Korean Job Discussion Forums

[dulcineadeltoboso]

I've been offered a job as the head foreign teacher at our hagwon because I studied education and I have several years' experience as an ESL teacher in the US. The director said he'll give me a month to prove myself, then he'll offer me a job as the head foreign teacher. We're a new school with a few branches scattered around the city and more to open within the next few months, and a lot of our administrators have minimal hagwon experience, so no one (least of all myself) really knows what a head teacher does, how many hours a week or month he does it, and how much he gets paid. Some of the duties the director mentioned would be to:

1. Meet with the owner who will give me detailed instructions about lesson plans for each of the 25 textbooks, during which I'll take notes and write teacher's manuals based on these notes. All the books were produced by the hagwon and have no teacher's manuals and minimal instructions for the teachers, but the owner wants all the teachers to follow his specific instructions (which he'll relay to me).

2. Train new foreign teachers (I think they plan on hiring maybe 4 to 10 more as new branches open)

3. Travel to the various branches for some reason (don't know why),

4. Relay messages from the administration to the other foreign teachers.

I'm supposed to use the month of November to figure it all out and "prove myself," and then the title (and some type of pay raise) will be mine in December.

Is this typical for a head teacher? What has your experience as a head teacher been? The search feature on Dave's doesn't seem to do very well with phrases, so if anyone could point me to other threads, that would be helpful, too.

Thanks!

[anae]

Your job description sounds pretty typical. We also supported current teachers and were involved in hiring new ones.

My pay raise was instant, but I had already been with the school one year.

I did not enjoy this position very much. My skin just isn't thick enough. As a head teacher, you walk a very fine line between the director and the staff. The bearer of bad news is often a target and the other teachers can't see how you went to bat for them. Teachers have also been known to make unreasonable demands and get their undies in a knot when they are not met. I found it to be isolating, but that is not true of everyone who was in our office.

[Zed]

Walking a fine line between the foreign teachers and management. Exactly.

I had been working at my hagwon a year when I became head teacher. All the teachers were my friends so, between the idiocy of the dictates from above and the lack of direction the teachers were willing to take from me (because they didn't believe that I could/would do anything about it), it was not a pleasant position. I finished the 6 months of my contract and left that job. It would have been a very isolating and lonely position to maintain for a long time. (But that depends on your director really) One of the teachers was so unconcerned with following any direction that I had to can him, a former roommate too. The school told me to. This wasn't my call but a deserved one. That was a very awkward moment indeed.

[crazylemongirl]

I'm not the 'head foreign teacher' but at my school our one basically is a communication point between the rest of us and the boss.

We generally get along ok, so communication between the foreign teachers isn't the issue. Probably between the boss and everyone eles.

Ironically he is paid the least of the current waygookin teachers.

[Confused Canadian]

I've worked as both an AD (Academic Director) and a Foreign Head Teacher. It was a nice change from straight teaching, but the other posters are right. Middle management sucks. You often know what needs to be changed to remedy a situation, but lack the power to implement those changes. Having said that though, I did enjoy the experience. I learned a lot, and like I said, after years of teaching, still using what I had learned in a different way was a nice change of pace.

I'm back to just straight teaching now, but at a uni. I'm glad I took those jobs in the past. I didn't have much trouble with the foreign staff; we all got along pretty well. Most of the time, they knew I did everything I could to stop the BS from the top reigning supreme. However, when I had to give them bad news, they new that it wasn't my decision, and that I was just the messenger. Be careful though...it's tough to be a friend and a boss. I made decisions that my teachers weren't always thrilled about, but in the end, they usually respected me. For instance, I insisted on all the teachers prepping their classes a week in advance, and handing in their brief lesson plans to me on Fridays. This was my way of ensuring that things went well if someone was sick or absent for some other reason. In the beginning, they weren't happy, but when they had to sub a class, and they could just pick up someone's lesson plan and teach, they understood.

Good luck if you take the job. It could be difficult, but you could also enjoy it.

Confused Canadian

[dulcineadeltoboso]

Thanks for all the replies. I don't think they want me to enforce rules or deal with the other teachers' behavioral problems (at least I hope not), so I probably won't have the isolation problem or the lack of authority problem.
I am curious to know how much time head teachers spend (on average) doing their head teacher duties. I think the manuals will take up the bulk of my time, but of course I won't know until I start. I told the director that I don't want to do any more than 40 hours/month extra work, since I'll have the same teaching load as the other teachers. The director suggested that I teach fewer classes as one of the benefits of the raise, and let the other foreign teachers take up the slack. Since none of the other teachers has to teach the full schedule that they�re contractually obligated to teach, the director could give some of my classes to them and not have to pay them any extra. I don�t want to agree to this, for obvious reasons. I don�t want any job that requires me to screw the other teachers.
I was thinking that maybe I could have the same schedule as the other teachers, but I could ask for the overtime rate stated in my contract (15,000 won/hour) for the extra hours worked. That would be a pay raise of 600,000 won/month, which would give me 2.6/month total.
The problem is, I don't think they'll give me that much, since all teachers must be at the school from 2 to 9 every day, whether they have classes or not. This means that we all have a lot of extra time sitting around the office preparing for classes or just hanging out. The director wants me to use my spare non-class hours during the normal workday to do my head teacher duties. This would mean that although my workload and responsibilities would increase, my on-site hours would NOT increase, so I don't know if I could ask for the overtime pay rate.
So do you think a raise of 600,00 won/month for an extra 40 hours/month of work (but the same on-site hours) would be excessive?
I hope this wasn�t too confusing.