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Daechidong Waygookin
Joined: 22 Nov 2004
Location: No Longer on Dave's. Ive quit.
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 Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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| I also design all from scratch. What do you do anyway crazylemongirl? How do you teach? Is it by theme (weather, seasons,msports, hobbies, etc) or do you do it by teaching grammatical concepts (adjectives, comparisons, non countables, etc?)? I try for a mix of both. How about you? |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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| thorin wrote: |
| What if teaching and prep time was 0 hours and one had to be on site for 9 hours? Would you get bored? I am. |
That amounts to my 4 year career at a dot.com. 9 hours of doing nothing, for 4 years. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| crazylemongirl wrote: |
| Also I think that public school classes can be demanding. I have 45 boys so I have to be 'on' all the time. |
I teach four 45-minute classes a day max, which amounts to 3 working hours (5 minute breaks between class). At the end of those three hours I'm more tired than most 9-5 jobs I've had. Why? Because as you say you have to be "on". In a 9-5 job you can take many mental breaks. In a class room your mind has to be working full tilt every second. It's tiring. Now I know why my mother was a huge biatch when she was a teacher. |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 10:09 am Post subject: |
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| Sounds like a good bit of just hanging around and pretending to be working. The koreans do a lot of this and get called "hard workers" for it. So do the Taiwanese and a bunch of others I'm sure. Use the internet, read a book or the paper. It'll keep you out of trouble. Three hours of hanging out ain't so bad. I bet you could probably go off and eat or order in or something as well. |
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adventureman
Joined: 18 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 10:18 pm Post subject: Bored!!!!!! |
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You want to talk about tough luck, with the way my schedule worked out at my current job I am stuck EVERY wednsday with NOTHING to do. Yes I mean nothing. Not a single class to teach. So here I am stuck at work all day with nobody to talk to and nothing to do. Problem is they still make me teach my ass off the other four days (one day I have five back-to-back classes with only a five minute break in between) and someone STILL thought it would still be a good idea for me to come in and sit around every from 9-5!!!
I dont have an office or even my own computer or video player or anything so all I can do all day is sit in the computer lab and waste my time doing dumb shit.
Ive tried everything from browsing the web for hours to reading to studying Korean but ive been having to do this for three months and its starting to drive me NUTS!
Yes before I anyone says it yes I am greatful that I m not stuck doing backbreaking laborfor .50 cents an hour like some mexican laborer but I would still rather be busy doing SOMETHING I ENJOY that is MEANINGFUL or PRODUCTIVE at my work than having sitting around on my bum doing *beep* all for 8 hours a day! |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 5:07 am Post subject: Re: Bored!!!!!! |
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| adventureman wrote: |
Yes before I anyone says it yes I am greatful that I m not stuck doing backbreaking laborfor .50 cents an hour like some mexican laborer but I would still rather be busy doing SOMETHING I ENJOY that is MEANINGFUL or PRODUCTIVE at my work than having sitting around on my bum doing *beep* all for 8 hours a day! |
One day a week I have two hours between classes. I teach 3-4 45 minute classes a day. So basically 3 hours max teaching time. I can leave when my classes are over and I can come about 30 minutes before class begins. Anyway, I don't work very hard. What to do with those two hours ? I thought "value added time!" We're a night school and lots of kids come about an hour or two before classes to study. I got my boss to put together a small informal class for any kids interested in talking.
My boss nearly had a fit. A foreigner teacher asking to work MORE? She was more than happy to round up a few of the better kids to talk with me. They're really nice children. We play scrabble, pictionary, or explore the food stalls around our hagwon. Couple times a month I buy them some hoduk or pat bing soo or waffles and ice cream. We sit on a LG25 patio, drink banana milk, eat our hoduk, and talk about weekend plans. I'm back in an uncle role and it's precious time to me.
The parents like they're getting something for nothing and are happy to keep writing the tuition checks. The kids are happy to stay with our hagwon.
Anyway, hunt around, get creative, and see if there's not something you can do during your downtime to add some value. Get your kids to write and illustrate a book. Use the Wednesday to lay out, typeset, print, and bind the books and then give them to your kids. Parents love that kind of thing, things they can hang on a fridge.
This assumes your school is decent and you want to go a bit above and beyond. If they're aholes to you, then forget it. |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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OK. I'm ignorant on this topic of teaching ESL in Korea. I admit it. I have read about Korean culture a bit and have learned what shocking behavioral things to expect from a western perspective and not to take it personally.
But regarding the job hunt I have only thought of unis and hogwons.
Unis = 20 classroom hrs. a week or less and 6-8 weeks paid vacation. Sound great. But I may not get a uni job.
So ...
Hogwons = 30 classroom hrs. a week, teaching children all the time (I like children, but they do require a lot more energy than college kids), 10 days paid vacation.
But many of you on this thread sound like you don't have to work so hard as 30 classroom hrs. a week, but do have to be on the premises. Also, many of you indicate that you are public school teachers (are those jobs lised on Dave's).
So, what I'm trying to get at, is if I don't get a uni job, how do I find a job where I teach a more reasonable work load than 5 classroom hrs. a day?
Educate me, please.  |
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J.B. Clamence
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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| R. S. Refugee wrote: |
| Unis = 20 classroom hrs. a week or less and 6-8 weeks paid vacation. |
Actually it's more like 5-20 weeks paid vacation, depending on the uni.
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| So, what I'm trying to get at, is if I don't get a uni job, how do I find a job where I teach a more reasonable work load than 5 classroom hrs. a day? |
5 hours a day isn't bad. That's only 25 hours a week. A lot of hakwon teachers do about 30. And some universities make you teach up to 25 hours a week, but not many. |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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| R. S. Refugee wrote: |
So, what I'm trying to get at, is if I don't get a uni job, how do I find a job where I teach a more reasonable work load than 5 classroom hrs. a day? |
| J.B. Clamence wrote: |
5 hours a day isn't bad. That's only 25 hours a week. A lot of hakwon teachers do about 30. And some universities make you teach up to 25 hours a week, but not many. |
Please excuse my late night arithmetic. I was thinking 30 classroom hours a week, so I should have said, ". . . a more reasonable work load than 6 classroom hrs. a day." |
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Sage Monkey
Joined: 01 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 11:57 pm Post subject: Re: Who's the Fool? |
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| phaedrus wrote: |
| If a teacher's combined teaching and prep time adds up to about five hours, but the boss feels that the teacher should stay at the school for about eight hours, who is the bigger fool - the boss for expecting too much, or the teacher for doing it? |
It depends on if you are teaching at a public school or not.
To comply with such madness in a hogwan would be absurd while in a public school, it is commonplace and expected. |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 1:41 am Post subject: Re: Who's the Fool? |
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| phaedrus wrote: |
| If a teacher's combined teaching and prep time adds up to about five hours, but the boss feels that the teacher should stay at the school for about eight hours, who is the bigger fool - the boss for expecting too much, or the teacher for doing it? |
I don't think this would bother me too much if I had hi-speed Internet access. I have a time-consuming project that I want to work on anyway. I would just carry my external hard disk with me and plug it in so that none of my personal files would be hanging around on the school's computer. Might as well work on it during those unnecessary extra three hours at school as sitting in front of the computer at the apartment. However, if I had to just kill time for three unnecessary hours that would not be cool.  |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 2:37 am Post subject: |
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I don't have the link here, but I know the GEPIK website has been posted in this forum- they have job listings as well as lesson plans and such. That' for public schools in Gyeonggi.
Personally, unless you either have an education degree/ experience, or have spent some time in Korea already, I'd advice against these jobs. The combo of culture shock, classroom shock and isolation that can come with them is tough for anyone. |
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phaedrus
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
Location: I'm comin' to get ya.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 4:07 am Post subject: Re: Who's the Fool? |
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| Sage Monkey wrote: |
| phaedrus wrote: |
| If a teacher's combined teaching and prep time adds up to about five hours, but the boss feels that the teacher should stay at the school for about eight hours, who is the bigger fool - the boss for expecting too much, or the teacher for doing it? |
It depends on if you are teaching at a public school or not.
To comply with such madness in a hogwan would be absurd while in a public school, it is commonplace and expected. |
I suppose I'm saying public school bosses are foolish. In fact, that's exactly what I mean. |
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Thunndarr
Joined: 30 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 5:51 am Post subject: |
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Well...R.S. it really depends on the hagwon. My current teaching load is really light. I think I do about 23 50-minute classes a week. Once again, that is at a hagwon. They are quite decent there about not working the foreigners to the bone, and even going so far as to ask our input about curriculum ideas. (And seriously considering our ideas.)
Anyway, it is possible to get a decent hagwon job. My only complaint, like many others have said, is too much free time. But that beats getting worked to the bone anytime. Good luck finding a good job. |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 12:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Thunndarr wrote: |
Well...R.S. it really depends on the hagwon. My current teaching load is really light. I think I do about 23 50-minute classes a week. Once again, that is at a hagwon. They are quite decent there about not working the foreigners to the bone, and even going so far as to ask our input about curriculum ideas. (And seriously considering our ideas.)
Anyway, it is possible to get a decent hagwon job. My only complaint, like many others have said, is too much free time. But that beats getting worked to the bone anytime. Good luck finding a good job. |
I'm glad to here there are good hogwons to work for like yours. If I don't get a uni job, I'll certainly be looking for a hogwon like the one you describe, and if I can spend my free time at a hi-speed Internet hookup, I'll be happy.
So, here's the next big question. I'm middle-aged as they euphemistically like to call it. What challenges will I face in getting a job because of this? I have read enough about hierarchical Korean society to understand that it can pose some problems for Koreans to have an older person in a lower-on-the-pyramid job like ESL teacher.
| peppermint wrote: |
Personally, unless you either have an education degree/ experience, or have spent some time in Korea already, I'd advise against these jobs. The combo of culture shock, classroom shock and isolation that can come with them is tough for anyone. |
Thanks for the good advice, peppermint. |
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