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Unread Nov 14th, 2006, 07:10 am
susan53 susan53 is offline
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Join Date: Oct 8th, 2006
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Default Re: When to say 'no'.

I think it depends a bit what sort of courses you're teaching and how many levels. Because it's not only the hours in the classroom, but also the preparation. For instance, if you have five beginners courses all of the same age group and at the same stage, you only have to prepare one hour for each five hours you teach. They might not all hit the same lesson the same week, but when they do the preparation is already done. On the other hand, if all your courses are different, you'll need to prepare for each class you teach. And if you teach high level 1-to-1 ESP courses (as I do), you may have up to two hours prep. for each hour taught - for a lesson that may never be taught again. In this case classroom hours need to be adjusted accordingly (if you're on a full time contract) or the preparation time paid. In general I think 25 hours of classroom contact with normal general purpose classes is about right if you want to keep sane and keep standards high. You can do more for a short period but not for too long. And sorry guys but I think over 30 is crazy.
Unfortunately, it isn't always a matter of how much you want to do though, but how much you need to do to live. Don't know about elsewhere, but in Italy teachers are generally really badly paid. And the cowboys make it really difficult for the more serious organisations. Very few clients are willing to pay double what other schools are asking "just" for qualified teachers who are receiving a professional salary and working conditions.
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