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metalhead
Joined: 18 May 2010
Location: Toilet
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 Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 2:00 pm Post subject: |
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That's a burn-out schedule if there ever was one. Maybe if it was just one day a week, but even then, it's way too much. Those five minute 'breaks' will consist of noisy kids running into your classroom for the next class, and you pulling them off your legs/trying to get them into their seats, so not even a break really.
If, however, you are in your early twenties you might have the energy for that. Did the owner mention how many students are in a class? The more students there are, the louder it will be/harder to control. I actually like teaching kindergarten, but you definitely need a Korean co-teacher in there with you or it's chaos all the way. |
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JustinC
Joined: 10 Mar 2012
Location: We Are The World!
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| Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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I count eleven classes a day (the long one counts as two) but you're not getting paid for TWO JOBS which this is.
OP, please don't take this job - not for just your own health but for the health of other NETs - because once hagwon owners think things are so bad they can pull this type of 5hit ... |
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ttompatz
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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| Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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Only a fool would agree to something like that.
Sounds like a Wonderland (or one of their clones).
. |
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3DR
Joined: 24 May 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 9:21 pm Post subject: |
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I seriously don't know how people teach at hagwons with those schedules for more than one year.
I did a hagwon last year...schedule was anywhere from 2:30/3-10 pm
Classes started at 45 min, but the director upped the time to 55 min...this resulted in many teachers having no breaks. I fought it and got at least one break everyday, but still 5 of those everyday, getting off at 10pm, and only 10 vacation days led to burnout by the 7th month.
Gladly back in public school now with about 20 classes a week with at least one or two classes being cancelled every week for whatever random reason. |
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Modernist
Joined: 23 Mar 2011
Location: The 90s
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| Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 9:50 pm Post subject: |
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You have to be kidding me. That is an INSANE schedule. You won't even be able to think by the end of the day. 5 minute 'breaks' are NOTHING. Especially with kinder-age kids. You'll want to kill yourself by the end of the second week.
Back to back teaching is brutal. More than 2 in a row and you are like a zombie by the end of the third. With the young kids and their energy levels, one wave after another...God, my mind hurts just thinking about it.
What's wrong with you even thinking of taking this? Have you ever taught before? Have you taught KIDS before? Super young ones, 5 or 6? With ZERO English? Or are you just super-broke and seduced by 2.9 million a month? Think you can do anything for a few months if you get that paycheck, do you? You won't think that after the end of the first week, I can assure you of that.
Listen to what we are telling you. You will SERIOUSLY regret taking a job like this. JustinC is right that it is essentially two jobs in one. From that perspective 2.9 million doesn't look so great, does it? |
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WadRUG'naDoo
Joined: 15 Jun 2010
Location: Shanghai
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| Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 11:20 pm Post subject: Re: Crappy and long hagwon hours, do you burn out? |
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| wes1989 wrote: |
Sorry I was mistaken on some of the details but he gave me a sample schedule this is what it looks like:
Start at 9:50
40m Class
10m Break
40m Class
5m Break
40m Class
40m LUNCH
40m Class
5m Break
35m Class
---------------------End of Kindergarten
70m Break/Prep
1h 45m Elementary class!??? why so long?
5m Break
40m class
5m Break
40m class
5m Break
40m class
5m Break
40m class
About 9-10 classes a day (Depends on day)
End at 8:00pm M W F,
End at 7:15pm Tu, Thu (1 less class on these days)
35hr teaching a week
12hr 20m beak & prep time a week
Option of 2.9 or 3.1 Mill KW/month, depending if I take breaks or I do more back to back teaching. |
Where I work, that would be 8.25 hours on MWF and 7.75 hours on TTh. Total would be 40.25 hours a week. I'd be making 7.62 million won/month before tax and rent. But it's really only possible to teach 35 hours a week where I work IF you do it 7 days a week WHICH is against the law.
Run away. Find a job that pays 1.9 to 2.1 million for 5 classes a day between 2 and 7 pm or 1 and 6 pm. |
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soomin
Joined: 18 Jun 2009
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 11:25 pm Post subject: |
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| wes1989 wrote: |
| soomin wrote: |
| It sounds like a kindergarten... I worked 9-5:30 (only 40-50 minutes for lunch, which involved me shoveling the food into the kid's mouths, so, not really a break...) and it's definitely not for everyone. If you make friends here, most of them will probably be on a night schedule, so that is annoying. If you have lots of energy and love kids, then it's not too bad. But, a lot of your time in the afternoon will probably be with older kids and/or paperwork. As the only foreigner at my job (who didn't have seniority/pretend they were as stupid as a log), they gave me an endless supply of random paperwork to do with no direction and expected me to overhaul and reinvent their school's curriculum... So, get ready for that as well... Some people love it, others hate it. If you're looking for a job that is more education-based and less mind-numbing, I wouldn't choose kindie... |
Crap eh, It's not like the lunches here in Canada where teachers get a staff room and some quiet time? |
Haha, I eventually told the head-teachers that it was in my contract to have a break, so they let me take a few minutes if I finished my food fast enough... I usually graded papers during that time though... Also, there were no breaks between classes... Five minutes? Nope! I even got chastised for not somehow transporting myself from one classroom to the next in zero seconds... I even got a lecture that being a couple of minutes late (umm, I had to end my first class and then get the books and go to the second floor of the building with the time span of... the time it took the bells to finish ringing? (10 seconds?))... Never again...
Also, as for the OP... you must have never taught little kids before... I don't know how anyone doesn't go absolutely insane teaching that schedule @.@ Did the job start with the tell-tale "ASAP!!! TEACHER WANTED!!!" line? |
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Troglodyte
Joined: 06 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:01 am Post subject: |
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| soomin wrote: |
Haha, I eventually told the head-teachers that it was in my contract to have a break, |
Forget about the contract. That break is in THE LAW. |
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wes1989
Joined: 07 Jun 2012
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| Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 9:12 am Post subject: |
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| Modernist wrote: |
You have to be kidding me. That is an INSANE schedule. You won't even be able to think by the end of the day. 5 minute 'breaks' are NOTHING. Especially with kinder-age kids. You'll want to kill yourself by the end of the second week.
Back to back teaching is brutal. More than 2 in a row and you are like a zombie by the end of the third. With the young kids and their energy levels, one wave after another...God, my mind hurts just thinking about it.
What's wrong with you even thinking of taking this? Have you ever taught before? Have you taught KIDS before? Super young ones, 5 or 6? With ZERO English? Or are you just super-broke and seduced by 2.9 million a month? Think you can do anything for a few months if you get that paycheck, do you? You won't think that after the end of the first week, I can assure you of that.
Listen to what we are telling you. You will SERIOUSLY regret taking a job like this. JustinC is right that it is essentially two jobs in one. From that perspective 2.9 million doesn't look so great, does it? |
Don't worry I am not going to take this job. I thought this was overkill but since I have never taught in Korea before I wasn't sure so I wanted to double check.
Thanks everyone for your advice!!! |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Seon-bee wrote: |
Are you kidding? Back in the day, I had 30 classes a week, each 45 minutes. That's 22.5 hours a week. No prep. Just come in and go. Once a month an hour or two to write evaluations. That's actually a part-time job if you ask me.
Burn out comes from prostituting yourself, if you happen to be a babysitter instead of instructor you originally signed on for. Think about a class of rude 6th graders swearing at you, kids who refuse to bring books and then just chat in Korean, play cellphone games, only want to play Hangman, etc. Then you watch the same class with their Korean teacher and it's a model class of civility and respect. That leads to burn out and long days. |
This all depends on what you have to do. I worked at a hagwon where I had about 34 classes, and I was burning out. Why? There were several different classes to prep for, and we had less prep time, and the students were also advanced, so that means you need even more prep time, but because the boss gave me more, instead of less classes, it was kind of unbearable. The other foreign teacher who was the writing teacher had the same load and similar advanced students. If you're teaching super advanced students, 28 classes are more reasonable. That's what the previous teacher had when he taught similar students. That was manageable. If you're just teaching kids the basics, and you don't need much prep, and you're simply using a book and don't have much homework, then it's not a problem.
I disagree that 40 hours is no big deal. It depends on the situation. It's not considered the norm for most foreigners.
Yes, we teach something like that in North America, but we get $50,000 for that and teach the same classes mostly. |
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bbunce
Joined: 28 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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| You won't last 2 weeks. |
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WadRUG'naDoo
Joined: 15 Jun 2010
Location: Shanghai
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| Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| Seon-bee wrote: |
Are you kidding? Back in the day, I had 30 classes a week, each 45 minutes. That's 22.5 hours a week. No prep. Just come in and go. Once a month an hour or two to write evaluations. That's actually a part-time job if you ask me.
Burn out comes from prostituting yourself, if you happen to be a babysitter instead of instructor you originally signed on for. Think about a class of rude 6th graders swearing at you, kids who refuse to bring books and then just chat in Korean, play cellphone games, only want to play Hangman, etc. Then you watch the same class with their Korean teacher and it's a model class of civility and respect. That leads to burn out and long days. |
This all depends on what you have to do. I worked at a hagwon where I had about 34 classes, and I was burning out. Why? There were several different classes to prep for, and we had less prep time, and the students were also advanced, so that means you need even more prep time, but because the boss gave me more, instead of less classes, it was kind of unbearable. The other foreign teacher who was the writing teacher had the same load and similar advanced students. If you're teaching super advanced students, 28 classes are more reasonable. That's what the previous teacher had when he taught similar students. That was manageable. If you're just teaching kids the basics, and you don't need much prep, and you're simply using a book and don't have much homework, then it's not a problem.
I disagree that 40 hours is no big deal. It depends on the situation. It's not considered the norm for most foreigners.
Yes, we teach something like that in North America, but we get $50,000 for that and teach the same classes mostly. |
34 classes? I wouldn't be doing any prep:
"Hello everyone. What page are we on?" |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 4:56 am Post subject: |
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34 classes? I wouldn't be doing any prep:
"Hello everyone. What page are we on?" |
Yes the problem is, in general, the less prep you do the more likely the lessons will be boring and the more likely the kids will play up, making the classes seem even longer. It's a vicious circle. |
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Troglodyte
Joined: 06 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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| edwardcatflap wrote: |
| Quote: |
34 classes? I wouldn't be doing any prep:
"Hello everyone. What page are we on?" |
Yes the problem is, in general, the less prep you do the more likely the lessons will be boring and the more likely the kids will play up, making the classes seem even longer. It's a vicious circle. |
Plus, the kids will start complaining and their mom's will stop enrolling them. The owner will get upset and threaten to fire you. ---> more stress. |
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