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Getting the balance right!
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What kind of employee is more preferable to a school?
Someone with 2 years local experience
66%
 66%  [ 10 ]
Someone with extensive globetrotting experience
33%
 33%  [ 5 ]
Total Votes : 15

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coledavis



Joined: 21 Jun 2003
Posts: 1838

PostPosted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 3:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ahem, that's not many votes, Sashadroogie. Looks like apathy, not the usual 109% voting I expect in this here farm.
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nyah nyah! Still twice as many voted for the single correct version of the truth than for the globetrotters!

But I do take your point about the general lack of ardour being shown on the forum. Perhaps the usual incentives and persuasion are in order...?
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coledavis



Joined: 21 Jun 2003
Posts: 1838

PostPosted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 4:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

We need to visit the kolkhoz, again and again and again.
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 6:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

More days to celebrate National Unity!
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nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world

PostPosted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 7:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

denise wrote:
If you want to move into better teaching jobs, you need the kind of experience that those jobs will require. Working at a university in China or Korea could get you a Middle East university job, if you sell it correctly and if it did truly include academic teaching. You don't have the local experience, but you do have the teaching experience.

I'm with Denise on this one. Instead of focusing on whether a candidate is local or globetrotting and the number of years of teaching, what about the "quality" of that experience?

Depending on the teaching situation, employers generally prefer candidates who are proactive and versatile---who can do more than just teach. In other words, indicating diversity and growth within that experience. For someone looking to develop as a teacher within their current teaching situation, that could mean taking on other responsibilities by facilitating a teacher development workshop or presenting at TESOL conferences; getting involved in developing/designing tests, materials, or curriculum; suggesting and teaching a specialty (ESP) course; revising or creating the teachers' handbook; continuing their education in an academic or professional development program/course; etc. And this can be accomplished as they continue to add years to their teaching experience.
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coledavis



Joined: 21 Jun 2003
Posts: 1838

PostPosted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 8:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Agreed, but as I'm having a stand-up fight with Spiral and Sashadroogie, I want to enlist it as an argument in favour of the experienced internationalist. Who is more likely to have developed these skills, the person who has stayed in the same place, slunk around the all the gin-traps and bars (you can see I'm trying to practise world-class objectivity here) or the person who has had to adapt to different schools and countries for several years. Surely some of that experience must have rubbed off? Even if the guy/gal (oh no, sounding like Sir Jimmy now) is lazy, they must have got something out of it!
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Perilla



Joined: 09 Jul 2010
Posts: 792
Location: Hong Kong

PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This has all gone a bit silly ...
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coledavis



Joined: 21 Jun 2003
Posts: 1838

PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, we do silly sometimes. No, not sometimes; a lot.
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kpjf



Joined: 18 Jan 2012
Posts: 385

PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

scot47 wrote:
Korean experience on a CV would lead me - and many others - to file it in the waste paper basket. Not always the case, though. At the moment kFUPM in Korea has lots of teachers with Korean experience.


You say not always, but can I ask why people do that? Is it because it is easy to get a job there, or is it that the actual job there isn't useful teaching experience for other Asian countries? I haven't taught in South Korea but have been considering there or Japan, but wonder from what you say would Korea be not good for me wanting to gain experience as an ESL teacher in Asia.

Thanks.
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coledavis



Joined: 21 Jun 2003
Posts: 1838

PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 12:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, when you consider employers who are willing to take on people with negligible qualifications, as mentioned on some threads, then their jobs are probably not what most people consider 'real teaching'.
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 12:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It is unfair, but the assumption is that a teacher with just experience in various countries in the Far East will not have any real skills in teaching. As in, they won't know how to teach vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation,the four skills etc. Basic classroom skills like eliciting, concept-checking, instructions-giving, giving feedback, correction technique etc. etc. all are new territory. Using a course book, developing a course, evaluating learner progress - all would be beyond them too. And this general lack of ability is considered a natural consequence of depending on an assistant local teacher for all the hard parts of teaching, and just being a human tape-recorder, or worse, a class clown.

As I said at the start, this is unfair, in my opinion, as I have worked with many excellent teachers who started off there, or went there mid-way through their careers to make some cash. Yet, the problem remains that there is more than a grain of truth in some of these assumptions for a great many teachers who have filtered through that region of the world.
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kpjf



Joined: 18 Jan 2012
Posts: 385

PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 2:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

coledavis wrote:
Well, when you consider employers who are willing to take on people with negligible qualifications, as mentioned on some threads, then their jobs are probably not what most people consider 'real teaching'.


Thanks for the comment. But, would the same be true for Japan? I guess at the moment Japan/Korea would be my only two choices in Asia. I thought Japan might be a little harder than Korea to get a job.

Sashadroogie wrote:

And this general lack of ability is considered a natural consequence of depending on an assistant local teacher for all the hard parts of teaching, and just being a human tape-recorder, or worse, a class clown.


Thanks for the comments Sasha. I thought this was only for ALT/JET positions? However, I have no first-hand experience to know if this is true or not.

It's a fear of mine what you say and I'm always interested in improving my ability to explain grammar as a teacher, as at first it can be difficult. Therefore, I wouldn't really want to be working somewhere where those skills lay dormant, for then to accept a job in Europe later in life and be out of my depth (I'm from the UK by the way). However, I'm sure in many situations in the classroom in Japan or Korea students will ask you a grammatical question, or you do a particular topic and you inevitably have to explain some grammatical point, no?

There aren't so many European countries I want to teach in and after having lived in Spain and currently in France I don't really want to work in either country. So, apart from a few European cities, Asia seems to be the logical choice.
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scot47



Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343

PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A hundred years from now it will not matter.
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Perilla



Joined: 09 Jul 2010
Posts: 792
Location: Hong Kong

PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This anti-Korea thing is nonsense. Of course there are some dodgy jobs and teachers there but it would be completely irrational to label all Korean jobs and teachers in such a way. FWIW I taught for two years in Korea and it was no hindrance (far from it) when I came to HK.

As with the OP in this thread, any decent employer will look at the merits of an applicant based on their quals and experience. The variables are immense, making it absurd to generalise.
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johnslat



Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear Perilla,

"This anti-Korea thing is nonsense. Of course there are some dodgy jobs and teachers there but it would be completely irrational to label all Korean jobs and teachers in such a way."

Totally agree - but that doesn't change the way it often is, the reality. However, in a "turnabout is fair play" kind of way, many teachers who worked in Saudi for a while often find they have a similar difficulty when applying for jobs in other places after they leave. It tends to work that way in the UAE and the US (that I know of) and probably in some other places as well.

Regards,
John
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