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obcykraj
Joined: 19 Dec 2007
Posts: 6
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 Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 6:44 pm Post subject: Low end teachers ruining it for the rest of us? |
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in my humble opinion, yes.
It seems that more and more there are these "teachers" with no clear idea of what they're doing masquerading as efl teachers and seriously damaging the credibility of those trying to bring some respect to the profession in this country.
They seem to come in a few varieties, most of them male:
-the lecher, probably the most common, really needs no description
-the dustbinner, always looks dishevelled and comes across as incoherent
-the sizzler, all sizzle and no steak, looks like s/he has it together but really offers nothing to students, essentially tries to be an entertainer more than anything.
any others you guys have come across? |
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Harry from NWE
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Posts: 283
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 8:17 pm Post subject: Re: Low end teachers ruining it for the rest of us? |
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| obcykraj wrote: |
| It seems that more and more there are these "teachers" with no clear idea of what they're doing masquerading as efl teachers and seriously damaging the credibility of those trying to bring some respect to the profession in this country. |
You should have been here in the mid/late 1990s, those were the really crazy times with the serious nutjobs.
Some of the things I experienced at the places where I worked back then (the least reputable school of that time was an EF which no longer exists) included:
needing to make one of the secretaries at the university sit in the video room during morning break to stop one of the teachers (an American man of about sixty years old) shagging his first-year student girlfriend in there every morning (a problem eventually solved by transfering the student to another university);
a training session being stopped halfway through because all of the Canadians (i.e. more than half the teachers) had decided to make the session more interesting by taking LSD;
three married couples on the same staff all splitting up in the same year;
a teacher being dragged out of class by Polish police and Interpol because the last thing he did before leaving the UK was use an axe to murder his wife and mother-in-law;
an entire class leaving a school because their teacher came to their 7.30am class straight from the pub and covered in vomit but the teacher couldn't be fired because he'd been out consoling the school director and it was the director's vomit;
the school director who managed to achieve a 100% staff turn-over in a single year (i.e. all the teachers left);
the teacher who got a job despite missing the job interview because the night before he and the interviewer had had a close encounter with three baseball bat wielding members of the Ukrainian mafia and the teacher couldn't go to the interview because he was in hospital;
the teacher who collapsed during a 7.30am class and was taken to hospital with alcohol poisoning;
the teacher fired for being so drunk in class he fell off the desk and couldn't get up (and who was only fired because he had already done that same trick once before);
the primary school teachers who would always superview morning break at their school because it gave them the chance to have a mid-morning joint;
the school director who threatened to fire and sue a teacher for going to his father's (i.e. the teacher's) funeral;
the teacher who spent a week living in the teachers' room at school and borrowing clothes because his co-worker/flatmate came home and discovered the hard way that the two of them were not only sharing a flat but were also sharing a girlfriend;
the school director who fraudulently changed marks given to certain university students so that they would have an average high enough to get the full state stipend;
the matura committee which consisted of one English teacher, the school director (who didn't speak a word of English) and the bloke who ran the school canteen (a last-minute replacement for the Canadian/Polish teacher who'd turned up too drunk to hold a pen);
the teacher who managed, in a town of 13,000 people, to be sleeping with both the mayor's wife and daughter on a regular basis.
I could go on but I think you get the general drift.
Things are far far more professional now. I assume all the crazies just go to China instead these days. |
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Prospect_Ave
Joined: 12 Mar 2007
Posts: 42
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:34 am Post subject: Re: Low end teachers ruining it for the rest of us? |
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| obcykraj wrote: |
in my humble opinion, yes.
It seems that more and more there are these "teachers" with no clear idea of what they're doing masquerading as efl teachers and seriously damaging the credibility of those trying to bring some respect to the profession in this country.
They seem to come in a few varieties, most of them male:
-the lecher, probably the most common, really needs no description
-the dustbinner, always looks dishevelled and comes across as incoherent
-the sizzler, all sizzle and no steak, looks like s/he has it together but really offers nothing to students, essentially tries to be an entertainer more than anything.
any others you guys have come across? |
I think you don't have the visibility of what's really going on. Surely, you have run into giddy characters in your "profession", but I have little doubt you�re able to trade significantly on that self-assertion, when your qualifications/experience might have left you cut out for a real job back where you�re from. So I have to wonder if it�s just because of your age, origin, sex, or qualifications, and not those �teachers� predisposition what has really unhinged you.
ESL teachers are for the most part young, inexperienced, unpretentious, and with a knack of adventure. Some fresh out of college (grad or drop-outs), some just retired, some others looking for a quick way out of trouble (law, marriage or debt fugitives); others just want to do something that will pay their travel expenses. But they all are what the language school advertises and the client wants: native speakers.
The British Council and the Peace Corps paved the way to the ESL business/culture. Privately run schools mushroomed all over Eastern Europe to catch up with the world in acquiring a language that will allow their people to migrate. Call it whatever you call it but if you work in a language school in Poland, you are part of a private business and not an academic institution. For the owner you are not a professor or a qualified educator, you are a just a lecturer, a temp �teacher�, luckily with a college degree, and not necessarily in an English subject, with one month course from a UK franchise.
With all due respect to the others you consider yourself to be part of, the �professionals� (20-30-year ESL career folks with pension plan, 401k, medical and dental provided plus bonus at the end of the year, paid holidays and 30 days vacation), you�d better take a good look at your chosen profession because it won�t get any easier. Sooner than you think, there won�t be much demand for language schools; you�ll be left out without a job while your former students scooped you by taking the jobs you left back in your homeland.
Bottom line: do your 6months-to-a-year gig, leave the local girls/boys alone (don�t break their hearts), continue to travel or go back to the fold before your resume gets any worse. |
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Kymro
Joined: 19 Oct 2003
Posts: 244
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:07 am Post subject: Re: Low end teachers ruining it for the rest of us? |
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| Prospect_Ave wrote: |
ESL teachers are for the most part young, inexperienced, unpretentious, and with a knack of adventure. Some fresh out of college (grad or drop-outs), some just retired, some others looking for a quick way out of trouble (law, marriage or debt fugitives); others just want to do something that will pay their travel expenses. But they all are what the language school advertises and the client wants: native speakers.
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I've been trying to tell Harry this for years.
He never listens tho'. |
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Kymro
Joined: 19 Oct 2003
Posts: 244
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:20 am Post subject: Re: Low end teachers ruining it for the rest of us? |
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| Prospect_Ave wrote: |
you�d better take a good look at your chosen profession because it won�t get any easier. Sooner than you think, there won�t be much demand for language schools; you�ll be left out without a job while your former students scooped you by taking the jobs you left back in your homeland.
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I don't see any good reason to suppose this to be true.
The demand for language teaching in Poland is likely to remain high; at least until or unless the knowledge of English in Poland matches that of Scandinavia or the Benulux countries.
The language school market still faces a number of threats:
(1) Free E.U. courses. Altho' many of the provders of such courses arelanguage schools themselves, and the funds are not unlimited.
(2) Improved standards in Polish state schools. This is very patchy, however.
(3) Increased number of graduates from private higher education colleges specialising in foreign languages. This depresses wages.
As regards native speakers, these points don't necessarily apply, some learners will always be willing to pay a premium for lessons with a 'native'.
Last edited by Kymro on Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:43 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Kymro
Joined: 19 Oct 2003
Posts: 244
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:41 am Post subject: Re: Low end teachers ruining it for the rest of us? |
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| Harry from NWE wrote: |
| obcykraj wrote: |
| It seems that more and more there are these "teachers" with no clear idea of what they're doing masquerading as efl teachers and seriously damaging the credibility of those trying to bring some respect to the profession in this country. |
You should have been here in the mid/late 1990s, those were the really crazy times with the serious nutjobs.
Some of the things I experienced at the places where I worked back then (the least reputable school of that time was an EF which no longer exists) included:
needing to make one of the secretaries at the university sit in the video room during morning break to stop one of the teachers (an American man of about sixty years old) shagging his first-year student girlfriend in there every morning (a problem eventually solved by transfering the student to another university);
a training session being stopped halfway through because all of the Canadians (i.e. more than half the teachers) had decided to make the session more interesting by taking LSD;
three married couples on the same staff all splitting up in the same year;
a teacher being dragged out of class by Polish police and Interpol because the last thing he did before leaving the UK was use an axe to murder his wife and mother-in-law;
an entire class leaving a school because their teacher came to their 7.30am class straight from the pub and covered in vomit but the teacher couldn't be fired because he'd been out consoling the school director and it was the director's vomit;
the school director who managed to achieve a 100% staff turn-over in a single year (i.e. all the teachers left);
the teacher who got a job despite missing the job interview because the night before he and the interviewer had had a close encounter with three baseball bat wielding members of the Ukrainian mafia and the teacher couldn't go to the interview because he was in hospital;
the teacher who collapsed during a 7.30am class and was taken to hospital with alcohol poisoning;
the teacher fired for being so drunk in class he fell off the desk and couldn't get up (and who was only fired because he had already done that same trick once before);
the primary school teachers who would always superview morning break at their school because it gave them the chance to have a mid-morning joint;
the school director who threatened to fire and sue a teacher for going to his father's (i.e. the teacher's) funeral;
the teacher who spent a week living in the teachers' room at school and borrowing clothes because his co-worker/flatmate came home and discovered the hard way that the two of them were not only sharing a flat but were also sharing a girlfriend;
the school director who fraudulently changed marks given to certain university students so that they would have an average high enough to get the full state stipend;
the matura committee which consisted of one English teacher, the school director (who didn't speak a word of English) and the bloke who ran the school canteen (a last-minute replacement for the Canadian/Polish teacher who'd turned up too drunk to hold a pen);
the teacher who managed, in a town of 13,000 people, to be sleeping with both the mayor's wife and daughter on a regular basis.
I could go on but I think you get the general drift.
Things are far far more professional now. I assume all the crazies just go to China instead these days. |
Hi Harry. Even tho' I disagee with you about many things, I'm not interested in slagging you off any more.
I'd be interested to know how much of the above is true. I can well imagine some of it is, however. Do you have any links for your mad axe murderer story, for example?
My favourites from Szczecin would be the teacher who acted relatively normally for a couple of months, and then developed a weird obsession with V.D., and started asking students if they had been tested for various unwholesome diseases. Apparently he had been in Poland in the 60s, he and his fellow workers had the time of their lives, and then suffered the (painful) consequences. When he became so obviously unhinged that the school was obliged to sack him, he got down on his hands and knees and begged the school owner to be allowed to keep his job. (I witnessed this myself).
Another 'teacher' became notorious for showing hard-core pornographic videos to unsuspecting female students.
A third was sacked after a dispute with some prostitutes he refused to pay, after which the police had been summoned to his flat by neighbours.
I could go on ..............
There seems to be fewer of these types around at present, altho' I'm quite sure some turn up from time to time. |
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Harry from NWE
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Posts: 283
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:15 pm Post subject: Re: Low end teachers ruining it for the rest of us? |
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| Kymro wrote: |
| I'd be interested to know how much of the above is true. I can well imagine some of it is, however. Do you have any links for your mad axe murderer story, for example? |
Links? Hell no. That particular incident was back before internet days, in 1996 and was kept very quiet indeed. The guy in question was part time at two (or possibly three) schools who were well-respected (and spent quite a bit on advertising). I'm pretty sure than none of the native speaker teachers from back then are still in Poland but you could track down a guy called Maurice Abbot (I believe he's working in Sicily now) and email him about it, I think that he was working at the same school then. I was teaching business classes and the interpol guy was working on-site like Maurice.
As for the rest of it, it's all stuff which I either saw myself (most of it) or saw the after effects of (like the bruises left by the baseball bats) or knew about because they happened at my school and so all the staff knew about it.
| Kymro wrote: |
| There seems to be fewer of these types around at present, altho' I'm quite sure some turn up from time to time. |
Those types do still turn up but things are stricter now than used to be because students now expect more than they used to. I think that the screw-ups go to China now. That's the place of opportunity. I know of one teacher there who now is a professor of International Business Law and writes articles about teaching legal English and about standards in the TEFL industry and who has the same name as somebody who graduated from the same university and law-school in the same years but can clearly not been the same person because that person was disbarred in the USA after "The court also found that between 1989 and 1996, he made 14 separate and meritless accusations alleging dishonesty, false statement, fraud and subornation of perjury against 10 attorneys. He communicated with a represented party, made a false statement to a court and forced two female domestic employees to walk naked through the streets." !!! |
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Kymro
Joined: 19 Oct 2003
Posts: 244
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:35 pm Post subject: Re: Low end teachers ruining it for the rest of us? |
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| Harry from NWE wrote: |
| Kymro wrote: |
| I'd be interested to know how much of the above is true. I can well imagine some of it is, however. Do you have any links for your mad axe murderer story, for example? |
Links? Hell no. That particular incident was back before internet days, in 1996 and was kept very quiet indeed. The guy in question was part time at two (or possibly three) schools who were well-respected (and spent quite a bit on advertising). I'm pretty sure than none of the native speaker teachers from back then are still in Poland but you could track down a guy called Maurice Abbot (I believe he's working in Sicily now) and email him about it, I think that he was working at the same school then. I was teaching business classes and the interpol guy was working on-site like Maurice.
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There are some things that can be hushed up, but that doesn't really include a double mad axe murder, even if it happened before everyone got connected to the www.
What was the name of the alleged mad axe man? |
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dynow
Joined: 07 Nov 2006
Posts: 1080
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| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 1:19 am Post subject: |
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i look at this situation completely different.
i don't consider myself the best teacher, I haven't been doing it that long, but I do alright for myself.
with that said, having many many poor teachers out there only gives me more security, more confidence on the job. the more and more bad teachers that end up in Poland, the better and better the good teachers start to look!
it's no different than in any other profession. |
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Pollux
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Posts: 224
Location: PL
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 12:24 am Post subject: |
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| Alex, is that you or is it Dubya? |
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obcykraj
Joined: 19 Dec 2007
Posts: 6
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:21 am Post subject: Re: Low end teachers ruining it for the rest of us? |
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| Prospect_Ave wrote: |
| obcykraj wrote: |
in my humble opinion, yes.
It seems that more and more there are these "teachers" with no clear idea of what they're doing masquerading as efl teachers and seriously damaging the credibility of those trying to bring some respect to the profession in this country.
They seem to come in a few varieties, most of them male:
-the lecher, probably the most common, really needs no description
-the dustbinner, always looks dishevelled and comes across as incoherent
-the sizzler, all sizzle and no steak, looks like s/he has it together but really offers nothing to students, essentially tries to be an entertainer more than anything.
any others you guys have come across? |
I think you don't have the visibility of what's really going on. Surely, you have run into giddy characters in your "profession", but I have little doubt you�re able to trade significantly on that self-assertion, when your qualifications/experience might have left you cut out for a real job back where you�re from. So I have to wonder if it�s just because of your age, origin, sex, or qualifications, and not those �teachers� predisposition what has really unhinged you.
ESL teachers are for the most part young, inexperienced, unpretentious, and with a knack of adventure. Some fresh out of college (grad or drop-outs), some just retired, some others looking for a quick way out of trouble (law, marriage or debt fugitives); others just want to do something that will pay their travel expenses. But they all are what the language school advertises and the client wants: native speakers.
The British Council and the Peace Corps paved the way to the ESL business/culture. Privately run schools mushroomed all over Eastern Europe to catch up with the world in acquiring a language that will allow their people to migrate. Call it whatever you call it but if you work in a language school in Poland, you are part of a private business and not an academic institution. For the owner you are not a professor or a qualified educator, you are a just a lecturer, a temp �teacher�, luckily with a college degree, and not necessarily in an English subject, with one month course from a UK franchise.
With all due respect to the others you consider yourself to be part of, the �professionals� (20-30-year ESL career folks with pension plan, 401k, medical and dental provided plus bonus at the end of the year, paid holidays and 30 days vacation), you�d better take a good look at your chosen profession because it won�t get any easier. Sooner than you think, there won�t be much demand for language schools; you�ll be left out without a job while your former students scooped you by taking the jobs you left back in your homeland.
Bottom line: do your 6months-to-a-year gig, leave the local girls/boys alone (don�t break their hearts), continue to travel or go back to the fold before your resume gets any worse. |
Hmmm, project much?
I've no need to defend what my choices "might" have been (you yutz) to you but i do wonder what such a person is doing on this board in the first place.
I do agree with your take on language schools themselves (an astute command of the obvious you have), and i suppose how they operate is part of the problem. A business is a business but at some point it has to deliver what it promises and I see the "giddy" characters you refer to as a roadblock to this. To often it seems that people think if the "have a chat" with language learners that there is some kind of structured learning process.
And while i am worried your forecast for esl schools could be accurate i do say you seem to be a bit of naysayer. Anyhow that's why i actually do training and work back home for at 90 days every year. Seriously though, what the devil are you doing on this board if you've no love for the profession? Suspicious to say the least.
Harry! I cringe at those stories, but damn are they funny too. |
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YakTamer
Joined: 29 Mar 2004
Posts: 86
Location: Warszawa, Polska
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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The story about the axe murderer is intriguing, because I recently met someone who told me a very similar story but with a slight difference.
In this version, the person dragged out of class by Police was an Australian who had fled the UK after bludgeoning a war veteran to death. Apparently, he was a wannabe writer who killed in order to write about the experience. Some time before his capture, his girlfriend found a manuscript in the flat describing a particularly brutal killing (although this did not apparently lead to his capture).
One of the more bizarre things I heard was that he was often wearing the clothes of the man he murdered.
His arrest was at the same time (IIRC) as that mentioned in Harry's version.
Who did I hear this story from? An American guy who was sharing a flat with him at the time of his arrest! |
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Kymro
Joined: 19 Oct 2003
Posts: 244
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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I strongly suspect the mad axe murderer story to be some form of urban myth.
Of course, I would like it to be true, as it makes the rather drab TEFL profession in Poland appear somewhat more colourful.
Were someone to prove my scepticism to be unfounded, I'd be overjoyed. |
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Kymro
Joined: 19 Oct 2003
Posts: 244
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject: Re: Low end teachers ruining it for the rest of us? |
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| obcykraj wrote: |
And while i am worried your forecast for esl schools could be accurate i do say you seem to be a bit of naysayer. Anyhow that's why i actually do training and work back home for at 90 days every year. Seriously though, what the devil are you doing on this board if you've no love for the profession? Suspicious to say the least.
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I believe the man was in Poznan last year, and did not prove to be a conspicuous success in the teaching profession.
Hence the badly bruised ego. |
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obcykraj
Joined: 19 Dec 2007
Posts: 6
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:54 pm Post subject: |
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| aahhh that explains it, cheers for that. |
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