Who is the more stupid? The person who writes the contract, or the person who agrees and signs it and THEN complains about it?
I am always amazed when I see people who come here and *never* question or even read the contract. I realise there are schools that don't take the thing seriously, but even so, you can't complain when you agreed to do it.
My advice: Read the contract VERY CAREFULLY. Not once, not twice, but lots. If there are things in doubt, go over the points with the school BEFORE you sign. Make adjustments/additions where required.
Better still, get the contract before you go, print it out and sign the one you printed out (after any amendments).
Keep a copy in a safe place and sign EVERY page.
Good luck!
> Would you willingly sign a contract that may say that you have to
> work an extra day per week during the peak summer season and/or teach
> a few extra hours a week FOR NO MORE PAY?!
> Speaking with the benefit of hindsight, I would say that it is
> utterly ludicrous for private language schools to insist that their
> teachers be made to do more for no more pay just because it happens
> to be the peak season when more students come to study. Yet there are
> plenty of expatriates who have signed a full-time contract which says
> in effect that they must do more work for no more plenty during
> the very time when one would think that teachers should receive more
> money for more teaching.
> After all, summer is the peak time when private language schools
> generate more than enough revenue to satisfy even the greediest of
> investors and yet the successes of summer schools are based mostly
> on the sweat, frustration, fatigue and tears of full-timers who have
> signed contracts which condemn them to work more for no more money
> (to a certain extent).
> I had signed two 12-month contracts for a private school, a
> franchisee, in which signers were expected to work up to one more day
> per week (six instead of five) and teach up to five more real hours
> per week for NO more money. Having been through the rigors of two
> summer schools, I used to hear bitter mutterings from my fellow
> teachers, who described the situation as sheer slavery. What, they
> asked themselves, possessed them to do something they never would
> have dreamed of doing in a million years back home? Yes, they
> realized that they had signed the contracts, and signing implies that
> they have read and understood the conditions, and that they therefore
> had to abide by those conditions.
> Of course, these people, undoubtedly hungry to start or continue
> their TEFL career, had been recruited during the off-peak season, a
> time of relatively low teaching loads. Perhaps they thought that
> there was nothing to make a fuss about. An extra five hours of
> teaching a week for no more pay? OK, so long as its just for a few
> weeks Maybe that was something that they didnt fully understand at
> the time yet, by the time they realized that they had to deal with
> more classes full of kids who dont understand and dont want to be
> there and dont want to learn and who want just to talk and talk, it
> was far too late.
> I can be thankful that I have, since February this year, gone over to
> the public sector, which means that I now have the benefit of a full
> summers vacation where, if I teach at a summer school, be it in the
> public or the private sector (and I have done both already this
> summer), I get PAID for EVERY lesson I do, and I mean EVERY. In one
> summer school lasting seven days, I earned the equivalent of a
> MONTHS salary based on what I receive from my public school.
> THIS is what we expatriates should be doing when we come to teach
> English in foreign countries. To me, the private schools, which want
> people to sign up as full-time teachers to do more work in the summer
> for no more money, are guilty of exploitation. I should know, because
> fellow colleagues used to tell me that they felt no better off than
> slaves. Yet, as I said, the conditions were laid out in the contracts
> the summer work conditions came as no surprise to them, and so it
> was basically their own lookout, and they had therefore little choice
> but to swallow their annoyance.
> This is one way of learning about the realities of teaching abroad
> for private language schools. Thank heaven I am no longer in this
> mock-slavery position now if I want to do more, I get PAID
> provided, of course, that the opportunities to do more work exist
> during your well-earned vacation (shop around!). So, fellow
> expatriates, if you feel a little disgruntled this summer because of
> this more-work-and-no-more-pay situation, take heart: your contract
> will eventually expire and you can seek other opportunities where you
> may not have to be in that situation again. I did, and Im more than
> a little grateful for it.
- Summer can seem like slavery -- OurManInHubei -- 2004-08-06
- Contracts. -- DoS -- 2004-08-08
- Learning from our mistakes -- Mike B -- 2004-08-06
- Re: Learning from our mistakes -- dee -- 2004-08-13
- Re: Learning from our mistakes -- Ellis E. Seamone -- 2004-08-13
- Re: Learning from our mistakes -- dee -- 2004-08-13
- Re: Learning from our mistakes -- Ellis E. Seamone -- 2004-08-13
- Learning from our mistakes -- Mike B -- 2004-08-06
- Contracts. -- DoS -- 2004-08-08