Job Discussion Forums

[KES]

[vikdk]

[vikdk]

[cj750]

vikdk wrote

[vikdk]

duhhhhhhhhhhhh - CJ750 - hasn't it ever occured to you that these arguments and discussions might have something to do with the topic of raising standard rather that trying to shed pent-up feelings of inadequacy - your last paragraph reflects how many of us define the McCrapness of EF and other chains - so why use all that psuedoshrink shiite to finaly get it of your chest

By the way I've been the proud owner of BJ2020 for almost 2 years now (and I love her so much) - so I know all about the charm of ex-PLA crap - just glad the spares for our type of rubbish are so cheap and they can always be repaired with crudest of tools - shame you can't say the same about the kids - the kind of damage the chinese education machine hands out to then is much harder to fix

[no_exit]

You know, I bowed out of this thread a long time ago, and restrained myself from posting, and I'm probably making a big mistake by even getting involved again ... but seriously. A vehicle for travelling China? In my entire three years in China I can count the number of actual trips I've taken on one hand (visa runs don't count!). You hardly get enough time off to backpack around, not matter where you teach, except at a university, where you get an whole entire summer vacation! The backpackers generally work illegally for schools that they can ditch at a moment's notice without repercussions anyhow, and they rarely have the stamina to stick out a contract with a training center. The people who work at these places, in my experience, tend to be people new to teaching who want to gain training and experience, or people who really need to make money and don't care how hard they have to work to get it. Neither of these characteristics make them bad teachers.

The sweeping generalizations make you sound mentally imbalanced vik. No teachers are creative at EF proven by one girl's write-up from one center? Using this thread itself as an argument against EF teachers, saying no one stood up for the teaching methods of EF (because the thread was never about teaching methods in the first place, it was always about EF as a place of work)? Anyone who has any experience with training centers knows that the school is only as good as its teachers, there is no standard "EF methodology," there are good teachers and bad teachers at all schools.

I've seen far more dodgy teachers working at universities, where there is often practically no supervision or monitoring of teaching quality, than I have at training centers, where the DOS will observe your class, hold staff meetings, give you training, and provide you with resources you could never dream of having at a uni. By your logic, I could say "only crap teachers work at unis because they get a long holiday and no one bugs them about their teaching," but that would be completely untrue, a sweeping generalization of the kind that you are fond of making. Just stop it, would you? You don't like EF, any EF under the sun, they are all pure evil in your book, we all get the point. Got it ages ago. But you're sh*tting on an entire category of school and a whole bunch of teachers who simply don't deserve it, and you're only making yourself look like a crazed fanatic in the process.

Peace, I'm gonna try and not get baited into involving myself in this stupid argument again. I just don't like seeing myself and people I worked with and respected get slagged off over and over again, to be honest it really ticks me off. Grow up, and while you're at it, learn to put together a real argument, preferably something other than "OMG EF is like, McDonalds, they're corporate and bad and they make everyone into robots and the Chinese kids are all like OMG I hate EF because my mom and dad make me go there and its so unfair because they shouldn't be learning things they should be playing outside and they only have shite teaching and you're a shite teacher and this girl at EF Xian liked to travel so EF only hires backpackers and you drive a Chinese POS motorcycle and couldn't afford a BMW and you worked at EF so I win! "

[vikdk]

[KES]

[vikdk]

KES - well from that last post we at least start to get an idea of your posting agenda - but instead of attacking me why not move on to an ALTERNATIVE subject - you know EF as a progressive educational force that encourages and nutures pedagogical quality, rather than a company which seems to direct so much of its effort on profit orientated excercises - ya know like luring that cheap white labour on a promise of travel and leisure.
http://www.englishfirst.com/trt/testimonial_cn.html
'fraid no-exits accounts of work, work and more work, kinda mess that image up - KES maybe that's the kind of stuff you could write about - or are you going into your posting swansong in this thread

[KES]

[vikdk]

well KES since my speciallity is pre-school and EF have classes for this age group - so Id be perticularly interested in this kind of stuff -

. lessons which are based on encouraging the child's creative talents - with English as a pathway of instruction.

. aknowledgement of the difficulties a small child has in learning an L2 - rather than just jumping on the tired old bandwagon of promoting 4-10 as the golden years of learning where your kid can more easily learn an L2

. using teaching method where teachers are trained to use chinese language to support English learning - scaffolding principles

. how that old-chesnut - the audiolingual method - is used in EF classrooms - you know getting the student to repeat and ultimately memorise language - often with no understanding of it.

. the developmental aspects of teaching small children - how bad and inapproriate teaching at this stage can actually become the root for an individual to dislike something at a latter date - you know a nasty english experience a 5 can produce an older student who has an instant distaste for anything to do with learning English - how are the teachers of EF given special training to make sure this doesn't happen.

. the point of giving extra classes to these small kids - appart from generating extra cash????

shizer I aint writ about all sorts of stuff - like social education, child initiated learning environments, the value of edutainment, teacher qualification etc etc - but I reckon if this is getting a tired old thread then a discussion on some of the above points - and how the big market leaders in this game - like EF - are encouraging progressive teaching practice - could be just what likes of KES is looking for

[KES]

[vikdk]

[vikdk]

as a follow on to my last post - here could be a kickoff point for a discussion -
KES writes

[KES]