Job Discussion Forums

[Old Surrender]

After three years in China, I'm thinking about trying out Vietnam -- specifically university work. Here are my questions, forgive me if all of this has been covered before -- the search function is being wonky.

-- When is the hiring season for uni work?
-- What qualifications do they generally want? (years exp., degrees, etc.)
-- Are holidays paid? (Chinese unis pay salary during Spring Festival and National Week)
-- Do unis generally provide housing or a stipend?
-- Are side gigs (privates and part-time work) frowned upon/illegal?
-- What's the payscale?

I know there are differences from university A and university B, but I'm just trying to gauge the scene.

Thanks.

[snollygoster]

hiring season -Any time-they hire all year round
qualifications- Varies from Uni to Uni. Generally BA +TESOL/CELTA-some will hire with almost NO quals. Quals and Exp, the more the better.
Are holidays paid?- Not usually, but depends on the Uni.
housing or a stipend- Not usually-those in the countryside do sometimes.
side gigs - No problem
payscale- From about $20 P hr but I have seen $60 quoted, but don't know anyone who has actually received that.

Some Vietnamese "Universities" are not what we understand as westerners to be Univertities.
They usually equate to about year 12 high school at best.

[tefl peasant]

[Old Surrender]

@ Snolly: Thanks. Good stuff to know.

@ Tefl: TAXES!?! I've never encountered that in the good 'ol Middle Kingdom. The classroom situation sounds similar to what I have to deal with right now. My classes are about 50 kids a room, lot's of small-group exercises for oral English classes. Writing classes are lectures and writing, lectures and writing, lectures and writing. Thank goodness for powerpoint.

Do unis in Vietnam post their jobs somewhere (Chinese ones post on ESL Cafe and Angelina's) or is it show up and pound the pavement?

[snollygoster]

Pound the pavement.
Hoa Sen Uni (Read ESL mill) sometimes advertise on Daves, but most dont advertise.

[Dekadan]

When I was in Sai Gon, the rumour was that some universities were occasionally slow in payment. I never knew anyone first-hand having problems with this, but from a friend-of-a-friend kind of thing. The story goes that they eventually paid, but took longer than expected.

Granted, this is speculation and perhaps others can clarify or correct me, but my suggestion would be to get into the bigger universities like RMIT, or make sure that you're not living from paycheck to paycheck.

Best of luck!

[Andy123]

Again, Snolly in spot on.

My personal experience regarding the universities is mixed.

My last couple of years I experienced management and policies from hell. The students are great and I can not say enough good about them. They are truly fun to teach.

Slow to pay? That is the norm. The management without question feel you should be honored to be invited to teach their best and brightest students. If I remember the stats correctly they are the top 5%. The Viet teachers are quick to point out that they "teach" at such and such university during the day as they are simply slumming at the language school at night.

The universities in general play with the taxes and pay. In fact, one of the top 5 universities in the country still owes me $800.

One of my friends who taught at the #2 public university was told that he MUST give the questions from his final exam prior to testing so the students can prepare. This is reflective of the quality of even the best universities. No joke. Everyone passes. Don�t believe me, talk to a 4 year TESOL graduate straight from the uni. I would rather have dental surgery.

One university I worked for collected $45,000 dollars for extra English classes and then never paid the foreign teachers. That last a couple of months and the classes were eventually canceled because they could not get any more suckers (foreigners). The students had to wait months for a refund. Where did the money go? This is Viet Nam and one does not ask.

The private universities are mostly a daycare center for students who fail the national uni entrance exam.

Several years ago, I was shown a stolen copy of the English grammar section from the national university entrance exam. It made me cry as there were so many grammatical errors. I could kick myself for not making a copy. It would have been fun to post.

On occasion I had the unfortunate experience of teaching University English Instructors. What a holy nightmare! At least weekly, I would handout photocopies of grammar points from my grammar reference texts to prove that what I taught them was correct and what they had learned was incorrect. I would provide them the reference books showing they were written by a PhD from Oxford and this reference was written by a PhD from ... and so on. Yet they knew more than the authors and the authors were wrong.

On one occasion a group of Viet university instructors and management insisted I teach a chapter from a textbook that they taught their students. To my amazement there were several target vocab words they did not know e.g. diode. It took me several minutes to realize this and foolishly I kept pushing them to use the target vocab. They shut down and gave me the look as if I had slept with their sister.

Another hysterical moment was when I taught a group of mechanical engineering instructors and the topic of thrust loads came up. They insisted that a square structure was stronger than a cylinder. I am sorry but my body language and facial expressions clearly stated they were truly retarded. This has been common knowledge for thousands of years.

The students are great but the extra baggage was too much.

[Dekadan]

[Biaom]

Most of the teaching at Vietnamese universities is teaching EFL. On occassion, one may teach American culture etc but not very common.

Teaching EFL in Vietnamese Universities is on a par with teaching in cowboy English schools. Large class size, no aircon, photocopied textbooks if the students have a textbook, chalk and blackboards, but the students are generally quite interested in learning. Very poor conditions and the pay is around US$15 per hour.

If you want experience for the future, try the foreign universities such as RMITetc. This may help you in the future getting a job in the middle east but the good jobs in the ME require an MA. Also, don't forget about a lack of women in particular places in the ME, the only women you will here or see will be on the tele.

One can obtain part-time lecturing work at some of the unis which ahve an MBA programme but you will need an MA to get these jobs. Good pay-40-60 usd per hour.

[snollygoster]

I worked at a so called reputable Uni in Saigon for a while, teaching business "soft skills" but that really meant EFL with a very vague business slant. (The pay, by the way was quite acceptable and well above $15 p hr which I often see quoted).
I was horrified when I found out that as a summative test, if the student could write his/her name on the paper, and spell it correctly, they were to awarded 52%, and a pass was 51%.
Sounds pretty solid to me. Certainly this is one place I NEVER put on my CV.
To quote a Viet Uni-I mean a Viet one, not a foreign one which happens to be in Vietnam, is probably not a really positive thing to enhance one's CV.

[Dekadan]

Thank you Biaom and snollygoster for the quick response. I'm considering doing a DELTA in the near future as a way to further my credentials and knowledge. So in your opinion, with my current credentials (BA with honours, CELTA Pass A, 2 years EFL teaching experience), do I have a decent shot at getting into RMIT? When I was in Sai Gon, I had only really heard of RMIT, can you suggest some other foreign-owned universities for there?

[Andy123]

Most university work is good fill-in day work. Nothing great but Vietnamese seem to be impressed when they see it on a CV.

Yes, most of it is ESL or business English. There are some engineering, banking and medical work out there too.

I keep in touch with two of my former uni students. Both have graduated, passed the TOEFL ibt, speak excellent English, can answer the"why" to questions (i.e. they can think abstractly), both are stuck in dead end jobs and stressed out worrying about their future.

Neither makes enough money to allow them to marry (well). Honestly, both are depressed and desperate as they know see. Most of the communication with them is to boost their spirits and give them hope. The education system sells dreams that seldom come true.

I feel sad because these two are by far more intelligent than I. The students are sold a bill of goods that a piece of paper will provide them a way out when in reality only family connections supersede everything.

[snollygoster]

only family connections supersede everything.
Correct Andy. I have lost count at the number of times I have seen a student I could only put in the "blithering idiot" class get the good government job just because daddy or mummy are Party officials, whilst the sensible one with the brain gets the hum drum job with no prospects.
That same 'blithering idiot" will one day become an important person who makes decisions that affect the masses. (After deciding which house/villa and Mercedes to buy with the money his cronies have shown him how to squeeze out of the people he is "protecting")
Ahh! The benefits of a good education! Cynical? No-seeing it how it really is.

[Dekadan]

That's sad to hear about, but I can't say I'm surprised as I was starting to notice the same thing. Vietnamese that were completely incompetent or downright abusive being advanced ahead of others. While I'm glad I'm no longer part of the organizations, I feel bad for coworkers stuck with these idiots. I don't know how they expect to progress as a country when they don't let talented people move upward.

[skarper]

While it is a stark reality of life here, I think it is true to a greater of lesser extent in most countries. It's seldom we can find any truly meritocratic system that survives for more than a generation or two - it's just human nature.