English teaching experiences in vietnam

Hi ancientpathos,
Greetings just wanted to here the good and the bad about teaching english here.  I will be attending a TESL course next week.

Good on you Ron,
Hope you like the course.
My experience was the following:

Found English Grammar hard to understand and learn but passed the 120 hour TEFL course and got my certificate.

Found a job in a school at $15/hour which I found acceptable as it was my first TEFL teaching job.

Didn't like the fact that I was teaching 5-6 year olds in the evening, who were already tired and needed massive motivation to keep going.

The amount of unpaid hours they expected me to do grew and grew, with such things like, teacher training in "Our way" of teaching etc.

The straw that broke the camels back for me was when I was asked to be MC at the Xmas party last year. Then, Oh could you also be Santa Clause ... Mmmm okay. Then a little later, could you write the whole dialogue your going to use as MC and meet with your co-host who will go through it with you and translate. This was explained necessary so it all went well and without a hitch. ???

Oh and then could you come early on the day and do rehearsal. How many hours earl?? Oh, maybe 3 hours.

When I asked how much and what hours I would be paid for??.. Oh, for the maybe 2 hours you are actually MC and Santa Clause.

Nah ... find someone else.   (No hard feelings to the school, just wasn't prepared to work in those circumstances, and I did sit down with the manager and say my concerns, but they have their way and I have mine

Since then I just teach private and still get $15/hour from Russians wanting to learn English, for 4.5 hours a week. That's enough for me, I don't need or want full time work.

So that's my story of teaching. I did the TEFL degree, so I kept the grey matter working. Your experience will of course be different, everyone's is ... Hope you enjoy the course.