Job Discussion Forums

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

Well, I'm happy, then.

americanjoe · Joined: 07 Apr 2015 Posts: 42

I'm new here, and it'll annoy some to say the following but that's ok w/me.

I've worked as a high school teacher and as a Lecturer in English, as an English Instructor and also as an ESL Instructor in various universities to use some the titles I was given that I recall.

To me, simply put, you are less "free" to institute personal preference in instruction in the ESL world.
You are given books and workbooks and are assigned and monitored quite closely to follow the course outline compared to what I would simply call "teaching school."

And to me, there is also a difference in the training (and the educational philosophy) between those who have degrees in ESL, Toefl, EFL etc etc. and those, like me, who have been trained as public school teachers and are certified in individual states.

As public school teachers, there is an unstated philosophy that student encouragement can be facilitated by the use of grades.
Also, the fact is that as an ESL etc teacher, you simply do not have as much control of the curriculum used in the classroom as you do as a schoolteacher.
And, tellingly, you have far less control over the grading criteria used, which I think is what scandalizes so many of you over a teacher using extra credit as a way to ensure a deserving student passes a course.

Simply put, you are less supervised as a public schoolteacher than as an ESL etc teacher.

Both have pluses and minuses.

The nice thing about the university ESL gig is that you don't have to deal with parents and the Parent-Teacher conferences. There is, simply put, less requirements on the teachers. Also, you are in a foreign country, which can be a plus... to some.

But the nice thing about school teaching is that you have a union and getting fired after tenure becomes very, very difficult for the administration. In most cases for severe discipline issues you are just reassigned to a different school.

Personally, I find teaching college to be just a hell of a lot less work than teaching school.

johnslat · Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 1:25 am Post subject:

Interesting anecdotal experiences - but having taught ESL in a community college setting for the past 12 years, I'd say that it's quite the opposite.
ESL teachers in my experience have much more control of the curriculum than public school teachers. And they have complete contol over the grading.
But this is based only on my personal experience. I can't generalize from that to making sweeping statements about all ESL teachers and all public school teachers.

americanjoe · Joined: 07 Apr 2015 Posts: 42

Well, everybody can have different experiences I suppose.

I was cross certified due to reciprocity from BYU in Hawaii (where I graduated) and Utah.
Alaska had me complete 6 Alaska specific additional graduate credits (Alaska history +3 and "Communication in the Cross Cultural Classroom: Athabascan Language Concentration" +3) to gain state certification so I could teach there.
My grade level was 9- 12 and the certificate was designated "Secondary English".

Out of curiosity, what states were you certified in, the grade level and the certification area?

johnslat · Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 1:57 am Post subject:

Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, and Missouri: License: Secondary; Endorsement: Language Arts.

americanjoe · Joined: 07 Apr 2015 Posts: 42

Did each state have different requirements for certification?

What I mean is did Florida require you to have taken a different sequence of classes than Colorado, or did they just let you teach with an out-of-state teacher's certificate?

Did all 4 states list your endorsement as "Secondary; Endorsement: Language Arts" or did each state vary in terminology?

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

americanjoe · Joined: 07 Apr 2015 Posts: 42

So then you have never granted a student an extra point outside of the established rubric for an exceptional effort, such as while grading a quiz, essay or mid term you didn't boost the grade even .5 point because of a student's exceptional progress in an area such as vocabulary usage or "neatness"?

johnslat · Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 2:48 am Post subject:

I gave every student the grade their work merited. When a Saudi director would ask ne to "help" a student, I would tell him that I couldn't do that. But I would also add that since he was the director, he could obviously do whatever he wanted.

americanjoe · Joined: 07 Apr 2015 Posts: 42

And I am sure Saudi deans from Al Jouf to Jeddah still speak in hushed tones of reverence of the "Great White teacher who would not break the holy student grading covenant"... Laughing

johnslat · Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 3:58 am Post subject:

It's called integrity. You might need a dictionary.

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

johnslat · Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 3:57 pm Post subject:

"What I mean is did Florida require you to have taken a different sequence of classes than Colorado, or did they just let you teach with an out-of-state teacher's certificate?

Did all 4 states list your endorsement as "Secondary; Endorsement: Language Arts" or did each state vary in terminology?"
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Each state had different requirements and they were all done at different times.

I was Florida certified before I wen overseas to Iran in 1978, I was certified in Missouri and Colorado when I was on "breaks" from Saudi, and it seemed likely that I'd eventually return to one of those states for repatriation.

But eventually, I ended up here in New Mexico, where I got my "final certification."
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Were they all 'License: Secondary; Endorsement: Language ArtS?"

I know that's the New Mexico one, not sure about the others, which were done in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

I still have copies somewhere in my file cabinets, though, and, if you send me $20 for the time and trouble it'll take to dig them out, I'll be happy to let you know. Very Happy

And the funny thing - all those licenses and certifications turned out to be of little use to me since I ended up here at a community college where my Master's degree, is all I need to teach. A lot of not totally (I did teach secondary for a while in all 4 states) but in large measure, wasted time and effort.

Nizwa Survivor · Joined: 11 Apr 2015 Posts: 1

American Joe,

The reason you got in trouble for adjusting grades is because that is Dr. "___"'s job to do that. Did you miss that somehow? I never had more than 3 or 4 students legitimately pass their semesters when I submitted their grades into that ridiculous database, but magically, after the lunatics who run the asylum at Unizwa would "release" the official grades, more than half of my classes somehow always managed to pass. Hmmm....

Unizwa was a NIGHTMARE if you lived anywhere near the construction zone around Lulu's. I went home with concrete dust and toxins in my lungs because of that (that and the illegal burning of plastic waste which took place after midnight out back of Firq).

The students were indeed great, but as long as the plagiarizing "poison dwarf" is allowed to rule the place, its days are numbered.