Job Discussion Forums

[laugh2]

Greetings Wise Colleagues,

I have a Cambridge CELTA and am 2/3 through my first year of ESL teaching at a tiny school in a smallish town in Poland. I am looking to get into a school in a city where I can try my hand at teaching a few classes of business English (my previous life was in government) and experience Polish city life.

My two questions:

How many different levels should a native-speaker ESL teacher reasonably expect to teach in this country, if there is something that could be considered typical?

What, if anything, is considered typical in terms of tech resources?

It being my first year, I am working my butt off, spending three, four, and not infrequently, up to six hours a weekday correcting tests etc, but mostly researching grammar and preparing, as the books do not always present things very clearly, in my opinion, and, of course, to include more interesting and a greater variety of practice activities than the books provide. We finished the (Polish!) book for my little kid starters long ago so I make up each class for that group from scratch. We get almost no support from the school, and, not that I expected more, but it�s pretty low-tech: we have two TVs and VCRs and one very sluggish, half-in-Polish computer for the teachers and the school owner/director, but almost no video library, no DVD player, no computers for the kids, and no overhead projector. I think some of these niceties could make the teacher�s life easier and the students who could afford the costs of a higher tech facility, happier.

Anyway, based on previous postings, it looks like I�m teaching roughly the average number of hours for Poland, (24.5 sixty minute hours in the classroom), but I don�t know how to compare the variety of levels I teach with what happens in other schools. I teach seven different groups, each at a different level, each with a different book, of course, and the ages range from 6 year-old children to people in their 50s. I like the variety. It�s great experience. But I think I might feel less harried if I had slightly less variety � at least one pair of classes at the same level, with the same coursebook � to economize on the planning time.

I want to have a realistic sense of what to expect in my job search. Do most ESL teachers in Poland have some duplication in the levels they teach? How much?

Looking forward to your feedback�..

[gregoryfromcali]