Job Discussion Forums

[Twelvetongue]

What do the experienced teachers have to say?

[Justin Trullinger]

The more details you get into your question, the more likely you are to get detailed answers.

In my experience, which covers only Europe and Latin America, I'd say it has fairly little to do with countries, and a lot to do with individual schools. Here in Quito, some schools give a lot of autonomy, others give them scripts.


Best,
Justin

[rusmeister]

It isn't the country - it's the employer.
Self-employment beats the heck out of everything else for that.

[furiousmilksheikali]

North Korea may have the least, but I am guessing as I have never taught there. Other than that, few countries impose a teaching method on ESL/EFL practioners. Why do you think it is otherwise?

[Justin Trullinger]

Few countries do, but a fair number of schools do...

Some good, some bad.

I certainly "impose" communication as the basis for our methodology- simply based on the fact that teachers lecturing about grammar doesn't work very well, if it's all they do...

Inlingua has their own materials, and insists on them being used. (Though there's some variation on what this means from place to place.)

Callan Method, Berlitz, Wall Street...a lot of chains have their own preferred method, and in places where staff turnover is high, prefer not to get too much teacher creativity...

Best,
Justin

[guangho]

[denise]

I agree with the others. There's a range. I've worked in universities that allowed us to choose our own texts (or choose not to use one) and create our own syllabi, universities and language schools that assigned us texts and loose outlines (for testing dates) but gave us freedom on a day-to-day basis, and one language school that had its own method based on powerpoint slides that required us to lug our laptops to every lesson every day. (That last school has since closed up and disappeared...)

And there is quite a range geographically in the places I've worked... Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East.

d

[Glenski]

Twelvetongue,
What are you qualified to teach (or what WILL you be qualified to teach)?

There are conversation schools, public and private mainstream schools, international schools, universities, junior colleges, technical schools, business English schools, etc.

Even in one country (Japan), methods vary widely (as others have mentioned).
In one conversation school here, you are strictly limited to what you must teach. No yawning allowed, either!
In another, you may have total freedom including choice of a textbook.
In yet another, you may be given a textbook and told to make page 67 by a certain date, with no other restrictions (unless students complain).

In university, I have found that you get a course description, but teachers are pretty much allowed to choose textbooks and make up the syllabus on their own.

Pick a country or at least pick a type of teaching business, and we can answer you better, as Justin Trullinger wrote.

[tedkarma]

My experience since 1992 across four countries and a variety of schools is that the higher level the school (universities for example) for greater freedom you are given.

Universities generally just assume you know what to do - and leave you to do it. The one exception for me was in Saudi Arabia. But the difference I think is really the size of the school too. (We had 25+ EFL teachers at the Saudi school)

Large schools with many EFL teachers will be forced to standardize - small schools won't.

So, for real freedom look for a small tertiary school.

Even if these schools don't offer a lot of freedom initially - once they see that you know what you are doing they loosen up considerably.