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Hey guys I know there are some other similar posts, but my story has some sort of a twist so I would like to ask for your opinions. Ifm a 31 year old, happily married to a Japanese woman and I have a spouse visa. In March I started working at a small English school as a contract employee. During the interview I was told that I will be teaching English to children and in some cases adults (which I havenft done yet) and also assist the head teacher when all children between the ages of 3 and 8 are in the same classroom. In my contract, my job duties are listed as Contract employee, English teacher. No more. But this is what I didnft know. That this school is not just a conversation English school as shown on the ad but rather an afterschool and therefore on top of the conversation English lessons, where children are seperated according to their age or level, during afterschool hours we have to teach English (theme of the month: dinosaurs, plants, animals etc) together with Science, Math, Art, Dance, Social Studies and more. But during the interview I was told that I will be assisting the head teacher (Japanese bilingual) without telling me about all the subjects and topics so I didnft care too much. I signed the contract and for the first few weeks I really was the assistant. I must admit it was hectic but fun. After about one month working there, the head teacher asked me if I could take over English, Math and Science topics during the afterschool including all preparations. At first I was shocked, but Ifm a person whofs up to a challenge and accepted. I could take this experience for my own personal growth I thought. After that, she started telling me what to do. For each activity (once a day for 50 minutes) I need to prepare for the monthly vocabulary and activity games. By activity games I mean I have to think around 10 different games each day, one day different from the other and each game everyday has to be different i.e. if you used a ball for the first game, you cannot use ball for another game because theyfll get bored (or so she told me). Why 10 games in 50 minutes? Because I need to have backup games in case it doesnft work or they get bored. Many students attend this afterschool 3 to 5 times a week so doing the same game on a different day where there are same students (even 1) is a big no no cause theyfll get bored (I was told). Also there are children between the ages of 3 and 8 so I must find a balance for not being too easy for the 8 year olds or too difficult for the 3 year olds. This was really frustrating. Creating almost 10 games everyday for each month was a lot of work.
Getting to the preparation time, everyday the head teacher and I have a one hour meeting where I need to tell her what I have thought about and she has to give me the go ahead before I can apply it into practice. Most of the time, all my proposals are rejected. Same reasons are: too easy, too difficult, these vocabulary we already did last year etc... How much time do I have to prepare? First hour in the morning is meeting hour, next is one hour of preparation, then one hour break. Immediately after my break, children start to arrive one by one, do the English lesson for the young ones, activity time and then English lesson for the elementary till 7pm. After they leave I have to clean the classroom, sinks, toilets etc and also fill in the daily report for the government, so for the next day, with only that one hour of preparation, I didnft have much to show her so I was being scolded constantly (in a nice Japanese manner). Anyway after golden week I went prepared to tell her that this is too much for me and if maybe she could reduce some of my work until I get better at it. Heck Ifve been doing this for only two months and itfs much more work than a normal eikaiwa school. When I told her that, she told me that actually she was thinking of giving me all the activities and handle them by myself (with her ghelpingh me during the meeting). I was shocked that she wants to do the opposite of what I suggested. So not only what I said fell on deaf ears, she basically put more work in my desk. I tried it, I really tried my best. Although in my contract therefs written that I will be paid for overtime, I was forced to leave at 8pm so voluntarily, for the sake of the children, I was heading back home everyday and working till late at night so that I have something to show her the next day during the meeting. After one month of this charade, I told her again that itfs too much work but she insisted that what Ifm doing is actually the foreign teacherfs job and they canft afford to hire another person. So I gave in my resignation. In my contract itfs listed as 3 months notice which I already worked almost 6 weeks now. They told me that theyfre doing their best to find someone else but they donft want to sponsor visa, no relocation funding, salary not so good etc.. and itfs nothing a central area, so of course finding a substitute is very hard. I asked them if I could leave this week but they immediately jumped on me that itfs a breach of contract. Also I have no benefits except if I get injured during work time. Ifm feeling miserable and donft know what to do. Any of you had a similar experience in the past? Thank you.
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