Job Discussion Forums

[Elle_J]

Hi everyone,

I've recently been offered a position as an English Teacher at Al Khobar Female College.

Does anybody currently work there? Or for esg Saudi?

Thanks,

Lou

[DynoButch1]

...

[nomad soul]

This is one of the Colleges of Excellence. They're vocational schools, so don't expect academically-minded students.
http://coe.com.sa/CollegesDE.aspx?ID=29

[water rat]

[Elle_J]

Hi guys,

Thank you so much for your responses! I'm in the process of applying for English Teacher positions in Saudi, so do you think I should steer clear from vocational colleges? Are there any good ones?

[nomad soul]

[Elle_J]

Thanks NS!

Well, my Bachelor degree isn't TEFL related but I hold a CELTA with just under 4 years EFL work experience. Shall I still try my luck with universities/direct employers?

[BajaLaJaula]

Water Rat...you are absolutely correct!! I wish more educators had this same attitude about teaching.
Seems as though too many TEFLers have forgotten what teaching is all about....LEARNING.
They want to spend their time showing off to students that they have more grammar knowledge and can diagram a sentence better than anyone else.
How many students need to know how to diagram a sentence and explain the parts of speech? They need to learn spoken English. Granted some grammar (limited) is needed to learn to write correctly.

Instructional Model % of Retention
Lecture 5%
Audiovisuals 20%
Demonstration 30%
Discussion 50%
ROLE-PLAY 75%
TEACHING OTHERS 90%

How do you measure success? By teaching students silly grammar tricks, or by helping students to speak more English than they did when they started your course?

[veiledsentiments]

[Elle_J]

Thanks VS!

With regards to salary, they're offering me 15500SAR. I don't know but this seems quite reasonable for a single female. What do you guys think? Laureate had offered me 11000SAR

[nomad soul]

[Elle_J]

Yeah, I'm aware the salary is based on your qualifications and work experience, but for BA+CELTA+3.5 years of experience, is that salary reasonable?

[veiledsentiments]

Without an MA, that is probably the best you could expect. Men have more higher pay options than women teachers.

VS

[Tammy SJ]

Hie

Are you still interested in going to work for esg? Because like with any start-up, there is a litany of problems, some of which are compounded by a lack of management structures. If you are prepared to have someone's foot on your neck while you try to do your job with little to no support/resources/time for planning, come on over. I think you might like to know that on average, 11 teachers are off sick every day and within the last 3 months, more than 20 teachers have resigned. This should give you some measure of what working there is like. A 6-hour teaching day with no time for planning is exhausting especially given the fact that you are expected to do all the mountain of admin in your own time.

[Stallion]

I am not looking forward to going to work tomorrow because of the various issues affecting my well being at work , I am waiting for the end of trimester to quit working for esgsa at al Khobar. I know pple always say that it's the unhappy ones that turn to social media , this is right and its cos we are unhappy we feel the need to let others know about these things so they can be informed and not scare anyone .
The reasons that have made come to this decision are ;
- esgsa is a British company operating in Saudi but it's more Saudi than the Saudi companies, doesn't show any Britishness in how it operates in Saudi which is a shame because these Arabs look up to westerners .
- HR are supposed to be the heart of any company meaning most proffesional, at esgsa it's the opposite the performance of the employees in the HR dept leaves a lot to desire excuse the Arab admin but the western admin have no clue about the expectations of a HR dept, they are not even good at maintaining staff records, which made be believe the rumours that one of the HR admin was a wedding planner which means no HR experience.
- Esgsa being new in the country didn't do any research into what they were getting involved with . They have the highest staff turnover due to not treating pple right . We are so short staffed which means that the few of us still here have to teach large classes this is even against CoE policy.
- When we approach anyone for information we are referred to the so called share point for answers unfortunately most the folders are empty so then you have no information a very Saudi practise that they have adopted well.
- They came up with an idea of creating email address for any problems that a teacher might have which never materialised as there is no one to check the inbox for the few that were provided all the practises unfortunately are so adhoc and made up as they go along.
- Being a British company one would have thought that they would have the best accommodation for their employees but all their colleges have very sub standard accommodation with jobs done to a very poor standard by the Saudi landlords .
- All in all esgsa isn't a good employer , I thought being a British company it would be better than the other recruiters in Saudi but it turns out those recruiters were better. I haven't heard of any teacher at any of the colleges who is really happy , something that may be interserve need to look into because they bought esgsa or even CoE because this bad treatment affects the development of their colleges .