Every workplace has it's ups and downs, as you are most likely already aware of being that you were a professor. I can't speak for others' experiences or for other schools, but I can tell you about mine.
I work at an all-boy's tech school. It's not always easy, but I still feel like there are more pros than cons. The cons of my job primarily originate with my co-teacher. It's taken me 2.5 years to stop giving her the benefit of the doubt and come to the conclusion that she's absolute crap. She doesn't care about teaching, much less my part in it. She rarely keeps me informed about even basic things (like if I have a class or not), and she doesn't seem to understand any of her administrative duties (which has cost me a significant amount of time and money in past years.) To be honest, the quality of your co-teacher can really make or break your experience if you let it. I've been fortunate enough to have Korean friends to fill in the empty spaces (like hospital visits, banking, etc.) And other than my sucky co-teacher, my school isn't so bad.
I actually get to do a lot of interesting things with my students. This is most likely due to my co-teacher's complete lack of interest in my job. The up side is that I get A LOT of freedom. I am rarely told what to teach, and although you can't win over all the students all the time, I do get a decent amount of interest and participation. In the past, I've mostly stuck to pretty generic topics (family, shopping, etc.); but the games, activities, and discussions I added worked pretty well (most of the time
.) Now that I'm more comfortable with what I'm able to do and what I think my students are cabaple of, I plan to focus on more interesting topics, pushing grammar more to the background (where I now realize it ought to be.) I'm confident I'll get some positive feedback from the boys.
Actually, most of my boys are kind of low level, but they're also cool kids. I'm genuinely interested in getting to know them, and they really feed off of that. It always amuses me how excited they get if I just remember their names. They are all (at one time or another - or all the time) a pain in the a** for sure; but they're just kids. I try talking to them outside of class as often as possible. I answer personal questions as long as they're not too unreasonable, and I try to keep a sense of humor about things. I'm probably too lenient, but I've been working on keeping clear boundaries with them. All these things seem to work pretty well in building a good repore with them. They're not fluent by the end of the year, but I do see progress. And, more importantly, a lot of them are more confident about what they can do.
Oh, one other thing that can be tiring are extra classes/ clubs. When I first got here, my school asked me to do 1-hour classes 4 days/ week, Mon-Thurs right after school. I didn't find that unreasonable or too difficult, and the extra money at the end of the semester was nice. However, the last 1.5 years, my co-teacher has come up with some increasingly unreasonable requests (at least for me.) Last semester it was 2-3 months of 6-hour classes on Saturdays (with the same 10 students for all 6 hours.) Because I was already running an English club, I turned them down, which is your right to do. However, that was when I really started to notice that my co-teacher dislikes me, because she basically stopped talking to me unless it was absolutely necessary - and we sit next to each other in the same office all day.
The other teachers at my school are pretty cool though. Some speak English at least a little. There are several teachers that are really kind and supportive to me. I've started to rely on some of them more for things my co-teacher doesn't do. Actually, it has helped me to build better relationships in my school and a better image overall. All-in-all, it's a working progress, and I can't complain too much.
Good luck!
