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Q: Questions to ask employer to avoid a nightmare teachign job?
Man, You still in China?
:
But to stay on topic I'll highlight Spiderboenz response
-Teaching hours, are they 60 minutes or 45?
-are office hours mandatory?
-Ask to chat with current (foreign) teachers there.(big one in my opinion)
-Is there a set curriculum/set of books that they use? (even if they give stuff, I still tend to use my own stuff. Have PDF copies of Interchange series)
-what kind of housing do they offer? (almost all housing I have seen is subpar, even by Chinese standards) I usually ask to see it first hand, only one school actually offered decent housing.
Teaching hours, are they 60 minutes or 45?
are office hours mandatory?
Ask to chat with current (foreign) teachers there.
What date will you be paid? Is there a completion bonus? Air fair repayment?
Is there a set curriculum/set of books that they use?
what is the average age of the student? Average class size?
can you get me a Z visa? (If it is anything other than an obvious "yes", run).
What kind of assessments do they give the students? Will you be giving/grading them?
are you expected to do any work outside of the classroom (extra activities)
what kind of housing do they offer? Demand pictures of the ACTUAL place that they will give you. Do they offer a housing stipend if you choose not to live on campus?
Do they provide teaching supplies, or will you have to pay for your own?
Shining_brow:
Not just 'average' class size - but maximum - and the maximum that you will ever get/ Otherwise, you'll just get the 'oh, well, in the past it was only 26..."
sorrel:
these are a few of the questions i would ask, but if the type of visa on offer is not stated, i would ask "what visa do you offer?" - i don't specify a 'Z'
I give them the opportunity to show how legit they are.
I have received threats from places when questioning their offered visa's
Man, You still in China?
:
But to stay on topic I'll highlight Spiderboenz response
-Teaching hours, are they 60 minutes or 45?
-are office hours mandatory?
-Ask to chat with current (foreign) teachers there.(big one in my opinion)
-Is there a set curriculum/set of books that they use? (even if they give stuff, I still tend to use my own stuff. Have PDF copies of Interchange series)
-what kind of housing do they offer? (almost all housing I have seen is subpar, even by Chinese standards) I usually ask to see it first hand, only one school actually offered decent housing.
The z visa, the salary, the location, the amount of hours worked and overtime pay.
I have many foreigner friends in Beijing and myself and all of them have never had a nightmare teaching job, they've all been quite tolerable apart from the typical pointless tasks you get made to do every once in a while. It's always an interesting experience going to a new job.
I think in terms of workload it is important to know how often you're going to see your students. For exampe, if you teach one grade and each class has a lesson with you once a week, this means you prepare just one lesson plan a week. However, if you teach 3 grades and they see you twice a week this means you are supposed to prepare 6 lesson plans a week. Prep can really take a lot of your free time... I'd rather teach 20 classes and have one lesson plan for them than 15 classes with multiple lesson plans especially when the school doesn't provide you with a textbook...
I think in terms of workload it is important to know how often you're going to see your students. For exampe, if you teach one grade and each class has a lesson with you once a week, this means you prepare just one lesson plan a week. However, if you teach 3 grades and they see you twice a week this means you are supposed to prepare 6 lesson plans a week. Prep can really take a lot of your free time... I'd rather teach 20 classes and have one lesson plan for them than 15 classes with multiple lesson plans especially when the school doesn't provide you with a textbook...
Can't be bothered typing this again:
http://answers.echinacities.com/question/what-checks-should-person-do-si...
Hotwater:
Always amazes me on this and other forums how people can post questions but don't know how to use a search bar!
