Job Discussion Forums

[tofuman]

A recent poster stated that his school charges each student an additional 500 RMB per term or year to take classes from an FT. Figuring 8 classes of fifty each term, the money is significant.

Can anyone substantiate this practice? Is it true that an FT can generate additional hundreds of thousands of RMB each year for the school?

If it is true, why are schools willing to turn away an FT rather than pay him or her an extra thousand or so monthly?

[Shan-Shan]

Could be because there will be someone willing to take the job minus the 1000RMB asked by another teacher.

I'm not sure if you read my post on the two teachers here being let go for purportedly having too high of an academic background. The one with the PhD also factored in to the "let go equation" that he had demanded being payed overtime for two classes he took on mid-semester, pay which was never given. By banging his wrench a few times on the Machines, and sending mild vibrations up to the assistant supervisor's office, the teacher thought the factory asked him to leave. Too much disturbance on otherwise lazy afternoons.

I use this little anecdote to illustrate that there are even PhD holders out there who will work for free. Universities surely know this, and are willing to hold out for these enlightened individuals, and the sweat they are willing to spill cheaply for the "Development of China" (the greatest cause of 'em all!). And as the development of Korea, Japan and Taiwan are far ahead, these development groupies all come to China. The universities only have to sit back, and wait for the eventual bite on the school's offer.

[Roger]

This is commonly practised at public middle and primary schools, often also at kindergartens; FTs are hired for extra-curricular activities.

It has to be borne in mind that many schools - see that post in the thread on New Oriental English School - employ FTs not as pure "instructors" or "teachers" but as "facilitators" or "practitioners" of English. I have been railing against the artificial dividision of labour between local and imported teachers along such parochial lines as "local qualified teachers" versus "foreign, perhaps qualified, perhaps not qualified, teachers".

[vikdk]

duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm kinda thick - but ya think most of yous would be here if they didn't make money out of us
money aint the problem - more like the gullible twerps who will do anything for nothing that really get this business to stink

[Super Mario]

To the OP: Yes, they do charge more for FT run classes. That's why we get paid a lot more than the locals.
But if we keep it among ourselves that many FTs can't teach and don't care, jobs are safe.

[Leon Purvis]

[william wallace]

nil

[Shan-Shan]

We all know that the Chinese English teachers are just Test Preparation Bots; they don't teach English, they teach "how-to-choose-the-best-answer-on-an-English-test" type English. They follow an approach of "I'll tell you what will be on the test". That is their teaching method.

When many FTs come to the podium, or orbit around the classroom, they are already at a severe disadvantage. If there is no "real" exam for the course, the students see no point to the classs. And as for outside the classroom use of English, the students can ask themselves, "when will we have to use English: this is China! Besides, everyone around the world is learning Chinese, right? The newspapers all report that the world is in love with China and the HSK exam, right?!" So if a student has no plans/means to go abroad, what good is the FT class? Should the same student have a CET exam, the Chinese teacher's class has a purpose. It might be more boring than the FT's class (and if it isn't, the FT shouldn't be at the school), but the Chinese teacher's class brings with it much more importance. The students have exams to pass, not a language to learn and enjoy.

I also dislike this branding of English into "Oral" classes and "English" classes (writing, listening, reading). When I learned/resisted French many years ago in high-school, we wrote, spoke, listened, and read in one class. If FTs are hired because Chinese teachers, the great majority of them at least, would be utterly incompetent at teaching people how to open their mouthes and articulate sounds, what makes them any better at teaching listening, reading and writing? If you can't write, aurally understand, speak and read a language, how can you claim to "know" that language?

FTs receive little respect in the Oral English Teacher role partly because they are preceived as being deaf and illiterate. They "just get the students to speak...get the students to practice". Chinese teachers dump disparite English grammar rules and vocabualary into students heads; FTs are expected, without doing something as nasty as teaching, to put the pieces together for the students. We are sometimes just the schmoes who sweep up the mess of the Chinese English teachers.

I know that many here, including myself, are conscious teachers: we plan each lesson with specific linguistic and cognitive objectives, evaluate our own lessons to improve on areas that were weak, and read up on new approaches to language teaching just to make the job more interesting and effective for students. We are aware all the time, and not just yapping in English as an excuse for teaching.

However, were I student, forced to study English whether I liked it or not, and I didn't have any plans to go abroad or work for Mr. Smith in Shanghai or Beijing, I probably wouldn't give a damn about Steve's or Andy's Oral English class. It's ingrained in students' heads that the Chinese teacher has knowledge about an exam, and is passing that knowledge down to the students, who, in turn, might do the same for a future generation of CET, TOEFL, or IELTS takers. The FT just puts a face to English -- always laughing, smiling, telling jokes and playing games.

I remember the first day of class with a group of graduate students. At the end, I asked if there were any suggestions they would like to make for the course. Only one student responded:

"Could you not stand all the time. My previous FT liked to sit on the desks, and tell stories. He was cool and funny".


My forehead ached for days after that comment.