Job Discussion Forums

[Dray]

I'm back in the UK, teaching at a language school. I get paid for each hour I teach - no payment for preparation. So, I'm teaching 30 hours a week. Any less and I wouldn't earn enough money. I'm teaching twenty 90 minute lessons a week (I'm only teaching two groups a week, so there is no opportunity to repeat lessons). Although I have a few years teaching experience behind me, I'm finding it difficult to prepare good quality lessons. There just enough prep time for each lesson.

Does 30 hours sound OK? How many contact hours do you think language schools can expect teachers to teach and still demand well-prepared lessons?

[Sadebugo]

[gaijinalways]

Sadebugo is right, if you have a lot of one off classes, it's tough the more contact hours you have. I teach 27 hours for unis, and I'm straining, but luckily have about 19.5 hours with shared material. My other job is a no prep system, though sometimes I do other work.

[Glenski]

gaijinalways works PT at unis, if I recall correctly. I am FT and teach far fewer hours. That's a big difference in working situation you should realize.

I used to teach in a conversation school, and the norm there in this country is about 25-30 contact hours/week. (Some classes are 45-80 minutes long, so I prefer not to go by number of classes. I had 15-18 80-minute classes, FWIW.)

I also used to teach FT in private HS where the average schedule for teachers was 18-20 45-minute classes per week (plus oodles of other required duties). Even PTers got a lot of hours at that particular school, practically the same as FTers.)

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

30 hours a week in Ontario, Canada for LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada- government language courses) is the norm for a full-time job. No preparation time.

That's far more than I've ever taught in Japan. But there are massive differences. Those 30 hours a week in Ontario were actually only FIVE different classes. I taught only TWO classes a day- morning three-hour class. Then an afternoon three-hour class (the same class repeated, usually). Of the three hours, there was a fifteen minute break in there and everything is paced. Those three hour classes would often go by much faster then a single 50-minute class in Japan because the students actually contribute.

Likewise a 'language school' in the English speaking nations and a conversation school in Asia are usually two totally different things. In the former, teachers do the type of things that they are trained to do in courses.

My point is just that there can be massive differences between what constitutes an adult language class in an the inner circle English speaking nations and a language class in Asia for youths, and it starts with the amount that students are willing to contribute. In multi-L1 classes where English is the only shared language, students usually contribute more [you can actually do the types of things you are trained to do when you study Applied Linguistics / TESOL at university]. I've seen Japanese high school students flip out at Japanese Teachers of English for being told that next class they will have to write ONE sentence in English on the blackboard because it meant that they would have to actually do ONE sentence worth of homework in English.

[naturegirl321]

It depends where and what you're teaching. I've heard
10 to 15 at some unis.
15 to 20 at some institutes.
20 to 25 at some schools
25 to 30 at some institutes.

That's just a generalisation. I've had 33 at an international school and 18, 22.5 and 12.5 at the three unis I've been at. I've also had 3 hours a week at an institute, needless to say I didn't stay long there.

But honestly, I htink it depends WHAT You're teaching. For example, now I only prepare two lessons a week and teach them six times each. Oh, and a converstaion class, but we HAVE to teach directly from the book, so I don't really prepare for that.

If you have 10 hours and 10 different classes, it's worse than having 30 classes and only 3 lessons, see what I mean?

Anything over 30, I hope that it's because you're working two jobs.

[katy]

30 hours a week is normal in London. Students on a visa need to study a minimum of 15 hours per week. This is why courses tend to be 15 hours per week. Two of those is 30 hours per week.