Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Mike410]

Hello,

What is the normal amount of time a private school teacher must spend on lesson planning, preparation etc on top of the normal teaching hours?

"The Teacher will have at least 22.5 80-minute classes per teaching week. The Teacher is expected to devote no less than 2.5 hours a day at the Institute for lesson planning, student evaluations, teachers� meeting, consultation with parents, and supervision of play."

Is 2.5 hours a day on top of 30 hours a week normal for a salary of 2.1-2.2?

Thanks

[bbunce]

It sounds like to much. What are the working hours where you need to be at the school?

[northway]

Things that scare me:

1) A minimum of 30 hours per week of teaching is kind of a lot.

2) "Supervision of play" sounds a hell of a lot like "teaching hours that don't count towards overtime". I work at a kindy and I'll pop into the afternoon daycare and play with the kids for fifteen minutes or so most afternoons, but the whole point is that I'm not in charge of them at that point and can just hang out and eat their snacks. Saying you're supervising their play makes it sound like they're going to give you a gym class or something and then say you're not technically teaching and therefore it doesn't count towards your teaching hours.

[ttompatz]

[Mike410]

[Mike410]

[northway]

Out of curiosity, does the contract say anything about serving lunch?

[thegadfly]

If you are actually prepping for your classes, and not just following canned lesson plans, the rule of thumb I was always told was 20 minutes of prep for one hour of class.

If you teach the same section to different groups of students, it still only counts as "one prep,", but if you teach the same students twice, it is "two preps," since you have to prepare for different consecutive classes.

When I taught high school in the US, I taught 3 classes of 9th grade English a day, 2 classes of 10th grade English, and 1 class of 11th grade English -- therefore, 3 preps. That worked out to about 5 hours a week of preparation (which does NOT include checking papers). Honestly, at the time, I couldn't keep my prep time down that low, and ran about 10-15 hours a week. Nowadays, the 20 minute figure seems to fit.

30 hours of teaching, if they are all different preps, and you are actually trying to prepare for your classes, rather than just reading from the book, playing games, or doing "free talking" would probably take well over 10 hours a week.

[Gorf]

I honestly prep for about 15 minutes every day for 6 classes. Yet I spend about 2 hours every day sitting in the office pretending to go over notes or grading. What a waste of time.

[Mike410]

[ttompatz]

Any contract you get for work in Korea will be your 30 hours of classes PLUS prep time. While prep time is not considered as "teaching hours" it is part of the job (some of those other things that people never read) and is not paid "extra".

Your contract is not for 30 hours per week but 30 TEACHING hours with all that is entailed in teaching.

Some, like Gorf, don't prep. They are just here for the cash and holiday. They may be lots of things but a decent teacher isn't one of them.

Typically, your prep should be about 1/3 of your time so if you teach 30 you will prep for at least 10 more (40 hour week). As you gain experience and add to your box of tools and material that you can recycle / reuse that time may go down a bit but prep is still a necessary part of the job.

This will be true anywhere and not just in Korea.

.

[ytide]

[ytide]

[thegadfly]

[ttompatz]