Hot Topic: Desk Warming at Your EFL Job

Some places, like public schools in Korea, have mandatory office hours for their EFL teachers.  While many teachers may finish around noon or 1pm, they have to stay at school until 4pm or 4:30pm.  The hope is that they will do something useful to help the school, such as plan their lessons, create material, or teach the Korean teachers English. Or at the very least, they could get their MA or learn the local language.

In reality, many teachers surf the net, chat on Facebook, sleep, or listen to music. That's not to say that these teachers are lazy, but many times they end up teaching the same lesson over and over 5 or 6 times, so there's not much lesson planning for them to do. Ditto for creating materials.

As for teaching the other teachers English, that rarely happens as the foreign teacher may be stuck with teachers who have no desire to learn English. Or even more likely, they would rather surf the net, chat, or sleep during mandatory office hours.

What do you think?
Should teachers be required to have such long office hours?  Do you think staying at school after you finish teaching is a waste of time?  What happens at your school?

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