Job Discussion Forums

[Theresa]

İ cant belıeve that no matter what we do do its never good enough for the students at my place. Every week some teacher has to deal with yet another complaint about the course book/ the course content rhythm/ style of teaching. We adjust accordingly and they come back AGAİN and AGAİN. At the beg İ was super gung ho and prepared my lessons really well but now İ dont even want to see my students smiling hypocritical faces. Moral is low. İs this common or are we particularly unlucky? Perhaps İ should just be lazy and put no effort at all into my lessons and just take the money at the end of the month but that all seems a bit pointless really. Or perhaps İ expect too much? Any comments gratefully recieved

[yaramaz]

Hi Theresa,

I'm really glad you brought up this topic because it has been an issue for me for quite some time now. I teach in a private high school and also do work at night with a conversation class for adults. Last year I taught grades 5,6, and 7 in the primary section of my school. I love teaching but I'm getting very frustrated because of many of my students' attitudes (not all, but enough to make it an issue). If I have to hear the mantra of sikildim, cok sikildim, hadi, teacher, hadi! again, I will scream! The students who barely pay attention are usually the ones who announce constantly that they are bored. Do they even try? No. Do they listen to my instructions and try to understand before they bellow that they don't understand, that they are bored, and that I should hurry up and get on with things... I plan activities and they dont want to participate; I show videos and they wont watch them because they don't have Turkish subtitles; I ask them to write three paragraphs and they stop at one or two because they say its enough and more would be boring.

I do not want to tar all of my students here though: I am speaking about half of them. And I teach really rich kids who think their parents' wealth will buy their grades. And this is too often true. The ones who do work are amazing and dedicated and smart and gorgeous to my jaded eyes. My evening class thinned out in size by half because the ones who were impatient or easily bored left: I made it known to all of them that they were responsible for speaking and that I would provide topics and activities and guidance and feedback but that I was not there to entertain them or to spoon feed them English. I am happy with the ones I have and they never complain. Several new ones have even joined based on good word.

Do Turks complain too much? I do know that they use the term "I'm bored" far more readily and frequently than any other people I've met-- even my friends will announce it if the party isn't quite lively enough or if the conversation is lulling. But maybe they just voice what we keep silent-- I cant deny that I have felt bored in my life but I usually don't admit it because I know that boredom is a reflection of my own inability to be content.

Ideas?

[SweetOne]

Yes, yes, they do complain an awful lot! I tried telling my brats (oops, I mean students) that they were there to learn, that I was trying to make it interesting, but given the materials I was provided, it wasn't likely that I would make them all happy all the time and too goosh darn bad! (ok, I eliminated that part...)

I am currently between jobs as the private school I worked at (same as yaramaz's but different city) made an arbitrary (and highly illegal... or at least immoral) decision not to pay me because I failed to sign the register books - which the STUDENTS were responsible for bringing to video class -when I first started (in September). I came back from the Christmas Holiday to a substantial loss in pay. Though I tried to reason with them, (not easy considering the director is freakin' insane) they stood their ground. I left. They broke the contract. Dang!

What to do? Ugh!

[yaramaz]

Sweet One, when I first started working here last year I didn't know I was supposed to sign those books, didn't even know they existed! Only after a few weeks did I retroactively sign them. Also the signing or lack there of should not apply to you, as you are on salary. It applies more to the Turks who work about 15 hrs base time, with all hours after that at an hourly overtime rate. Unless students or class room teachers have noted that you are not going to class, it should all be irrelevant. This year, my students are quite scrupulous about bringing me the books-- even if my lesson is cancelled due to exams or field trips, the kids always get the books to be before the end of the day.


They had no cause to dock your pay. What will you do now??? If you still have my number, call me. I'll be in Istanbul at the beginning and end of the bayram to see mehmet et al.

[richard ame]

Sweet one you don't have to stay where you are not appreciated ,you know there are different places and different cities.

[Theresa]

Richard- thank you for the words of comfort! Where shall İ go? Any thoughts on the Black Sea area? İm told that the locals have a highly developed sense of humour which sounds a lot more fun than here

[JM]

Don't forget that "bored" in Turkish is a much more blanket term than in English, it can mean "annoyed","frustrated","tired" as well as tedious.

[richard ame]

Hi
There are a number of options open to you it really depends where you want to be ,in this country as one door closes another opens and usually there are a choice of doors .The black sea area is a place I don't know a lot about cept the weather ,it rains ,alot ,no I mean A LOT ,nice and green though,but not many other native speakers though . Steer clear of Trabzon it has a certain reputation where females are concerned ,nuff said . South is better,but thats me I'm baised,an Aegeanphile if ever there was one ,good weather ,food , beaches,nightlife,warm sea, the people are pretty friendly and a reasonably salary can be had . Unis and private high schools are on the look out and the next term Feb is no exception, people jump ship mid term all the time and this is usually a good time to change horses .

[ghost]

Yes Theresa - you are finding out what Turkish students are like, and it is not very pretty is it? Welcome to the reality of teaching in a country with students, a large portion of whom are lazy and unmotivated. You are teaching at the Amerikan Kultur in Antalya and they are adults - but that is the way things are in Turkey....it is the most boring and lazy culture that you will find in the ESL world.

For that reason this poster is now out of Turkey, presently in the Marseilles area and soon heading to Barcelona, where the people, no doubt, will at least have half a brain in working order and willing to do their bit when they sign up for a course.

My advice would be to get out before the country drives you potty. Six months in this hell hole was enough. The only people who seem to do well here are cruisers who are just willing enough to live life in the slow lane of Turkey. People who lack ambition and are willing to live in this smoke filled cess pit.

Everywhere in the country is basically the same - you will also have bored, unmotivated students in the Black Sea area. This is Turkish culture for you - useless and unproductive.

[yaramaz]

Great to see you again, ghost! I guess I'll be following your Spanish adventures from now on. Curious to see how they turn out--- I actually wish you well since you had such a bad experience in Turkey.

As for myself... I'm still happy here. And no, I'm not a lazy, lowest-common-denominator-dwelling backpacking coaster. My friends and co-workers are still lively and interesting and vibrant and curious, and my students are not nearly as bad as they could be Most are excellent, as I said before, and a fair number impatient and, well, yaramaz.... but we get along and we do the work and I know they are learning. I submitted first term grades today and you could definitely see who pays attention! My hazirlik class has come so far since September and I am proud of their dedication.

It is the end of the first term now, so we've had some great school parties and gatherings and outings-- lots of singing, dancing, eating, laughing. I enjoy it.

[richard ame]

Yeah Yaramaz I have to agree with you the kids are all right ,where ever you go there will always be the minority who are the exception ,in ANY country. However,I truly believe you, the guy in the front of the class is the one who makes the difference and can turn things around and if the type of high handed attitude and general negative persona we get from a certain poster who DOES not need to be named ,is what the long suffering kids in this country have had to put up with in the last six months ,it is a good thing he has gone to another place, where no doubt there will be more of the same from that sad spook .
Theresa, please take a very generous bucket of salt with a lot of what someone said earlier ,he is in a very much disregarded minority of one ,long may he stay away and give us a break from his self centered whining and whinging. I know his old students are holding a big part all of their own now hes gone good riddance .

[ghost]

Theresa - don't believe what "Mr Ame/blame it on ghost" says! trust me on that....hundreds of ESL teachers in Turkey are fed up with the Turkish lazy attitudes in the schools, language schools and pseudo Universities...

You will see this for yourself as the weeks turn into months...and you gradually turn into one of those half crust ESL survivors in Turkey...just living a life of utter boredom and frustration. At the end of your stay here you will have only learned that teaching in Turkey is a glorious waste of time and effort. The Turkish men, in their vast majority, only have one thing in mind...and you know what that is.....just listen to the way those neanderthals talk about their "foreign conquests" and all the picturesque details....you are nothing but a piece of skin to the Turkish men, and you will find out soon.

Get out of this place before you go barmy....it will be the best move you ever made....information will follow on teaching opportunities in Catalunya and other places where you will live a normal, rewarding life.

Yaramaz and F.G.T. etc....we wish you well....but you have to admit that your longevity in Turkey is due to other factors extraneous to the general teaching culture or lack thereof. Do yourselves a favour and tell Theresa what she can really expect here.

[FGT]

Theresa- I am replying as Ghost requested, namely to tell it like it is. Well, basically it's somewhere between the best you've heard and the worst you've heard, depending on your point of view.

Ghost asks me what keeps me here extranious to teaching. I would respond that, much to my surprise, I am intrigued and fascinated by teaching English. That; and my friends, both Turkish and foreign; keeps me here. I came here for the country, that still holds. There is no other agenda for me.

Ghost urges you to join him in Catalonia for a normal and rewarding life, isn't that what he came to Turkey for? Some of us found it, he didn't. I wish him well in his search.

You should make your own decision (as I'm sure you will). Don't believe one disgruntled person any more than one infatuated person. Life is what you make it.

[yaramaz]

I will add to FGT's reply to ghost, though I don't have much more to say that hasn't been said a hundred times before. First of all, I don't think I am blindly infatuated with Turkey, as there have been days, weeks, hours when all I want to do is leave, to find a country where I am not such a conspicuous Yabanci, where I can speak fluently and be easily understood (sometimes I think people have linguistic blinders on and assume that foreigners simply can't be understood even if they are speaking Turkish...),where I can eat food in a restaurant that isn't kebab, pide, corba, manti (remember I live in central Anatolia--- haven't seen any non- Turkish/non-pizza/non-burger places at all---- I sometimes crave even the dodgiest Chinese take away), where the electricity doesn't fail several times a day in winter for unexplained reasons, where I can get hot water for my shower without waiting half an hour for the gas to heat it, where the students don't run up to me and rattle off a long stream of rapid Turkish then look at me bewildered when I don't understand (and YES Iam studying Turkish, though not in a course), where the students don't complain about my lessons or disrupt the class with immature behavior...

But these are no worse than problems, different problems that I have faced in other countries, including Canada. When I describe my teaching problems to my father, a former junior high english teacher (with a masters in Lit, wasted on them) he said my challenges and struggles were very similar to his own. YES! Canadian kids can be very undisciplined! Canadian management can be irrational and stifling! Canadian teachers can face indignant parents and get a lot of disrespect. As this year has progressed, I have grown to like my students more and more; we have tackled more complex projects and stories; we have established a routine whereby they know what I want from them and they will (most of them anyway) try to provide it. My Lise 1's are still pretty useless, but they are 14/15 years old and I recall my own classes at that age being pretty useless and noisy. The dozen or so in each Lise 1 class that listen and work do brilliant work. They make me so happy.

The past few months were very difficult for me for many reasons, but Turkey, as an entity, was not the cause of them. I did wantto pack up and leave several times, ut that was not because of Turkey andthe Turks-- I just wanted to be far away from my stresses. I had some complicated and confusing relationship issues that I couldn't solve, problems with some of the foreign teachers, frustration from some of my classes, and I felt burnt out: I wanted to live somewhere.... easier. But then I stopped and looked around and realised how much I was attached to this area, to this region, to his school, to my friends, to the ancient nooks and crannies around me. I can have boy friend problems anywhere; I can have co-worker quarrels anywhere; I can have difficult lessons anywhere. But, if I moved away, I would lose so much that I love.

Turkey is not always an easy place to live, but for me, it has a good balance. The friends I have made here are kind, supportive, witty, generous. My school likes me, supports me, respects me. The food is amazing and healthy and very affordable. The quality of it astounds me sometimes. I have learned so much in the few years I have been here, unlike ghost's assertion that Turkey is a mindless waste of time. I have been learning a language in an intense immersion situation so I am able to pick up so many local nuances and accents. I have learned to cook new things I had never even heard of three years ago. I have had intense discussions about politics, culture, identity, religion, music, art, history, literature. I have travelled around ancient cities and visited homes that have been continuously inhabited for centuries. There is a Roman tomb behind a bus stop in our city center, and the world's first teaching hospital (1203 ad) in a park by Almer dept store. As a History major at university, this is right up my academic alley. A Turkish friend of mine, a hat-maker who taught himself english through tapes and books and a lot of dedication, has spent many Sundays driving around to ancient sites with me, looking at half excavated 4000 year old villages and burial mounds. This is not available to me in Canada.

Turkey isn't easy... but once you get the rhythm, once you begin to understand things, it becomes easier. I'm no more bored/annoyed/disrespected/frustrated here than I was in Canada, Britain, Eire, South Africa, France, the US, Ghana... hell, most of Europe, both East and West..... It's just different.

[richard ame]

Thanks Yaramaz, I think you said a lot more elequentlythe whole point of coming and staying in this country than I had the chance to earlier on .Perhaps I knew a certain poster was going to respond and he seems to have made his mind up no matter what we say ,he may find a different set of values in another place but I predict that because he has so much "baggage" with him history will repeat it self. After such a short time he seems to have discovered the meaning of life as we know it and is now going to peddle it somewhere else ,good luck !
Theresa once again remember the vast majority of us are not disenchanted with life in the Turkish Republic ,we stay because we want to not because we have to . Ghost is the glaring exception ,don't be poisoned by him .