Can you give me some info on office hours in ESL schools in China?

Question

Why do they want them?
Is it acceptable to do 24 office hours plus 16 teaching hours ''oral english'' for 5000 RMB a month.
For a young white native speaker with a year experience.

Answer 1

It sounds like someone wants you to fulfill some "40-hour" work week.



My university "requires" office hours, but doesn't put any stipulation on them. I teach 14 hours a week and I have office hours (or "free talk" as I call them so the students understand what happens there) 2 - 4 hours a week. I find out the students' availability and try to schedule free talk during that time.



Sitting in your office for 24 hours? No, not common! Is the administration wanting you to edit papers, etc., during that time? Different skills for that job! You'll need to point-blank ask what are their expectations for office hours. If it is so students get private tutoring, then you should point out that that takes extra preparation, etc. Additionally, if they want you to do a quality job on the 16 hours of other classes, then you need time to prepare for those as well.



It takes me between 4 and 8 hours to prepare for each "different" 2-hour class. I know there are many foreign teachers who just "get up and talk," but I'm not one of them. I currently have two different class preps a week, so if I had to sit in an office for 24 hours of the week, I'd be screwed, unless I was able to use that time to prepare.



Additional time is needed for any evaluations you may give and for preparing feedback for the students. (They can't improve if they don't know what areas need improvement.)



5000 yuan seems reasonable, depending upon your area. I know it's more than the teachers get paid out here in the Northwest.

Answer 2

They want them so that they can get free hours from you. No, that is totally unacceptable. Sixteen teaching hours is a full load, especially if you are responsible for lesson planning, as most teachers are. When teaching in America, my district once had a school board (consisting of parents, not teachers), try to do the same thing. It would have been a waste of time and we were always available to see students or parents by appointment anyway. When we agreed - on the basis that we would sit in our rooms on the oft chance that a parent might arrive - if the board paid us, they quickly relented.



If you were to teach at a university you likely would not have a requirement of office hours. Some private schools in China can be extremely greedy. Incidentally, your pay seems very low for a private school, even if teaching 16 hours and no office hours. Assuming you have a degree, you could probably do better than that.

Answer 3

I am a foreigner. I have been living in Taiwan for one and a half year and not planning to leave. I have been following Cross-Straits issues since 2000 more or less and keep getting into it. I dislike China for the simple fact that it keeps claiming as its own something that, in actual fact it's not. Useless going into the usual boring details relating to UN resolutions etc. But the point is that many foreigners and Taiwanese don't like China simply because China has been blocking Taiwan independence for ages, hindering its membership at the UN (nothing too important since also the Vatican is not a member) and blackmailing any country that had diplomatic relationships with Taiwan. It's obvious no one can see China in a nice way. Same opinion about China applies in Europe, where mainland chinese are renowned for arrogance, trickiness and a few other adjectives (That includes their emigrates residing in Europe). To answer to your question i am of those that doesn't like the strategy China is applying to Taiwan. I don't have any Stocholm syndrome since no one forces me to stay here and i am not going back anywhere since i am setting up a company here. I'll let you guess why i didn't want to set it up on mainland. I don't even have unexplainable emotions nor i am swept away by a wave of feelings with butterflies in my stomach, nor i am taken by dreamy idealisms. The point is extremely simple. What China is doing to Taiwan is plainly wrong. Perhaps that explains why so many people dislike China EVEN MORE than they did before (Since in plain honesty i found many who reckon China as a superpower, but very few loving it)

Answer 4

5000 rmb for 40 hours?!! Thats a grade A rip off !

Look elsewhere for far superior jobs, with less hours and more money.