Curriculum writing pay question

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

So I’m spending a hell of a lot of time writing curriculum for the courses I’m teaching at my school. We just started a new term, and the classload is pretty intense. I teach several subjects (higher level students can take classes in other subjects than ESL witha foreign teacher) - and I made a decision to take the classes seriously and write a good curriculum as I go along. I could just go the easy route as usual and not put a whole lot of effort into my teaching, but I’ve done it before and it’s a little more fulfilling to actually work hard and take pride ya know (or something like that).

Course then after a week I realized that my grand ideas are going to cost me a whole hell of a lot of time - and now the precedent’s been set. So I thougth well hell, why don’t I see if I can get paid. Went to the boss-man and suggested this and before he could say no or yes I said "so what I was thinking is that I’d put together a proposal sorta thing with examples of what I’ll provide and an idea for what I’d like pay-wise.

Now I’ve gotta figure this out and I thought I’d seek out some advice. I get paid a nice 800 an hour for teaching hours. Other teachers here do as well, and there are some salaried foreign teachers that work for 60k a month for 20 hours a week. I work about 16 hours weekly right now, and I figure it’ll take me an average of 5 extra hours a week to do this curriculum. Yeah - if you do the math I’d be kickin ass on the official “full time” teachers wage-wise so I’m kinda worried about asking for too much. Not to mention the stomping I’d probably give the chinese teachers if they knew (how can I feel so bad about this yet not really care at the same time? Ah Taiwan - if only you had some good ideas about the true value of skills - course then half the foreign teachers here would get canned pretty quick - uh oh did I just start an angry discussion?).

I’m guessing curriculum development usually commands a better rate than the standard teaching $650 (or so). What do you all think? I was thinking around $800 - $1000. And the material I’m writing is good too - syllabus, lesson plans, materials, pictures, teacher’s notes, activity sheets, tests, even a web page (though I may have to ask extra for that as it’s a little more time consuming but heck let’s face it, if you know what you’re doing it’s actually pretty easy and it’s handy as a selling point don’t you think?). The curriculum will be pretty much cookie-cutter - any teacher should be theoretically able to come in and teach the hell out of it without a whole lot of work other than reviewing the material and being familiar with the subject.

At least that’s what I’m aiming for…

Alright, I’ve rambled enough - so the question: how much should I ask for?

Thanks!

Vim

2
  • You’ll be lucky to get anything. Probably the salaried teachers are spending more than 5 hours a week preparing.
  • Curriculum writing gets paid less, in my experience, just like copy editing or proofreading. It’s easier on the nerves, and it’s not actually generating cash the way a classful of students would be, so the bosses don’t value it as much. As well, there are lots of burnt-out teachers who would be happy to make less per hour writing curriculum, so there’s the problem of supply and demand.
  • If they do pay you NT$800 - 1,000 an hour for it, please tell us all where you work, so I can apply there too. Good luck!
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Why were you guessing that? I’m not sure that curriculum writing is better compensated than teaching. It’s a good question to bring up though. Seems to me that schools generally take care of it themselves. At least that’s the way it’s been where I’ve worked.

Are you actually producing materials? Or are you writing schedules based on set materials? Are you responsible for producing assessments as well–making tests, etc.?