Here are the worst bits of my experience. Part I can be found here.
School # 2 was a big international chain of schools that accepted almost anyone as teachers. I remember some of my fellow students at University were working there part-time starting from the 2nd year. Actually, I have quite a few friends who have worked there at one time or the other. In the interview I was given a simple language test and was admitted right away. My first class was a business course in-company, the second - one-on-one classes with a manager also in-company.
Schedule. The classes usually took 2 hours in the evening + commuting. The individual student was ready to have classes as much as possible and as long as possible. Unfortunately, the factory, where he worked, was situated outside the city, so normally I would come three times a week for about 4 academic hours.
Pay. As the lessons took place on client's territory I got a bit more than usual but still not high enough. There was a huge problem with paying on time; as the year progressed the waiting period got longer and longer. The summer was the toughest (as I learned later it is like this in many schools) with no sign of improvement. They did have a good policy on classes missed by students. If it exceeded certain number the teacher was reimbursed for the rest of missed classes which gave some sense of security.
Possibilities for Professional Development. The school organised couple of seminars. If I'm not mistaken there were two of them during the year that I worked there. They were devoted to NLP practices and focused on building rapport with the student. It would not be my first choice (if I had one), but it turned out to be unusual and quite useful in the future.
Class Equipment is always a bit of a problem with in-company classes. As a rule they have a flip-chart and a marker. But one day a teacher may come and find no traces of it. Usually students are glad to bring their laptops and help in other ways, but the fact that I could not control the equipment stressed me out a bit.
Course Requirements. The school sold hour packages, so, for example, a company would pay for 100 academic hours and there were no requirement as to how spend these hours. That allowed for a certain freedom. Also, there was some paperwork to fill in every month recording both the attendance and the progress students have made.
Employment Status. I was not officially employed. Although it was an option (my friend was working there officially), I again could not get to the bottom of the matter of how to do it.
Atmosphere. The school was so big and there were so many people working that every time I visited I felt like a little insignificant bug expected to be paid for no reason. I understand, it is a strange concern to have :) It is inevitable in big international schools and it may be partly due to my quiet personality that I didn't feel like I was a part of a team. However, later I learned that it all depends on the school and it is possible to build and support your team of teachers.
School #3 was quite a popular school in the centre of the city. The location was super-convenient for me, it was in walking distance from my house, that's why I didn't think long before agreeing to work there. The school attracted their clients with relatively low prices and promises to reach a certain level over a short period of time. I taught a variety of groups: General English and IELTS courses, groups and individuals.
Schedule. Classes lasted 4 academic hours twice a week. There was a short break after 1,5, but even this did not help students stay focused for three hours straight. The late hours of classes (7-10pm) didn't help it either. It taught me a lot about maintaining class concentration and engagement. I learned the hard way about the value of varied activities and interaction patterns. However, I find it hardly reasonable to organise such long classes and still refuse to teach one group or a student for longer than 2 hours straight. It is simply not effective for the student.
Pay. Hour rate was a joke, the only thing that made it bearable was the 4 hour aspect of it. There were also considerable delays, especially during summer. The thing that annoyed me the most though was that the teachers were never informed in advance about the delay. So most of the time I felt miserable just not knowing if I was ever going to get paid and having no one to complain about that in school. The chain of command, so to say, was very undefined. I was given money by a secretary who received them from an accountant and she obviously had no control over finances.
Possibilities for Professional Development. There was one good thing about the school and that was weekly professional seminars and a brilliant teacher trainer working there. It was an excellent chance to meet other teachers, to talk and, of course, discuss elt issues. Unfortunately, it was cancelled after some time due to the poor attendance but the teacher trainer was ever so helpful.
Groups. The number of people usually stayed at around 8 sometimes reaching 10. The biggest problem was the dramatic difference in the levels of English which was especially unfortunate in IELTS classes. Apart from having students passing General Module (course was strictly Academic) I also had students who desired different scores with different knowledge of English. When I deaw the attention of the DOS to this problem, he just nodded and explained there was only one group of IELTS and they had to take everyone... It was by far the best exercise I had in mixed-ability classes but I would not like to repeat the experiment.
Class Equipment was adequate. The class had a whiteboard (sometimes extremely small size) and a CD player, the laptop was available at the office and teachers could borrow it for the lesson. However, if the markers were missing or a player didn't work it was extremely hard to find a replacement. Here I have to mention a strange employee of the school - a middle-aged man who occupied a table in the hall and was responsible for opening/closing the rooms, equipment and such ( so I thought). He was also supervising the attendance of the teachers and the lenght of the breaks (!). So when I turned to him when the CD player didn't work for the first time, he shrugged his shoulders and asked me if I had broken it (!) in a joking manner. Then he advised me to go around classes and find a working player myself and try not to break it again!
Course Requirements. The book was crammed in two courses 120 academic hours each which made it 15 lessons ( 1 lesson has to be devoted to the final test). They were very strict about following the schedule and completing the course in certain dates. I was very afraid of getting ill and not showing up to work. Of course, this is what happened in about a month of working this way. You can imagine how terrified I was to call them to inform them about my illness!
Employment Status. In the beginning, I signed a "temporary working contract" which did not make anything better or worse for me, so I don't even know if it had any legal power.
Atmosphere was not particularly friendly. I got to meet couple of nice teachers, but the staff (including the strange middle-aged man) was almost always indifferent which I read as them being fed up with the school as well. I was overjoyed when I finally quit working there. I got a call from them a while later inviting me back to work for them and promising pay rise. I guess that made me hesitate for a moment but when I remembered how miserable I felt there the decision was not difficult.
To be continued...
School # 2 was a big international chain of schools that accepted almost anyone as teachers. I remember some of my fellow students at University were working there part-time starting from the 2nd year. Actually, I have quite a few friends who have worked there at one time or the other. In the interview I was given a simple language test and was admitted right away. My first class was a business course in-company, the second - one-on-one classes with a manager also in-company.
Schedule. The classes usually took 2 hours in the evening + commuting. The individual student was ready to have classes as much as possible and as long as possible. Unfortunately, the factory, where he worked, was situated outside the city, so normally I would come three times a week for about 4 academic hours.
Pay. As the lessons took place on client's territory I got a bit more than usual but still not high enough. There was a huge problem with paying on time; as the year progressed the waiting period got longer and longer. The summer was the toughest (as I learned later it is like this in many schools) with no sign of improvement. They did have a good policy on classes missed by students. If it exceeded certain number the teacher was reimbursed for the rest of missed classes which gave some sense of security.
Possibilities for Professional Development. The school organised couple of seminars. If I'm not mistaken there were two of them during the year that I worked there. They were devoted to NLP practices and focused on building rapport with the student. It would not be my first choice (if I had one), but it turned out to be unusual and quite useful in the future.
Class Equipment is always a bit of a problem with in-company classes. As a rule they have a flip-chart and a marker. But one day a teacher may come and find no traces of it. Usually students are glad to bring their laptops and help in other ways, but the fact that I could not control the equipment stressed me out a bit.
Course Requirements. The school sold hour packages, so, for example, a company would pay for 100 academic hours and there were no requirement as to how spend these hours. That allowed for a certain freedom. Also, there was some paperwork to fill in every month recording both the attendance and the progress students have made.
Employment Status. I was not officially employed. Although it was an option (my friend was working there officially), I again could not get to the bottom of the matter of how to do it.
Atmosphere. The school was so big and there were so many people working that every time I visited I felt like a little insignificant bug expected to be paid for no reason. I understand, it is a strange concern to have :) It is inevitable in big international schools and it may be partly due to my quiet personality that I didn't feel like I was a part of a team. However, later I learned that it all depends on the school and it is possible to build and support your team of teachers.
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| ECLA |
Schedule. Classes lasted 4 academic hours twice a week. There was a short break after 1,5, but even this did not help students stay focused for three hours straight. The late hours of classes (7-10pm) didn't help it either. It taught me a lot about maintaining class concentration and engagement. I learned the hard way about the value of varied activities and interaction patterns. However, I find it hardly reasonable to organise such long classes and still refuse to teach one group or a student for longer than 2 hours straight. It is simply not effective for the student.
Pay. Hour rate was a joke, the only thing that made it bearable was the 4 hour aspect of it. There were also considerable delays, especially during summer. The thing that annoyed me the most though was that the teachers were never informed in advance about the delay. So most of the time I felt miserable just not knowing if I was ever going to get paid and having no one to complain about that in school. The chain of command, so to say, was very undefined. I was given money by a secretary who received them from an accountant and she obviously had no control over finances.
Possibilities for Professional Development. There was one good thing about the school and that was weekly professional seminars and a brilliant teacher trainer working there. It was an excellent chance to meet other teachers, to talk and, of course, discuss elt issues. Unfortunately, it was cancelled after some time due to the poor attendance but the teacher trainer was ever so helpful.
Groups. The number of people usually stayed at around 8 sometimes reaching 10. The biggest problem was the dramatic difference in the levels of English which was especially unfortunate in IELTS classes. Apart from having students passing General Module (course was strictly Academic) I also had students who desired different scores with different knowledge of English. When I deaw the attention of the DOS to this problem, he just nodded and explained there was only one group of IELTS and they had to take everyone... It was by far the best exercise I had in mixed-ability classes but I would not like to repeat the experiment.
Class Equipment was adequate. The class had a whiteboard (sometimes extremely small size) and a CD player, the laptop was available at the office and teachers could borrow it for the lesson. However, if the markers were missing or a player didn't work it was extremely hard to find a replacement. Here I have to mention a strange employee of the school - a middle-aged man who occupied a table in the hall and was responsible for opening/closing the rooms, equipment and such ( so I thought). He was also supervising the attendance of the teachers and the lenght of the breaks (!). So when I turned to him when the CD player didn't work for the first time, he shrugged his shoulders and asked me if I had broken it (!) in a joking manner. Then he advised me to go around classes and find a working player myself and try not to break it again!
Course Requirements. The book was crammed in two courses 120 academic hours each which made it 15 lessons ( 1 lesson has to be devoted to the final test). They were very strict about following the schedule and completing the course in certain dates. I was very afraid of getting ill and not showing up to work. Of course, this is what happened in about a month of working this way. You can imagine how terrified I was to call them to inform them about my illness!
Employment Status. In the beginning, I signed a "temporary working contract" which did not make anything better or worse for me, so I don't even know if it had any legal power.
Atmosphere was not particularly friendly. I got to meet couple of nice teachers, but the staff (including the strange middle-aged man) was almost always indifferent which I read as them being fed up with the school as well. I was overjoyed when I finally quit working there. I got a call from them a while later inviting me back to work for them and promising pay rise. I guess that made me hesitate for a moment but when I remembered how miserable I felt there the decision was not difficult.
To be continued...
