Job Discussion Forums

[Boy Wonder]

A mixture of poor planning/bloody mindedness/avant garde bohemianism and generally by not paying heed to advice to the contrary I have found myself thick in the middle of life at a common or garden TEFL McLanguage school.

Wow is life with Wall Street/Inlingua/Benedict/English Opening (delete as applicable) a mind blower!

I didn't realise places like this still existed...only read about them in Charles D.i.c.k.e.n.s books and pamphlets by the UK Home Office on how not to run a business.

In the past I always avoided applying to such places like the plague but decided they couldn't really be as bad as reputation has suggested. I mean if they were that appalling they wouldn't be able to stay open.....WOULD THEY?

Anyway I wonder if there are any survivors from the wreckage that is your average run of the mill McLanguage establishment?

Did it put you off TEFL and are you now running a bakery/dog kennel or working down the local job centre?

Did you scarper ASAP once you realised they weren't in the slightest bit bothered about you or your teaching methods?

Or are you still there plugging away at inadequate course books lining the pockets of your corporate employers?

What, if you are still compus mentus, was the experience that summed up your school and your treatment by your caring, sharing employer.

Or am I alone out here...lost in a world of nodding dogs and frequent resignations.

[ls650]

I worked for an EF in Indonesia; you have to start somewhere....
It wasn't too bad.

[dyak]

[Moore]

I worked for Inlingua (as it was the only place hiring in the small town I was living in, honest!) and it actually wasn�t a bad experience teaching-wise. I�ve never taught for any of the others, but Inlingua�s method is actually excellently thought out and structured, and a teacher can learn a lot from "reverse engineering" it.

The drawbacks were that they felt they could slot any native-English monkey into a job and get the same results, and because of this flexible attitude to recruiting, the wages were consequently low, therefore staff turnover high with the inevitable morale consequences.

The other major problem with these methods is that they have pretty fixed schedules and modules, and so if a student doesn�t really understand something, he�s still "kicked upstairs": also, there�s a bit of the Henry Ford production line idea about it: if a worker drops a spanner, then the line advances so quickly then four cars are churned out without one windscreen wiper - it�s the same for this kind of teaching, if one teacher misses/badly explains/ignores one topic, then the cumulative design of these methods breaks down as the next step assumes a full understanding of the preceding ones and as it�s inflexible, the teacher cannot go back over it again.

I have to say though, that all in all it was a positive experience for the twelve months I worked there: as is often said, you learn most when you see something been done badly.

[El Llama]

[Roger]

I don't agree to lumping Inlingua together with genuine language mills.

[ls650]

Remember, these are franchise operations. How well the school works is up to the owner; some do a good job, while others don't.

[Boy Wonder]

Roger..whether you agree or not is completely irrelevant.
Inlingua is a McLanguage School..and proudly so.

Celta or Tesol unneccessary..being a native speaker of English unneccessary.. experience unneccessary....individual ability of thought unneccessary...their schools,training and methodology cover the whole spectrum of shoddiness and the call centre mentality that go with McLanguage Schools.

In the League tables of high staff turnover TEFL schools Inlingua would be up there with the best of them.

I don't have time to write more right now as I am in the middle of my 8 hr teaching day and my 34 hr teaching week.
If that ain't McLanguage School timetabling I don't know what is!!