Korean Job Discussion Forums

[betty74]

Hi everyone-
I have a contract I'm about to sign. The hours are good, 6 a day, but I will be required to teach from start to finish, 38 classes a week. I think two are a half hour and the rest are 45 minutes. Does that seem like a lot, even with the short hours and no prep work? Any input would be appreciated. Thanks in adavance.

Betty74

[yingwenlaoshi]

I'm as confused as you. I don't have ESP. Perhaps you should get all the details from the employer and then pose the question again.

[betty74]

I did. I will have to teach 8 classes on M, T, TH, F and 6 on W. BAsically, I will go in and teach straight with no breaks while I am there. It's for six hours a day, which is good, but 8 classes in a row, that sounds like a lot.

[yingwenlaoshi]

If 2 are a half hour and 6 are for 45 minutes then it sounds like you might not have any breaks. Check that out. You can't teach 6 hours straight with no breaks. Now if you were teaching six 50-minute classes, it would be great. Or four 50-minutes and two 25-minutes. An hour is no more than 50 minutes of actual teaching.

With that kind of schedule you're pretty much teaching 8 hours because you have six 45-minutes classes. That's 6 teaching hours. Plus one more for your two half hours. Since you don't get any breaks, that's another hour. Your boss is making more money by cramming the classes into a six-hour frame.

What's the salary?

[yingwenlaoshi]

Looks to me like you have 30 one-hour classes and 8 half-hour OT classes. Something like that.

Ok, I just saw the salary in your thread title. 2.2 is low. Really low. Have you taught before? In Korea? If you're a newbie, you should ask for 2.3. Add 100,000 month for each year of experience you have in Korea. You're teaching at least 4 hours/wk OT. That's 80,000. About 240,000/month. You're not getting any breaks. Doesn't matter how long the shift is.

[betty74]

The salary is 2.2 for 27 hours. I thought from the teacher I talked to that there were five or ten minutes between classes, but there are definitely eight classes in a row.

[yingwenlaoshi]

[tzechuk]

[lulu144]

to me that sounds like a rediculously exhausting day and I would not take it for that money...

[yingwenlaoshi]

[betty74]

It does sound to me like it will be exhausting. I read the other thread by yingwenlaoshi, and I will have 8 classes a day, meeting twice a week, and six classes on Wednesday, so 22 classes. I don't just want to slide through them, I want to teach effectively, but would proper lesson planning with that many classes be realistic?

[babtangee]

[betty74]

Thanks babtangee, I'm really torn on this. Everyone at the school seems really nice, but on top of the eight classes a day, I will have to do monthly reports for 250 students, which another teacher said should be a dealbreaker, and they said something about developing their curriculum. I am also planning on doing work for my masters and want to have time for that and get good grades. The good thing is the classes are all in a row, a little over six hours. Is a short shift worth it vs. having less classes but longer shifts with unpaid breaks? And there is no overtime unless I teach over 38 classes.

[babtangee]

Hard to say. 250 is a hell of a lot of report cards, though. Monthly? Seriously, how much can a language student demonstrably improve in ONE month? If it was three months I could understand, every month suggests the director will have you do anything and everything that might appease the students.

And now they want what? Curriculum development? You were saying there was no prep. before, and now they say there is curriculum development...

Look, I don't want to tell an E2 what to do, as there may be many okay jobs out there that I would never accept. 2.2 is a decent first time salary, but it sounds like a real hard six hours of work, which I strongly suspect will stretch out to be much more.

If you can afford to, I'd say keep looking.

[Satin]

babtangee wrote: