Point of View Des Ryan

The Irish EFL industry could be a win-win for everyone if the income were divided more evenly, argues Des Ryan

A friend and colleague of mine has always described English teaching as ‘the best shit job’. The working conditions are brutal, but the actual work is often really interesting and fun.

Unfortunately, the work is not regular enough. As a result, the industry tends to attract people who are trying to carve out a career doing something else: musicians, writers, actors and the like.

Not everyone teaches English as a side hustle. Many just like teaching English and do it as their career.

I first started teaching English twelve years ago, and it soon became a regular nixer to help fund my PhD research. Teaching English is now my sole job, and I want to continue in this industry, talking language with people, and writing about it.

But this huge industry does not look after its employees, does not allow them to live profitable lives. Many students fork out their life savings to come to Ireland, learn English and then forge a better career back home. They cannot believe that teachers get so little, given how much they pay.

And then there is the precariousness.

Over the years, I’ve worked in a dozen or more establishments, and my jobs have finished in many different ways. The most common theme is: we’ve run out of students. On your bike, mate.

The first job I lost was in a private school in 2011. I was to be employed for the summer and was told I’d be working till September. I had no contract or clue. Then one day in August I got chucked out on my ear because they didn’t have enough students.

After that, I managed to use the industry to my advantage, getting work when I needed it and a school needed me.

In 2017, I was working in a new language school inside a university. There were four teachers and I was the last to join, so I was told that I would be the first against the wall if there weren’t enough new students.

“During your lunch break, you have to hop on your bike and peddle your 
way to another school…”

Sure enough, there weren’t enough students, so I actually volunteered to take a wee break, seeing as my partner was almost nine months pregnant and my PhD revisions needed to be completed.

I never heard back. No summer work. No work in the new academic year. Like the guy on the news in Grafton college, I was an unemployed new father. I didn’t even get my two weeks of paternity leave.

I managed to get a job that involved setting up and running a new franchise summer school, but I was only paid for the six weeks of actual class. I don’t even want to go into how stupid that was, but I was freshly unemployed and living in rural Ireland, so I was taking what I could get.

In 2016, I was working inside a different university structure. Our pay was advertised, but the powers-that-be decided that was too high. So, they took us in one by one and told us our new rates, based on various parameters. Divide and conquer. They did at least have criteria.

Teaching English in Ireland can be very enjoyable. Classes are small (max. fifteen) and the students are adults from all round the world. It’s a great bunch to be teaching and the craic is great.

The visa students keep the schools alive in the Autumn, Winter and Spring. In the summer, schools swell to capacity as buckets of Europeans stall over for a few weeks at a time, like your neighbours popping over for a cup of tea and a chat.

Teenagers come en masse. You know the summer is coming when you start seeing caravans of continental teens marauding down Dame Street.

The atmosphere in school is pleasant, if a little hectic in the summer. Teachers are given huge trust in how they combine obligatory topics with their own material, a system which largely brings out the best in them.

Outside the summer, schools are mostly full in the morning while things vary after lunch. Some schools provide extra classes, such as business English or exam preparation. You might have three hours of class in the morning, a lunch break and three more in the afternoon.

Evenings do tend to be quiet, because non-EU citizens are not allowed to study after six. A decade ago, students would often work all day, contravening their work restrictions, and then maybe stall into class from six to nine pm.

Nowadays, evening classes seem to involve a combo of EU workers in the city and au pairs doing four hours of English spread over two nights a week.

The bulk of teachers will teach for three or four contact hours in the morning. After lunch, there are three ways that your day can pan out: go home, teach scraps, or double up.

Teachers doing scraps might do two or three afternoons per week, so that they end up with 20-25 paid hours per week. Unfortunately, these afternoon classes are infinitely more precarious and teachers can seldom rely on them.

Teachers doubling up will have a 30-hour week. This is doable for a few weeks or months but you get burnt out sooner rather than later. Or, you are expecting to double up but half your hours are suddenly taken off you.

You might be working across two schools. During your lunch break, you have to hop on your bike and peddle your way to another school, grabbing lunch if you are lucky.

The other option is what makes English teaching so attractive. You work the mornings, earn your three or four hundred nicker, and then you’re free to do what you want. That’s what draws in the artists and the musicians, and the semi-retired. In my current situation, I mind the bambino in the morning and teach in the afternoons.

It should be noted that I am not macro-complaining about my current situation. I am well aware that my situation is one that many parents would love, allowing them to juggle childrearing with enjoyable, part-time work.

The problem with English teaching is that it is extremely difficult to strike the right balance of hours. Either you work too much or too little. If you get lots of work, it might not last. You cannot plan. Your pay doesn’t rise with experience and there is no regulation over pay. Nor are there any requirements for teachers to undergo professional development courses, you just have to work it out as you go along.

Better-qualified teachers don’t get paid more. You don’t get paid for preparing class or corrections, as we are paid by the class hour. You are expected to arrive before class (again, unpaid) and there are obligatory “breaks” which are spent doing photocopying.

Despite all of this, students are learning to speak English. Some come out speaking excellent English, most of them become functional. The teaching methods are very progressive and other kinds of education could learn a lot from this industry.

The life of a teacher is peripatetic and lacks progression. It is not viable as a career. People stick it out for a few years and then when life gets serious, they get a real job. Englishteaching is a hashtag shit job.

As for me, I could leave this industry and do something I don’t want to do as much. But there is no reason why I should, nor should others. It is simply a matter of making sure that the cash is divided fairly so that everyone wins. This does not have to be an Us versus Them situation.

■ Dr Des Ryan has a PhD on the formation of English spellings and is trying to develop a full-time career teaching and writing about the English language. He is interested in spelling, pronunciation, and makeyuppie words. For more, see a2dez.net where he writes about Spelling, Life, the Bantersmash and Everythink.