Job Discussion Forums

[tvik]

In the prep school I work in the students don't take the foriegners seriously. I watched several turkish teachers lessons and the students were perfectly behaved. I also watched several native speakers lessons and the students tried everything possible to make a mess of the lesson.

my question is WHY.

I have some ideas and want to hear others.

possibly some of the more experienced teachers can comment

[Vixter]

I'm a completely new teacher, so there's probably little validity to this, but i found that my kids' class of 10 and 11 yr olds (14 of them) is horrendous, but my adult class is fun but very well behaved and we get a great deal done (17 of them, Elementary). Of course the adults are paying for the classes themselves so they have more commitment, the kids see it as an excuse to get together at the weekend and don't treat it as "real school".

[dmb]

I've known good/bad* natives and good/bad* foreigners. It's nothing to do with the nationality. All down to the individual.

*what's a good teacher and a bad teacher is a different thread.

[tvik]

well i agree with you in principle but in practice there is a difference between the foreigners class and the turkish teachers classes.
what are the reasons?

[FGT]

I think there is a problem of perception. Students that are new to the concept of professional, native speaker teachers, often ask of them, "What's your real job?" whereas they have automatic respect (which may be undeserved) of any Turkish "hoca".

Similarly, Turkish managers often don't appreciate the need for native speaker teachers to be informed about the students, the syllabus, and to prepare the lessons thoroughly - "You only have to speak to the students in your own language....", therefore they can't/don't promote/support their native speaker teachers enough. Which leads to more misconceptions as outlined above.

If the students don't respect the teacher from the start, the teacher (however "good" they are) is faced with an uphill battle.

[tvik]

I agree with the above and also want to add....

if you can't speak turkish it makes you an outsider. they jabber away in their own space and you are not involved. Aside from that there is a cultural difference between teacher as someone who helps you learn and teacher who shames you when you're not learning.

[tekirdag]

I was once introduced to a group of 6th graders as a foreign teacher who didn't know any Turkish. (not quite true. my tarzancı is pretty good) Many of the students whooped or said "oh yeah!" and punched their fists in the air in victory. One student said, "We can say anything we want to!"

I wasn't introduced as the teacher who was STUPID....but the kids took it as so.

Keeping discipline in a large classroom is very very difficult if you have to give instructions and so forth in English, not Turkish. English bounces off them like they have deflector shields. With a small group of students it would be easier. But 30 students? Eeeesssshhh.

Discipline was only kept when they started to figure out that I could understand what they said. I took some of the nastier kids out of the room and talked to them in Turkish about their bad behaviour. They were angels after that.

How DOES someone keep order with kids(say what you want, order is very important with kids. No order = no respect) if they don't know the kids' language?

I think it is NUTS to send a foreign teacher, who doesn't speak any Turkish, into a class of 20-30 Turkish kids. Half of the class can't handle the responsibility.

[Otterman Ollie]

Basically the foreign teacher is "fair game" as far as the students are concerned ,the turkish staff feel the same way ,esp as the poor ol yabanci is earning more than them and turns up most days the worst for wear,esp after the weekend .
For those of you who have worked in kolegis you will go through hell there some days ,if you survive a couple of years then you can literally work anywhere .

[lovelace]

What are your opinions about Turkish and native speaker teachers in language schools? There seems to be a trend to employ more Turkish teachers these days. Generally students pay less per hour or course for a Turkish teacher and the teacher is paid less by the school (though they get the government health insurance). Some of them get very disgruntled by that and feel they are treated as 'second class' teachers.

[dmb]