Job Discussion Forums

[TawtViet]

I just recently quit in the middle some training for one of the bigger schools in Japan and a friend did the same while training in a quite small school. I had thought previously that only a couple of schools like ECC and NOVA trained teachers (translated drones or puppets for the school) in "...our method and curriculumn..."
It was discouraging to see through this recent training that the claim to flexibility was pretty weak. I am hoping to make it to Thailand but have been a little delayed and am also still trying to check things out.
With so many of the schools here in Japan doing the drone thing I find myself concerned. Does this happen a lot in Thailand? I would like the freedom to use my own creativity.
* One more thing if you don't mind: I sent a letter to Thailand a long time ago and have heard nothing back. I experienced a somewhat similar postal system problem in sending one letter to both Vietnam and the Philippines. The letters to one friend each were not recieved. I am　concerned about important personal mailings if I I was living in Thailand. Japan's mail system is very dependable. It seems third world countries have some problems. How dependable is the postal system in Thailand?

[tedkarma]

Easy part first. My experience with the Thai postal system has been that it is quite unreliable. But, you will hear others say it is fine. Phuket though - has had its problems with the post office. People even caught on video stealing mail - then not fired - just transferred elsewhere?! Rely on e-mail as much as you can.

Drone teaching: Hmmm, I suspect it is a reaction to so many teachers passing through - doing their own thing - and throwing their whole system into disarray. My experience with this has been that the larger the school - the more rigid the system. Thus, I tend to like small schools.

Generally, they will have good reasons for wanting to be systematized, but you can quickly learn ways to follow the system and yet make it more interesting and useful for the students.

When you've been in the EFL system a while - you'll meet lots of people who think they were hired to teach the locals their Western culture, philosophy, style, economic system, women's rights, anti-racism, environmental goals, yada yada yada - fill in the blank . . . whatever - when in fact they were hired to teach ENGLISH. In fact if you search this board you will see many heated debates on the issue. This is most likely the reason schools get rigid about what they want.

Example:
If I was an American studying Chinese - I would quickly grow tired of the native speaker teacher from China - coming to class and pimping my culture, complaining about crime, lack of respect for elders etc etc. I certainly know that my culture and country has its problems, but I would want the teacher to teach me CHINESE. Info on the culture of course, but focus on the language.

Work around their ridgidity. Every school will have a couple quirks that can drive you nuts if you let it.

[PKB]

I definately believe in some established structure, such as defined course lessons as set out in the text book, so that at least it can be demonstrated that you are making forward progress and covering the essentials.

However, when I was taking a Japanese language course in Washington, DC at the Japan-America society one of my favorite parts was when my instructor would get all nervous and look out into the hallway to see if his boss was around and then close the door and then tell us about how Hulk Hogan was his favorite wrestler in Japan because he would say,"Ichiban!" or how he thought futons were great because when you were drunk you didn't have to worry about falling out of bed. And any slang he taught us we were more likely to remember than the text material.

I thought those 5 and 10 minute tangents were just as valuable as the structured lessons .

[TawtViet]

I can follow a textbook but want to work from it my own way. I don't want any of this: "Ok look at the picture on page 49 and act suprized. Then smile three times between 4 burps while clapping your hands. After that... " Perhaps this is a bit of an exaduration of the puppet thing but I hope it gets my reluctance across.
So creativity must be a little sneaky?
Thanks for the (scary) postal service warning.

[tedkarma]

My experience has been that once a school knows you are a reasonable teacher, doing a reasonably good job, freedom to approach learning tasks will follow.

Depending on the school and the results you get from the students, you will also often be able to select the books and materials you want for your classes.

But, most places will want you to prove yourself first (of course!). Just like any other job - or business - they will want to get to know you and trust you before they let you fiddle around with how things are done.

Another reason to seek a graduate degree - learning factories that employ hoards of BA/BS holders - will be much more rigid than universities and colleges. But they have to be - or their structure will soon be in great disarray.

[tedkarma]

TawtViet,

Here is an example of exactly what I am talking about - a post on the Korea Board today:

Integrating Social Acitivism in the classroom

Here's the content:

I will be teaching advanced level university students and am looking for ideas about raising the students awareness of environmental, political, or social/ethical/human rights issues . . .Hopefully we can tie global issues into our own region and develop activities for them to voice themselves in the local community . . . .

Hired to teach ENGLISH or "Social Activism" (though the poster can't even spell it correctly)?

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=39873

[Volodiya]

Tedkarma, I like to think of my English lessons as "life courses", with the English Language as the vehicle. However, we are, in class, first and foremost to learn the language- it's just that I select some material for it's potential to educate and inform, as well.
__________________

But,

[tedkarma]

[Volodiya]

Happy to oblige!

[Sheep-Goats]

Most schools in Thailand throw a textbook at you and ask you to do it your way. In my opinion, Japanese schools typically force their teachers into a set teaching method as a selling point to parents who know little to nothing about language acquisition. While there are few hard and fast truths in that field, it seems obvious to me that sticking soley to one method of language teaching is detrimental to the class environment (eg: boring), to devloping student thinking skills, or to offering something for everyone. However, since Japanese schools often take on bright faced fresh-grads with absolutely no teaching training, anything is an improvement.

Big offenders in the one-method-only style are so called Direct English or Callan method schools. This is an EFL practice that died out maybe a hundred years ago, and when put into practice generally yeilds student who have no capacity to think on their feet or converse in their non-native language as communication instead of as a just-get-through-it exercize. It's mind scarringly boring, to boot. Berlitz is another notorious one for this -- though it's "method" is perhaps more flexible. AUA in Bangkok (and Chiang Mai) still adheres to what's called an audiolingualism method, which is terribly flawed in many ways as well -- and it's 60 years old.

The postal system in Thailand has been, in my experience, fast, efficient and cheap. HOWEVER, have any important documents mailed to you at your apartment -- don't send them to your school. The mail carriers are competent, but the school secretaries are not. Plus, there's often a bit of foreigner resentment at the secreatary level -- sometimes fomented by Thai management. Mail for Teacher John? Oh, that goes in the "circular file..."

Customs likes to inspect incoming books for some reason. Go figure.