Job Discussion Forums

[kev7161]

Here's a quote I lifted out of another thread so thanks to the person that typed it:

[vikuk]

[latefordinner]

Which came first, Kevin; the chicken or the egg?

[Vo Rogue]

Latefordinner beat me to the chicken/egg argument.

kev
Nothing you wrote in your post is incorrect, and I agree with you.
However, there are many decent teachers with appropriate training who start a job with the intention of staying for the long term. But the working conditions get them down, and so they move on - especially when in most schools management only pays lip service to staff concerns.

You could just as easily argue: if/when conditions in Chinese educational institutions improve, China will get more good, qualified teachers that tend to look at the long term and stay at a school.

[tw]

My colleagues and I had a very short meeting with one of the college's deans and an English teacher ten days ago (the ladies had to catch the school bus back to Dalian). The dean is in charge of the college's education quality, and told us that she hoped we could help raising the college's English standard, as they take improving the students' English very seriously.

That's all fine and dandy, so why does the FAO guy have to go make all these bleeping phone calls to the main campus when I told him I needed to make 400+ photocopies of my 11 pages of useful phrases and expressions? Surely, a school that is genuinely serious about improving the quality of their students' English should be very willing to make those photocopies without any hassle, and definitely doing it before asking for any money from the students AKA me, the debt collector.

[vikuk]

[lostinasia]

[englishgibson]

kev, i agree that many of us travel and have plans to travel...although, stats are rather obscure in this highly populated country ...do we know how many of us are in china anyway

[jeffinflorida]

The school I work at had 1 out of 30+ teachers stay for another term.

Does this tell you something?

My students are rich and the lazy-ist I have ever seen.

They pay 25,000 rmb a year for a degree.

Most do not want to do any work.

My next test will be pretty hard. I plan no curve and if they fail then they fail...

By the way a passing grade is 50% !!!!! I laugh.

[Shan-Shan]

[sheeba]

I notice that my language teacher(Chinese) really knows her stuff, especially metalanguage.

I sit there talking about 定冠词，不定冠词（ definite/indefinite articles), 复数（plurals), 阴性，阳性(masculine/feminine) and so on in my classes. It's great for me as I'm not so worried about learning the language but learning to talk about language in Chinese.

But the Chinese teachers I've often met(and I'm sure there are worse) seem to really know about the language they are teaching. I've met loads of FT's who don't know a noun from an adjective.

So when Fred Bloggs gets up and starts lording over people cos he has the 'native' accent I don't blame students for thinking 'knob head' does not really know what he is going on about and 'knob head' doesn't normally. A degree shouldn't grant a license for one to do this job. Experience and proven success or language education backgrounds /awards should only be considered. However we all know this is not the requirement now.

The standard seems to me too low and I hope that it gets better.

[william wallace]

blah blah

[kev7161]

Interesting responses. I stand by what I OPed. This is the beginning of my 5th year in China - 2 schools. My first school I stuck out for 2 years. The job didn't necessarily improve but I was able to get my own classroom right beside my (shared) office where the students came to me. When the school was going to balk on textbooks (the same series I used the year before), I discussed and made clear why I still needed those texts and the school agreed and complied. When I asked nicely for a TV and DVD for my classroom, the school complied within 2 days! Did I leave loving that school? No, there were more problems than not -- but most of that was due to lazy-assed students - - and we all know what a private school's stance on THAT is: $$$

I'm at the beginning of my third year at my current school. I'm no prima donna here and I WORK for this school and for my students. However, when I need something (such as a new computer for my classroom), they deliver! "They" (the administration) often come to me asking for my advice. The school pays me handsomely. Is it all wine and song? Of course not - - I have not yet donned those rose-colored glasses. I'm just saying that both schools I've worked for have trusted me the longer I've stayed. Although I have chock-full busy work days, they still sail by with very few waves. I can, with a 99% surety, say that this will be the last school I work for in China. Once I finally do decide to hit the road, it will be out of this country. Will it be next year? Two years? Five years? I have no idea. But why mess with a good thing by finding fault with a school that pretty much takes care of my needs?

I don't disagree there are some horrid schools out there and I've said as much in the past. I wonder if there are any other posters out there that have a similar tale as mine?

[arioch36]

The answer is simple. MOST FTs aren't here for long-term employment. Most are gone within a year.

I disagree. There are such teachers. Most teachers I know would like to stay at one school for several years. But such teachers want to improve their teaching and the students learning environment. And most schools couldn't care less about this. If you are at a school that actually listens to you, you are blessed.

Kev (may I call you kev?), when the laowai comes and gives suggestion, or asks to make things better, the Chinese leader listens politely... then immediately complains about the troublesome laowai.
This is my perception reinforced by what Chinese teachers who are friends tell me. I have been here seven years, I know many of the textbooks. 3 1/2 years at the present college. Will they listen to me (and every other foreign teacher here) about textbooks? No! There is a small thick blue paperback oral english book for grade one. Totally worthless. School still buys it. Same company makes a "movie book" with selections of the movie transcribed .... but all the movies in this book the school forces the students to buy .... the school doesn't have any of them, nor can you easily buy them.
Last night I and another laowai took the Dean to dinner for discussion of our plan ... that we would do the work, to greatly improve our ability to set up good classes... all responded with lame excuses why it can't be done...I could go on and on

Yes, I have seen laowai who abused their position and the Chinese laxness, and never prepared for class, or were even terrible teachers. I have seen many many more laowai get frustrated because they want to do a better job and the school just views them as troublesome.

[Anda]

Um, to get off topic but at the same time stay on, what do you think these same schools�s management think, towards their own Chinese teachers of other subjects?

From what I see, and considering that I have a number of close Chinese teacher friends I would say that the management are not worried in the slightest about the education of the students in their care as long as nobody rocks the boat. Everything that they organize for their student's education has to have a kick back or they won't start it in the first place!

Chinese parents are as backwards as they come and just want to see their kids get exactly the same education that they got in the same way, so the system of education here is locked in unless a teacher does his / her own thing where mommy and daddy are not watching.

As far as being valued by the management of a school, well then if you don�t rock the boat and get on with fellow teachers and students then you are appreciated but forget about the education angle.