Contracted Hours for Teaching

OK.  So we keep having the question raised about "how many hours should I be teaching?"  Let me tell you how many hours a "proper" teacher on this (Western) side of the world would be obligated for.  Then you'll have a basis for comparison.  After all, you do NOT want to kill yourself, and you do want to have a good time, don't you?



(Public) Primary School - Form/Class teacher responsible for all most Subjects

Basic School Day - 8:30 till 3:30 = 7h/day = 35h/wk

Take out lunch hour (x 5) = 30h/wk

Take out Preparation/Planning periods (at least 1 per day, often 2) = 25h/wk maximum



NOTE - Middle School teachers have less classroom time (18-20h/wk), High School even fewer, and College is down around 10-15h/wk ... not counting any Office time (1-3h/wk)

FYI - This does NOT cover the "at home" time spent planning/marking, etc.  Nor does it cover any PTA meetings (usually 1-2 hours each month).  
General Staff meetings are customarily held once a Term at either Lunch-time or at 3:30 and last about one hour.

In private-sector ESL, the maximum that's widely considered reasonable is 25 contact hours per week. Add preparation etc, and you're working about 40 hours for your insulting pittance salary. However, people working in state further/higher education are often surprised to hear this. There, (in Western Europe, anyway) the norm tends to be somewhere around 15 contact hours per week.

I'd like to add that while some private schools may have higher teaching hours, the lesson plans/marking papers  is down to a minumum. I'm contracted to do 24 hours a week of teaching. Add 1 hour for lesson plans and that's it - 25!

At the uni, I have 15 hours of teaching, 1 hour for lesson plans and 4 hours per week marking papers (drudgery!)

Teaching from a book/curiculum is soooo much easier

It's important to remember that that hour between lessons when you tidied up your shelf in the staffroom, suggested an activity to a colleague and answered a student's question about the new timetable is all work too. In my view, the meter starts ticking when you walk through the door.

For my uni classes I plan a few weeks in advance and based my preparation upon the textbook provided to my English majors. Mostly I plan to give two separate lessons a week (as i see each class once a week) and the class flow is usually determined by my students as some classes are quiet and need direction where as others I can leave it up to them. After that I just spend at most an hour a week tweaking and that done and dusted: 10 hours a week.

Personally, I think that 25 hours a week teaching Primary school is awfully high...it's still a solid five classroom hours every day, and in any Chinese public school or Uni that's easily enough to give most people a case of the Twitching Awfuls.
IMHO anything over around 15-16 classroom a week would be pretty brutal.

Especially given that a great many public/uni jobs still pay no more than 3500-5000 RMB a month.

25-a-week is indeed more common and acceptable in private schools...the salaries are substantially higher, there's generally ZERO prep or grading, and The Peaches are usually old enough to be squeezed without riling The Homeys too badly.

This is indeed a MASSIVELY useful topic, but I'd like to un-sticky it until we can present a solid, unified slate of info on it...

Personally, I think that 25 hours a week teaching Primary school is awfully high...it's still a solid five classroom hours every day, and in any Chinese public school or Uni that's easily enough to give most people a case of the Twitching Awfuls.

Please note that I was/am speaking about Western teachers in Western schools in the West - ie USA, Bermuda, etc.

IF you're not working for "at Home" wages, then you shouldn't have to work "at Home" hours

Please note that I was/am speaking about Western teachers in Western schools in the West - ie USA, Bermuda, etc.

Alors.
Uh, sure, right...yeah...I knew that.


Actually, to me 5 a day in a Primary School ANYWHERE seems pretty brutal. But then I'm famously allergic to Shortness.

Last time I looked, to qualify for IELTS training one was supposed (at least) to have three years full-time employment as a teacher of English.  And as far as the British Council was concerned, "full-time employment teaching English" meant 16 hours per week face-to-face teaching.

Well to meet the minimum requirements to be considered for a position as an IELTS examiner in regards to contact hours are as follows: it's 3 years full time or part time equivalent teaching experience teaching adult age students IE: 16 years and older. Full time is considered to be measured at 14 hours per week.
 

I knew there was a 16 in there somewhere. 



Having tried it for not nearly one year, my humble opinion is that 25 hours face-to-face a week is lethal.  Unless perhaps one really does love their teaching and doesn't have very much else to do in their week.  And possible doesn't want to live much past 45.

i do 25 primary classes a week. they are all squished together with 10minutes to get to the next class. I like it. it means i get the rest of the day off when im done.  ive no papers to mark too. This year im teaching english science from a course book so its fairly straight forward.

I found that sausage factories training centres mostly involved kiddie work, so moving to public primary and middle school wasn't much of a stretch for me. The hours? After my first semester, I was able to pick up extra hours and do them standing on my head. 30, 35 class hours a week? Bring it on, I said. And I did. What I found after a time was that lack of defined objectives turned it into a grind. Or rather, playing the game (with Chinese characteristics) of pretending to accomplish something when they're really unwilling to let you accomplish anything wore me down. From the teachers I know back home, they all make similar noises (without the Ch characteristics). It ain't the years, its the mileage. It ain't the hours, its the crap you put up with that stands between yourself and the completion of a job worth doing and worth doing well.