Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cellphone]

Primary focus on hogwon workers but comparisons to other esl work environments encouraged too.

First, take the poll somewhat straight forward or serious. Not really a vote of what one's dream job would be, but has more to do with whether 120 hours a month (30/week & 6+ a day) is too much, too little, just right, regarding to one's long term stress and cope level. (Whether it is in the past or now). Those who have been here just under a year or more might be able to assess it more than someone under three months since expats do go through some different phases.

Also perhaps explain a little more detail. For example, you voted that you have no problem with 120 hrs a month / 30 a week, is it because you have a great school or fun students? Or is it because you've been in Korea a long time, or perhaps not long at all? Alternatively you voted that it's too much. Is the situation at your school a big cause for that? What do you think would be a good work hours level to balance for your Korea experience?

For those who have much less work hours, do you sometimes actually think it would be nice to pick up secondary work just to keep yourself more productive? Or are you very glad to have less hours?

Anyways, this is in regards to work hours, not really concerning payrates unless you feel that your lower or higher than usual pay affects how you feel with your work hours load. More to do with how you feel at end of each day as well as weekend on ultimately on a continual basis.

[Wisco Kid]

6 50-min. classes a day are ok, but add a seventh and it seems like a lot more to deal with.

[Juggertha]

too much for a hogwon.. but not too bad if your making better coin somewhere else

[crazylemongirl]

It really depends what an 'hour' is and who you are teaching. My current gig I teach less than 90 hours a month (and my school calls an hour 45 teaching minutes) but then again i'm not teaching at a hogwon.

Also vacation time needs to get factored in.

[sadsac]

Coming from an industry, where due to the nature of the beast, 80 hour weeks were common, 120 hours a month isn't too bad. The kids I work with are pretty good, management sucks at times.

[eamo]

120 hours a month...or 6 hours a day...is rarely actually done at hagwons. You have to factor in a public holiday and/or a personal holiday plus any free classes you might have.

Most hagwons (including the 3 I've worked at) actually pay fully for 90-100 hours. I did a full session once at 80 hours per month.

If, indeed, you are actually putting in 120 hours (real teaching 60min hours) then thats way too much. Burn out in 6 months.

[manlyboy]

That kind of schedule is easy if you don't give a crap about prep. If it were 2 or 3 lessons taught several times over to different classes, I would tolerate it. But thoroughly preping 6 different lessons every day, as I had to do at my last hagwon, is for the birds!

[the_beaver]

[Paji eh Wong]

[bosintang]

This is one of the posts that make me wonder if the other posters here are on the same planet as me let alone the same country.

30 teaching hrs/week at a hagwon -- based on 40/50minute classes -- is not only fine, but standard if you look at the job board. What can really eat up your time and make you frustrated is when you have a ridiculous amount of split shifts in your schedule and a ridiculous amount of *nonsense* work, like telephone teaching, etc. However assuming you don't have too much of this, I think with proper prep and admin time, it would be stretching it to put more than a 35-40hr week in.

[cellphone]

Hmmm well thanks to all who have voted so far. And keep voting & commenting for everyone else.

Well it's about neck and neck with those who think the current standard workload is simply too much and those who think it's ok.

Actually when I made the first post, what I was really focusing on is your basic child teaching hogwon (or public school) job (but said others more than welcome) and what I was really getting at was not so much how long each individual class was but really as a whole, being in the school the minimum 6 (+) hours a day and 30 a week. In otherwords was being obligated to that requirement going past a person's stress tolerance, or not. Of course some people wrote some details like how long prep time is or it depending on the length of each class, which details are always nice.

Actually to me it's just the idea of having to be in a school for long hours in addition to not enjoying the place, not necessarily related to how long each individual class is, that impacts me or the average person's mind (I would think), but perhaps a few people didn't see it that way. An example would be if I had back to back classes in a 6 (+) hour period but they went somewhat smoothly and there was generally both study as well as fun and games in each class, as opposed to a 5 hr period that I basically didn't like the people, classes were more spaced out and the boss(es) were not so comfortable to be around... I think I'd take the longer & more filled work shift. Anyone else? I guess to me what really matters much at all is whether I actually feel comfortable being in that particular place or not.

Eamo, so then once a person gets a hogwon job fulltime they really shouldn't be "at the school or on the job" for more than about 100 a month, or say what, 25 hours a week? At those schools how many minutes were most classes and how long breaktime in between each class?

Beaver, uni yes? Wow, a 13 hr in class work and about 17 hours prep time for about 30 a week? Is that about regular for univ or do you put in more by choice?

[the_beaver]

[lookingtoteach]

At the hogwon I worked at, I was in the school from 9:45am-5:30, 6:10 or 7:30pm depending on the day, minus an hour (ish) for lunch (the Korean teachers supervised those) and 40-80 minutes between kindy and elementary depending on the day. I taught four kindy classes a day (2 classes twice each) and 3-5 elementary/middle school classes a day on top of that. We were expected to spend our lunches and all breaks preparing for the classes and were paid for teaching time only (which is pretty standard for hogwons if I read the posts properly). A lot of the time I would take either marking or prep home with me to do. But because our teaching time was under 120 hours/month (which was what our contract said) much of the overtime classes we taught weren't paid overtime (am I making sense). What I learned from that, besides that with that schedule it takes about four months to burn out, is that next time I have to look at the contract and see what an hour means and whether or not I'm paid for prep time. Being at the school for 7-9 hours/day made me enjoy the short weekends even more though.