Job Discussion Forums

[massiveg]

[quote="PC Parrot"]That voice sounds familiar.[/quote

Spot on Parrot

[dagi_1]

[quote="massiveg"]How often do you see the Turkish teachers planning lessons or cutting and pasting? How often do you see them doing anything other than gap fills and writing on the board and having the students copy? How often do you see them getting the students speaking in class? How many of them are improving their qualifications and by that I don't mean doing a crappy MA from a Turkish uni that is just multiple choice and a copied thesis? How many of them attend conferences or read anything? How many of them are doing the DELTA? No money but they can afford to smoke. Most of them don't deserve any extra pay and have no interest in teaching.[/quote]

Of course it depends where you work and I'm sure there are plenty of bad Turkish teachers as well. The schools I worked for, my Turkish colleagues did work hard; but I was talking about teachers of all subjects.
And of course, there are also fantastic TEFL teachers who really get into it, start to like what they do and are excellent at it.
As for the rest, what you describe I've seen in all kind of teachers, not just Turkish teachers and not only in TEFL teachers.

And fill in the gaps, multiple choice, copy & paste? :-) sounds exactly like the U.S. school system to me :-)

[cartago]

There's nothing wrong with multiple choice exams really but in the US they normally have a few essay questions at least which I think is a pretty good idea. I think in Turkey it's all multiple choice, even at top exams but I could be wrong about this.

[massiveg]

There is a lot wrong with multiple choice questions. They usually jump around like a pin ball machine from topic to topic and have no psychological reality. They give everyone a false sense of security and in no way mean that the poor sod can read, write, speak or listen.