Job Discussion Forums

[billybuzz]

Yes, we are confronted with this issue on an almost daily basis and yet our own performance and how we carry out our various tasks and duties is evaluated in such a way that smacks of bias towards the members of the teaching staff who are "favoured" . Is this true in your place of work ?Recent developments in my beloved uni suggest that is all going to change ,and change for the better we hope .The big question in my mind is who gets to do the evaluating us or them ? Those who have less time in the classroom are seen as those best able to evaluate us.Is this fair? Is it realistic ?
Many companies in the industrial sector offer insights and suggestions as to how this process takes place,but we are not factory workers (yes really ) we do not have to go for productivity targets .So how do we measure our success and should we ever use the word "failure" ?

[dmb]

I don't think it can be measured. As an observer I can certainly see which things are effective. The only things that can be measured is how many students pass an exam. Then, is it down to you or the students hard/lack of work?

The great man, Nazif Ulgen once suggested at a Directors' meeting that teachers should be paid by the number of students s/he had. Can you imagine the uproar if he had insisted on this? Would you want the beginner class of 14 or the advanced class of 4? His belief was that the good teachers kept their students.

[thrifty]

Do not take his name in vain. He should be accorded the same status for Turkey TEFLers as Ataturk is to most Turks.

Sayin Nazif Ulgen

[dmb]

[ghost]

Teaching is not an exact science and students respond differently to different teachers.

Measuring success in the classroom can be a tricky business, because you may (as a teacher) be successful in one place and not so in the next - different people, students, different management, and a host of other variables make teaching a crap shoot in general, especially in a place like Turkey, where the unpredictable is......predictable....

The world more often rewards outward signs of merit than merit itself.
La Rochefoucauld

Ghost

[thrifty]

[dmb]

The kiddy fiddler he met in prison who was head of the Kadikoy branch for years?(can't remember his name)

[FGT]

I'm far too provioncial for all that. I have fond memories of arriving to work at English Fast, Izmir in 1993 and being met at the airport by the DOS and told of the owner's time served in prison for fraud - that was before I'd even started working there. I didn't cut and run. I enjoyed working at Fast for five years. Istanbul life seems to be (or have been) much more exciting!

And, thinking about what I've just written, those were the good old days! Now, if I heard the same I'd run a mile; then, I was one of the best paid and most respected teachers in Izmir. How things have changed! You can't trust an honest crook these days, teachers get ripped off all the time, in those days life was cushy in comparison.

[Sheikh Inal Ovar]

How do we measure our success? By the number of evil spirits we ward off -