Job Discussion Forums

[mrjohndub]

It sounds like it's not a very demanding program, with very loosely defined responsibilities. Is that true?

Also, if you don't come out with an MA in TESOL, what would the MA be in? Applied Linguistics? In what way are employment prospects improved by holding an MA?

Thanks for the info.

[veiledsentiments]

It depends on where you want to teach and who will recognize their degree. It sounds to me like you would be better off getting your degree from a more recognized and accredited institution.

VS

[Gabby123]

You can get a job, but you can not get ten year without a certificate. You have to go do the certificate when you are finished with the MA--which gets pricey. Without the certificate you are the lowest on the pay scale. Think minimum wage. But English teaching jobs are plentiful in Tel Aviv. The MA is in TESOL, but it is very theory based. Almost no instruction on classroom managment and classroom procedures. This is not a teaching MA, though you can get a teaching job after the program. You will make connections in your internship to help with job placement. And yeah your right, VERY loose procedures. Varying responsibility (some have a lot of it (which can be a problem with the limited support you get), others felt like they were babysitting.) Don't bank on extra income like it is advertised. It is hard to get private students in Tel Aviv. Also a typical apartment runs about 300 dollars before utilities. They'll advertise subsidized housing, but it is not feasable. There are other teacher certificate programs where you actually student teach. Levinksy College and Kibbutzim College. Both in the same area. Good luck!

[Henry_Cowell]

[antitasp]

TESOL friends, I don't know where to start. TASP is an exploitative scam. I quit it last year, and I received a link to this thread from a friend of mine who is still in it. She is one of the six people left from the thirteen who started last year - five of us quit before the first semester was over, myself being the second.

Here's how it works. This couple (MOD EDIT) are the entire program. They're the "directors," and their barbecue buddies are the "Board" - basically, the Danks are judge, jury, and executioner. They convince individual charities, generally American Jewish organizations, to sponsor individual TASP interns in individual Tel Aviv public schools - but rather than allowing the organizations to give these funds directly to the schools in question, the money goes through TASP - i.e. the Danks. Who - get this - KEEP IT FOR THEMSELVES every chance they get. If an intern misses a day of work, the Danks keep two week's pay. Etc. During the few months that I was in TASP, the Danks went skiing in Italy twice.

Furthermore, Israeli students pay about $2,500 per year to attend Tel Aviv University. TASP interns pay $8,000. The extra money goes only to TASP - i.e. the Danks. The Danks provide no extra services for this extra money - beyond health insurance, which I'll go into later.

Our internship placements - what a crock. They told me that I wouldn't need to speak Hebrew, and they told the principal and English teacher that I was fluent in Hebrew. They told me that I'd be observing for a few weeks before I'd be asked to lead classes, and they told the principal and English teacher that I was an experienced instructor prepared to do anything they'd like. When I understood that I was going to take a group of advanced English students out of the regular class and teach them on my own, the principal and English teacher understood that the children assigned to me would remain in regular English class but be taken out of really fun things like gym or theater to work with me. Basically, there was no place for me in the school or in the kid's schedules - the Danks weren't willing to fight for a place for me, because essentially, they don't care.

I saw that I was wasting my time and money. I rarely saw my students in my "internship," and the MA classes were a complete joke - poorly organized and aimed towards no practical purpose. The professors weren't overly concerned about we American/Canadian students. I decided to quit TASP. According to the initial contracts we signed, all monies paid to the Danks were nonrefundable. I lost my $8,000, but it was worth it.

So get this. The $8,000 does include health insurance for the year; about the least inclusive health insurance I'd ever seen, but insurance nonetheless. It turns out that the Danks take your money up front for a year's worth of health insurance, but they only make monthly payments. When I quit, they stopped these monthly payments but kept the rest of my insurance money. I wouldn't have known any of this, were it not that I got borderline bronchitis/pneumonia a couple of weeks after quitting. When I went to a doctor and got prescriptions, he told me I'd better hurry and fill them because I only had insurance coverage for two more days. News to me! The Danks didn't bother to tell me that I'd soon be uninsured!

Anyway, so, for each of us who quit during the first year, the Danks pocketed $8,000. From what I hear from my friends now in their second year, who have already paid their final (non-refundable) tuition, the Danks have suddenly begun to threaten expulsion at the slightest "infractions." I could go on in this vein for pages, but it's not good for my blood pressure.

If you want to teach English in Israel, find another way.

[saynototasp]

I second everything that Antitasp said especially the part about it being bad for our blood pressure.

I would also like to add that the people I've kept in touch with since escaping tasp hell in 2004 tell me that no one who stayed in the program for the full two years actually got the degree b/c the conditions of tasp made it impossible to complete the thesis. (They were supposed to conduct research/testing/surveys on thier nonexistent students.) They wasted twice as much money as antitasp and I did. Those that wanted more time to work on their thesis had to pay for a third year.

TASP is a scam. Don't do it!!!!!!!!

[antitasp]

Saynototasp, I also second and can completely relate to everything in your post(s). It sounds like you left just before I did - my year, 2004-5, was the first that TASP was associated with Tel Aviv U.

Normally I'd be shocked to hear about an entire class being forced to pay an extra year's tuition due to a fault in the program itself, but in the case of TASP I'm totally not shocked. How typical. The Ding-Dongs (the most G-rated of the nicknames we came up with for the Danks) kept us fairly isolated from the second-year students, and it's probably because they'd tell us about things like this. %$&#...blood pressure...

Anyway, I live in Givataiim now, teach English for Berlitz in Tel Aviv and other English-related stuff on the side as well. If anyone wants to come to Israel to teach, don't come for your Masters or to make a fortune - but know that as a native English speaker, you will be able to find enough work to scrape by. This is a nice way to spend a couple of years.

[Gabby123]

It's good the truth is coming out! I would say don't do TASP. I've heard this year not much has changed, and everything has gotten worse. (MOD EDIT) Dank will no longer tell the participants the names of the board members. There are NO CHECKS and BALANCES in the program. And they are still asking for money from me! It enver ends. If you want to teach in Israel then do it through a teaching seminar or Berlitz or Wallstreet Institute. There are many more reputable programs.

[tasprefugee]

I'm so happy the truth about TASP is coming out, thanks to this forum. I also fled TASP after discovering what a scam it is. TASP reminds me of those novelties they used to sell on the back covers of comic books; X-Ray Vision Glasses, Smoke Bombs, or maybe like the Secert Decoder Ring in that movie, A Christmas Story (yes, I know, how goy of me!). Inflated claims and a sweet sales pitch are used to snag poor suckers into buying a dud.

One after another, I found that every claim made by the couple running TASP was either untrue, or barely true, and then only barely enough that the guy running TASP could safely cover his butt and claim, disingenuously, that we all knew what we were in for.

The Hebrew ulpan we were promised *before* the beginning of the school year never happened.

The subsidized housing we were offered (in either a merkaz klita - 'absorption centre' or student housing through TAU) was squalid and temporary. We were cut loose 2 or 3 months after arriving, expected to find "affordable" housing (almost impossible) despite the fact that our first paychecks (such as they were) were a long way off (more about "pay" later).

The loan situation, for those of us (most of us) relying on help with loans that TASP offered, was a total balagan (SNAFU). During my stint there, the US government actually began refusing to grant federally backed loans to those studying with TASP / University of Liverpool (with whom TASP was then affiliated) due to concerns about those programme's (both TASP's and the University of Liverpool's) legitimacy. Dank, the guy who runs TASP, lamented about how the US govt was actually threatening to send over folks from the Inspector General's office to audit TASP's books because of these concerns. In any case, this all meant that the Stafford loans many of us were relying on were no longer an option. Dank tried to steer us towards other loan options, but the amounts available were substantially less than what we were counting on.

The University of Liverpool "branch" that we attended in Tel Aviv was nothing more than the front for a diploma mill, set up in the basement of a mall. Pictures hastily mounted on carboard and thumbtacked to the walls, of smiling grads being handed diplomas could not alleviate the thoroughly bargain-basement ambiance created by the folding chairs, formica tables, and, well, the fact that the pictures in question were mounted on cardboard and thumbtacked to the wall! It had the look and feel of some fly-by-night operation.

The pay from our teaching jobs was simply *not* enough, despite TASP's claims otherwise, and other work was slim, again, despite what we were led to believe. The work situation was exacerbated by our shaky legal status there, yet again, something TASP had not been honest about.

You had some chance of *eventuallly* finding legal work as a TASPer if you wanted to make aliya (immigrate - assuming you could...or wanted to). Otherwise you were limited to catch-as-catch-can, illegal under the table work.

At the very first social event between the new-comers and those who were half finished, *every* one of the TASP veterans regailed us with horror stories about how awful TASP was. They had all obviously long-since given up any pretense of enjoying the programme or taking the "academic" work seriously, and were just trying to make the best of things, trying get their already-spent money's worth by at least getting something that looked good on paper (because that's all they felt their thesis work was worth). It was sad and embarrassing to see the couple running TASP, sitting there at that party, smiling weakly, as everyone there whispered about how terrible the whole thing was (and apparently still is).

I have to say, though, that when I was there, we did take part in teaching/classroom oriented workshops conducted by the MARPAD, the Ministry of Education's pedogogical training division. The complaints by other ex-TASPers here about a lack of classroom management training makes me wonder if this no longer takes place. In any case, those workshops were a waste of time. They were hardly innovative nor in-depth.

Too, I do have to say that I enjoyed my experience in the school I was assigned. I made friends with the teacher I wor