Job Discussion Forums

[hellohowareyou]

I taught in Slovakia last year (2004-2005). As it's a small country i thought I'd post up my experiences regarding my school and the country for anyone who's considering working there in the future.

I worked at International House Bratislava which had just changed from being a branch of the Caledonian School Prague. It was good experience, at the same time i don't reccommend it. I know that in setting up a new school there are always teething problems and a process of adjustment to take place, still there were aspects of my time there which I wasn't happy with.

The job was advertised and was still being advertised whilst I was at the school with 21 teaching hours. In reality most of the teachers there were working between 26-30 teaching hours a week. (I see that has now been corrected.) On top of that was time travelling between lessons. Very few of the lessons were actually in the school - most of the teaching was in-company teaching. At one point I was doing somewhere between 12 and 15 hours a week of travelling to lessons on public transport, on top of the teaching hours. Particulary with those teachers who were starting their EFL career, burnout was a factor. Perversely I actually enjoyed travelling on the Bratislava public transport system (I could be in a minority of one on this!) but the cumulative effect was very tiring. Early starts every morning (7.15 or 7.30 lesson starts) plus usually teaching Mon-Thurs until 6pm made you feel real tired when you did get home in the evening.

Salary was derisory, around 10-12,000 SK. Everywhere else I have worked or applied to work in has had far better salary comparisons. It was particularly motivating during the teaching year to hear how those who had previously been working at the former incarnation of the school had every month walked away with at least 16-17,000 SK. Not directly the school's fault but still doesn't do much for making you feel nothing but cattle. I was left between the frying pan of not having much disposable income and the fire of taking private lessons which make you even more tired. Holiday allowance was very good, 25 days - though you had to compulsorarily take a chunk of this at Xmas.

The students were on the whole enjoyable. Most wanted to learn, no chronic learning problems. Class sizes were very good, I taught on average 3-4 students per class, biggest class was around 10-12 people. Lots of business English teaching, which can be quite depressing. The observation / teaching framework was pretty liberal. The school was very cramp, one rectangular office for all 30-40 teachers to work in and plan lessons with 3 computers (often broken or breaking) to share between them. Somehow it worked. Accommodation for teachers was pretty poor, though that may be the country average.

Generally, one would leave the working week sufficiently tired that the weekend would not be long enough to decompress. I've listened and read to many people's impressions of Bratislava, and my conclusion is you make of it what you want/can. It's not a particularly charming city (once you have walked round the reconstructed old town enough times that you are bored of it), and it can be quite boring and grey at times. There are far more interesting cities. Particularly in winter, it can feel like smallville, separated from the rest of the world. Vienna being nearby is helpful, and Budapest too. I chose to come here because it was a good base for travelling to Prague, Bohemia, Vienna, Budapest, Krakow, etc and it's location is perfect. The people in the country are variable, there seems to be somewhat of a very clear cut generation gap : the older generation tend to be a lot more nervous and often unpleasant, occasionally petty. The country has what seems to be a real identity problem, and politically and socially an insularity based on a lack of confidence.

Two things that really irritated me that seemed to sum my time up in Slovakia. I've never been to an airport where when you go to the baggage reclaim you have to insert a coin (a Slovak coin) into the trolley in order to use it. How many foreigners arriving in Slovakia will have Slovak currency on them, and coins at that? Secondly, in winter (and we had a mild winter so I hear) when it's freeezing and the snow's coming down, you're standing at the bus stop with the bus waiting 10 metres away, waiting empty for 15 minutes, the bus driver reading a paper because he refuses to pull up to the bus stop until the precise minute of departure. I've never seen that anywhere else either.

On the other side of it, they have wonderful honey cake, mednovik, yum! A fantastic Beatles revival act - go to the Jazz Cafe in the old town on Venturska Ulica every other Saturday night (like I would imagine going to the Cavern Club in the 60's was). Lots of nice castles, lots of cafes. would have liked to have seen more of the countryside, particularly the Eastern part of the country, but I never really got round to it, for various reasons. Though I've heard it's very beautiful, great for hiking.

I'm happy I worked there for the positive things that I saw and experinced, and also because now my standards are a lot higher, I couldn't work their again. For me, the time I've spent in Poland has been a lot better, I would recommend Poland as a much more attractive destination and I've heard good things about Hungary too.

[mick_luna]

Hey, thanks for your posting about Bratislava. I did some time in the Czech, 99 and 2000, liked it but found it over populated with expats, oversaturated. What is poland like? what have you heard about hungary and other places? i'm hearing about the Ukraine, Belgrade, etc. as offering good opportunities. (I'm a freelance artist/writer/ESL teacher)
cheers
Mick
www.exotica.freeservers.com