm still here = I got my letters. WHAT A CROCK THAT IS.

[gene]

[Silent Shadow]

[kukiv]

[Silent Shadow]

[teachaus]

It is worth thinking about different types of activities that you can do which put the talking focus back onto the students - and giving them time in lesson to prepare for some of those tasks (with your help and guidance);. For example giving short speeches, class debates and small group discussions (reporting back to class after you have made a decision). For example part of my class lesson today had each student giving a 1-2 minute speech about someone who had inspired them. Later in the lesson after a couple of other things they had a discussion in their small group (3-4) students to decide who they thought were the top 5 inspiration people from anytime in China's history and why. In the groups reporting back to the class everyone in the group needed to speaki about at least one person. Another thing I have that flows through a big part of the semester is I found a few pronunication poems online and use one which each of my different classes - we learn a verse each week and review previous verses (later it become an assessment task when they read the poem to me - but a long the way it helps improve their pronunciation on some words). It is worth considering finding a topic of theme for the week and finding/thinking up a few different activities like speches / debates / discussions that the stiudents can work on over more than one lesson - For example part of one lesson might be preparing for a debate - and having the dabate in a following lesson. I think in your position I would be planning for the week rather than for one lesson - and I think that might make your planning feel less overwhelming.