Job Discussion Forums

[31]

[calsimsek]

O.K now you two have to put an end to this. We are lossing people and we'er being locked out. So far two threads have been looked. How long befor this is locked.
I have had and still have a few problems with E/T mostly to do with the pay rate they have set. Yet I try not to make it personal.
Attacking each other will not win any support for this forum.
We all have to cool it. At times Ghost get my back up, yet I now I have to control myself.
It's time that 31 and Molly should think of doing the same thing.

[31]

Well said Calsimsek. You may have noticed that I haven`t replied to her last post and will not do so. I have tried over and over to bury the hatchet but to no avail.

[molly farquharson]

I know where you're trying to bury the hatchet. You have been on the attack every since you reincarnated from the other username, not only to ET and me, but to many other people.

Thanks for your support otterman

[preston]

But 31, why did you defend English slime so much when you started posting here? What happened to make you change your mind?

[31]

[whynotme]

[31]

[ghost]

31 - it would seem almost impossible for you to work under the employ of Molly Farquharson - if you really work there, she would have found out who you were a long time ago.

You are spinning a tall story, but one doubts very much that you work there under her direction. Extremely unlikely.

If this is not the case, then you are a very clever and skillful person and good at concealing your true intentions at work.

[31]

If this is not the case, then you are a very clever and skillful person and good at concealing your true intentions at work.[/quote]

Thank-you.

[gypsy67]

Well, thank God I teach privately so I can avoid all this nonsense. However...Molly, would you consider two and a half years of tutoring good experience? 31's constant infantile rants make me want to see what the sweatshop looks like on the inside.

[31]

Gypsy:

We may not be the greatest bunch of teachers but we cannot accept someone who cannot even pull a 31 properly. I am afraid your two and a half years of privates, no matter how magnificent, make abolutely no difference to gaining employment. Perhaps if you had said you could start tomorrow or were willing to work for 12 YTL an hour and had not written that rather crass post about fractal geometry we could have accepted you.

Enjoy your privates.

[justme]

[31]

[quote="justme"
He may be clever and skillful, but if he's expressing these sentiments to his co-workers, he probably doesn't stand out, since they're all probably saying the same things.

I am very cautious at work but you are right. Everyone complains and gossips like there`s no tomorrow at work.

Hourly pay vs. salary is a big part of the problem. I think people are more inclined to be 'altruistic' on a salary.

Again I think this is the biggest problem. On an hourly salary you have no security and cannot plan your finances. Holidays are a punishment and you know that the summer means poverty.

If I'm getting paid by the hour, and only for classroom hours but not preparation time, I'm going to do everything in my power to reduce preparation time. Really, once you've taught a book all the way through once or twice, it just isn't neccessary to 'prepare' anything special-- you can kill the lesson hours just fine, and the students will be none the wiser. If they complain, you just tell them they're wrong, and since most of them wouldn't know quality teaching if it bit them in the ass, you can get away with it. And even though you theoretically want to do a good job and be professional, they aren't paying you enough money or respect to bother. How can you be professional when you know you are paid and treated as a dispensible customer service provider?

That is what we are. Just like part time workers at Mc Donalds, but at least they aren`t working illegally.

If you leave, another will soon fill your place. One doesn't get degrees and certificates to work waiting tables or pouring coffee, but the way most language schools are set up, and they way they pay and design contracts specifically not in the teacher's favor, teaching is little more than wage labor. If the school doesn't show some altruism, why should the teachers?

Totally agree with you. They say that they are working on the work permits but none of us believe them. They want it that way.

In my current situation (not a langauge school, though), the salary and working conditions are good, so I really bust my ass planning extra lessons and preparing extra materials, including working for at least a couple of hours at home each night and several hours on the weekends. I don't mind, because I can see the benefits to the students, and I feel that my efforts are appreciated by the administration. The adequate compensation doesn't hurt either. The teachers are treated as professionals, not as wage slaves, and their resulting work is more professional.

That`s great.

Offering a few 'professional workshops' that teachers are expected to attend in their own time, perhaps travelling to a different branch to do so, does not make them feel like professionals. It makes them feel like schoolchildren.

Exactly. Yet they criticise us for being negative about it.

And it's true teachers don't bring many concerns to management, but I think this is because we know the management can't really do much. We know managers like Molly are advocating for us, but we also know there isn't a whole lot they can do-- their bosses are looking after the money and that's it. The bosses may be nice and good-intentioned, but they're businesspeople, and the schools are essentially businesses. Which I'm sure is a problem that all schools, even up to Harvard, contend with. If your school is a business, what exactly is the product? A quality education or the school itself? To what extent are the consumers students and to what extent are they customers?

She says bring concerns to her but if you do you are a marked man.

I really don't know much about ET. I've known several people who work there and it seems average compared to other schools, in terms of pay, conditions, and quality of education. However, I still maintain that as the most widespread (and seemingly fastest growing) language school in the city, they have a responsibilty, both to teachers and students, to set the norm (raise the bar) and become better than average, in hopes of creating a competition that other schools will be forced to keep up with.

They are ruining efl in Istanbul and they are expanding countrywide.

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

Unlocked, but only as long as it stays on topic and free of personal attacks and petty bickering.