schedule

My new teaching schedule is already out. I once again have Fridays off, which is good, since I'll need my Fridays (and possibly also my Saturdays) for the work I'll be doing at KMA starting in February. I've also got one extra class to teach this time around, but the higher-ups have promised extra pay (overtime pay, one hopes) for the extra effort. I won't mind; teaching 14 hours a week instead of 12 hours a week is no big deal. One of our team leaders told us that the extra class is because we "lost a couple teachers in the hiring process." I'm not sure what that means; it could mean either that (1) some of the potential hires didn't make it through their final screening, or (2) some of the hires got hired, but bolted at the last minute so they could teach elsewhere.

Either way, I assume this means we didn't meet our "hire ten more people" quota for this semester. DCU's foreign faculty swelled into a small army when I was hired last semester: the staff ballooned to twenty-five. Someone felt it was a good idea to hire even more people after us, perhaps as a way to reduce class sizes. Now, ironically, quite the opposite has happened: most of us will have extra classes to teach this coming semester, and we've also had to move our office to a remoter location to accommodate the new faculty members.

The most unfortunate aspect of my new schedule is that I'm going to be saddled with lots and lots of beginners. They comprise five of my seven classes; the other two classes are one intermediate and one pronunciation class. I don't know who decided to dump so many beginners on me, but I guess we'll have to see how it goes next semester. I have a pretty good idea of what not to do, based on my students' lackadaisical performance last semester, and I'll have to consider—as another professor/blogger put it—lowering my standards and my expectations. That seems the best way to remain sane and to keep the kids happy.


_