My mess of a school has asked (although quite passively) if I could read and record the reading books the kids use. They want to then make CDs, and give them to the students.
I once read speeches for a speech competition my old school had (guess what school!?!?!?), and even those cheapskates coughed up some extra NT. Also, I learned from that experience that recording ones voice can take a lot longer then you would think.
Anyway, has anyone been asked to do this? What is the S.O.P. for such tasks?
I think my school paid me extra time for the recording I did. I just went in a closet and recorded in their during a break time. I just stopped and rewinded a little if I made a mistake. It took me just about the same amount of time as reading each text aloud twice or three times. I had to close the closet door, though, to keep the sound of the kids yelling to the level of a minimal roar.
Well, my big issue is that if they can pay a franchise fee to use the books, I don’t see why they can’t fork over more than hourly (office) pay for the time I spend reading these things, especially if they want to use them after I leave the school.
I make recordings of all the reading books in my school. My wife’s my boss and she doesn’t pay me a penny. She doesn’t pay me for cleaning the school either.
[quote=“timmyjames”]Well, my big issue is that if they can pay a franchise fee to use the books, I don’t see why they can’t fork over more than hourly (office) pay for the time I spend reading these things, especially if they want to use them after I leave the school.[/quote]If you’re getting paid for office hours, I think it’s unlikely you’ll get any more for doing these readings, unless you have to work overtime to get them done.
I can see your point that in theory you should get more because the recordings will be used many times. But if I were in your situation and the school generally treated me OK, I think I’d do this as a kind of a “goodwill” thing. Justly or otherwise, foreigners are often seen by local managers as being miserly with their time, and inflexible regarding requests. This could be your chance to earn some brownie points–to be redeemed in some way in future.
Just do it… You do a favor for them=they do a favor for you… What do you got to loose?
BTW… Voice Recording is my job, and I do get paid quite well, but not too much more than your average buxiban teacher so if they are paying you $600NT for your extra time you should have no problem doing it. AND they will remember the favor as long as you remind them when you need a favor… Hint hint.
I am not looking for favors, and I am not staying with the school. I will leave at the end of my contract with them, in 5 months, and they have not yet done me favors although I have done them favors. Also, this isn’t reading one book, it is more like 10-15.
Thank you for the replies, but I was not looking for ways to earn “brownie points.”
They’re probably going to sell these to their students. Tell them that the going rate is NT1000/hour, 3 hours per session, with a short break about every hour.
Office pay, which is well below teaching pay, is contractually predetermined (they wrote the contract by the way, not me) to be paid for office hours, which again, they predetermined (specific hours, not a couple here, a couple there). Office hours are to be used for preparing lessons, many which require excess preparation time (art/science). Office hours are also used for writing semi-weekly student reports. A separate contractually predetermined rate will be paid for events such as open houses.
This is a teaching contract with specific terms. I am not a salaried employee who has a blanket wide-open job description. Your poor lack of logic would justify the school making me rewrite their entire curriculum, write the books, and build new classrooms for office pay.
I’ve seen it from both sides, but I think people need to be reminded about the realities of being an English teacher in Taiwan:
Usually,
You get paid per hour taught.
You don’t get paid for class preparation.
You get no paid vacation.
If you’re sick you don’t get paid.
If you’re seriously ill you become a liability. Your employer cancels your work visa and you have ten days to leave the country.
You have to pay for your work visa.
You have to pay for your health insurance.
You have restraints of trade placed upon you whereby you can only work for one employer. If you break this rule you get deported.
You are not allowed to teach anyone under the age of six. If you break this rule you can get deported.
If you have any disagreement with your employer they always have the option of cancelling your work visa. You get deported.
Sound tempting?
Running a school is difficult but it’s not so difficult that basic work benefits cannot be paid. Even the big chains operate pretty much along the lines listed above.
I don’t think teachers in Taiwan are being workshy when they demand money for additional work. They basically get a pretty shite deal over here, other than a high hourly wage by Taiwanese standards.
Ok, fair enough… I don’t know the details of timmyjames’ contract. The original post made it seem like he was being paid to do office work but felt he should be paid above and beyond that for the use of his voice.
Does “poor lack of logic” mean an abundance of logic?
[quote=“navillus”]Ok, fair enough… I don’t know the details of timmyjames’ contract. The original post made it seem like he was being paid to do office work but felt he should be paid above and beyond that for the use of his voice.
Does “poor lack of logic” mean an abundance of logic?[/quote]
LOL, i think maybe it would
The fact of the matter is that as teachers you get paid to teach. You do not get the standard yearly bonuses that Taiwanese get. You do not get paid days off. You get nothing, but what you teach. Maybe you have some type of bonus built in, but it usually is attached to signing another contract, or has been whittled out of your hourly pay. I addressed this problem to my Taiwanese wife, and her parents who are business owners, and they said not only should I get some type of return on my time (if I did this), but I HAVE to demand pay.
edit: also forgot to say, even if I were, which I am not, a salaried teacher, creating materials that would be sold for profit are not part of a teachers contract. You are paid to teach, prep, grade, give extra help, etc. I did state that I even did this for a past school in regards to reading speeches, but this is not reading speeches. This is reading books onto CDs that will be sold to the students (one can only assume). What is worse is that if they really wanted these books on CD (these are regular books, not school written books) they can easily find these books on CD already.
[quote=“timmyjames”][quote=“navillus”]Ok, fair enough… I don’t know the details of timmyjames’ contract. The original post made it seem like he was being paid to do office work but felt he should be paid above and beyond that for the use of his voice.
Does “poor lack of logic” mean an abundance of logic?[/quote]
LOL, I think maybe it would
The fact of the matter is that as teachers you get paid to teach. You do not get the standard yearly bonuses that Taiwanese get. You do not get paid days off. You get nothing, but what you teach. Maybe you have some type of bonus built in, but it usually is attached to signing another contract, or has been whittled out of your hourly pay. I addressed this problem to my Taiwanese wife, and her parents who are business owners, and they said not only should I get some type of return on my time (if I did this), but I have to demand pay.
edit: also forgot to say, even if I were, which I am not, a salaried teacher, creating materials that would be sold for profit are not part of a teachers contract. You are paid to teach, prep, grade, give extra help, etc. I did state that I even did this for a past school in regards to reading speeches, but this is not reading speeches. This is reading books onto CDs that will be sold to the students (one can only assume). What is worse is that if they really wanted these books on CD (these are regular books, not school written books) they can easily find these books on CD already.[/quote]
They want to use you to infringe the copyright. This will not be cost effective if they have to pay you to do it, as they can use their bulk buying discount to buy the number they need anyway and pay only a few NT more for the CD produced by the publisher. I might feel differently if they were in-house materials, but in this case I would not be so concerned with how much I was getting paid–I’d just refuse.
[quote=“housecat”][quote=“timmyjames”][quote=“navillus”]Ok, fair enough… I don’t know the details of timmyjames’ contract. The original post made it seem like he was being paid to do office work but felt he should be paid above and beyond that for the use of his voice.
Does “poor lack of logic” mean an abundance of logic?[/quote]
LOL, I think maybe it would
The fact of the matter is that as teachers you get paid to teach. You do not get the standard yearly bonuses that Taiwanese get. You do not get paid days off. You get nothing, but what you teach. Maybe you have some type of bonus built in, but it usually is attached to signing another contract, or has been whittled out of your hourly pay. I addressed this problem to my Taiwanese wife, and her parents who are business owners, and they said not only should I get some type of return on my time (if I did this), but I have to demand pay.
edit: also forgot to say, even if I were, which I am not, a salaried teacher, creating materials that would be sold for profit are not part of a teachers contract. You are paid to teach, prep, grade, give extra help, etc. I did state that I even did this for a past school in regards to reading speeches, but this is not reading speeches. This is reading books onto CDs that will be sold to the students (one can only assume). What is worse is that if they really wanted these books on CD (these are regular books, not school written books) they can easily find these books on CD already.[/quote]
They want to use you to infringe the copyright. This will not be cost effective if they have to pay you to do it, as they can use their bulk buying discount to buy the number they need anyway and pay only a few NT more for the CD produced by the publisher. I might feel differently if they were in-house materials, but in this case I would not be so concerned with how much I was getting paid–I’d just refuse.[/quote]
After a lot of thought and debate, I am coming to the same conclusion.
Just say “Oh, OK, sure. I’ll get it done when I have some free time.” And then promptly forget all about it. The Taiwanese way. Nice and non-confrontational.
A little tiny bit more confrontational could be to ask them about copyright. Maybe even a little white lie about how your girlfriend’s uncle works for the intellectual property police and you’ll need to ask him if this is strictly legal…
