Job Discussion Forums

[leeroy]

REUTERS � 1800 GMT, London

Mass English Teacher exodus to �proper jobs� leaves schools empty

All 53,437 English language schools in London will be left teacher-less following the beginning of term tomorrow due to a long-speculated drive towards �proper jobs� by an estimated million former teachers.

�I thought it was about time I got a real job, really� claimed John Ashtonburger, formerly the English Language Learning Facilitator� for a school in Charing Cross. �In fact, it was my New Years� Resolution�.

John isn�t the only disgruntled English teacher deciding to make a move towards recognisable salaries and first-world working conditions.

�Teaching was fun, but when Mum stopped giving me pocket money the true realisation of our medieval wages really hit home� says Sarah Upon-Watchtonville, �I was like, �woah!� I need money to live, what was I thinking doing this s***?� Sarah now plans to become a bus-driver, leading to what she hopes to be a 250% pay rise. Many others are considering moving into more prestigious fields, such as bicycle couriering and window-cleaning.

The estimated six remaining English teachers in London who are �in it for the career� face record-breaking class sizes on Monday; �Teaching IELTS to 23,000 students isn�t going to fun� complained Leeroy Badboy-Brown, �I don�t even know if they all have books � and they always complain when they have to share��

School owners and managers face a crisis: �I�d sell my soul to the devil for some more teachers now..� argues Margaret Ba�lock, owner of a school in South Kensington. �Or at least I would, if I hadn�t already��

Professor Steven Crashin, of the Lower-Strathclyde Polytechnic University is optimistic for the future, however..

�As long as universities keep graduating students with crappy �Media Studies� degrees that no employer wants then the world will always have enough English teachers� And as foreign schools become a bit more savvy, more and more failures will be forced to stay in London. As long as English teacher pay stays around �10 an hour, in real terms that means several more pounds a week than supermarket shelf-stacking��

�Maybe as much as �3 or �4 a day� Professor Crashin added, �That�s like �20 (US$30) a week more, before tax. Compared to menial supermarket work, English Teaching wins by clear margins. Well, apart from night-shifts. I hear that pays pretty well...�

London�s economy depends almost entirely on English students in London on �student visas� working 100-hour weeks. Mayor Ken Livingstone views the situation pessimistically;

�If the students bugger off to someplace where teachers are respected then where does that leave us Londoners?� He bemoans. �Who will serve us beer? Clean our streets? Make our sandwiches? We need foreign students, because there�s no bloody way any self-respecting Londoner will do that s***. London still hasn�t recovered from The Worst New Year Celebration Ever � I fear this could push them over the edge into full-scale rioting.�

�It will be like 20 European football matches at the same time�, he added.

Opinion amongst the students themselves, however, is varied.

�My teacher nice. So I sad because he go.� lamented Yukiko, 23. �But sometimes when he drunk his teaching so-so. I surprised teacher can drunken in morning. British culture very different from Japan��

�Teacher? I think he student!� answered Maria, 26, when asked what she would do when her teacher leaves to pursue a career in box-packing. �His English more bad than mine!�

Simon Freeman, of ARELS (the regulatory body for English language schools in the United Kingdom) has tentatively put forth a solution;

�Any old monkey can do s*** out of the book and cue up a tape.� He was quoted as saying a week ago at a press conference, �And I�ve got a mate in Borneo, so we�re getting a load of chimps over. We won�t have to pay them that much more than the last lot � and they can�t be much worse, really��

But arrival of the chimps faced unexpected problems when a number of them chose instead to become �Academic Coordinators� for the highly successful �English First� franchises in China and Indonesia.

Whether or not the remaining primates will be adequately able to fill the position that the English teachers have left behind remains to be seen � and possibly the entire fate of London depends on it.

[dmb]

Are you pissed again, Leeroy

[lagger]

I think the primates can handle it. They can pay them in bananas.

[Roger]

Primates? Problem with the typical London fog and winter chill - heating costs would soar, as would health maintenance costs.
I suggest parrots from the Canary Islands. Cheap and effective.
And, they never go on strike!

[naturegirl321]

Maybe that's why a lot of teachers go abroad to teach.

[daveryan]

I have been in London for slightly over five weeks now...trying to get the cash together to get myself over to Turkey. The picture painted by the previous poster sounds all too familiar. Many of the Language Schools that I have approached did not appear interested in the fact that I have a relevant degree, TEFL cert, and some experience. Their main interest seemed to be how quickly they could fill the hole with cheap labour. Although against my better judgement, I have taken a job paying slightly over seven pounds an hour (albeit cash in hand), no contract as such, no request for references, sight of qualifications etc.

Although I appreciate that the only way to halt the exploitation is quite simply for people like myself to simply refuse to take jobs that don't offer a reasonable rate of pay and working conditions. The difficulty is that in a totally un-regulated industry with no workers organisations/professional associations etc to offer support or advice, nor to negotiate a minimum standard, individuals are left with a fairly stark choice to make. The problem is further componded by an overall lowering of wages in London for the casual market that has occurred over the past few years for a whole range of reasons; but one of which is the willingness of our students to work in other un-regulated industries for peanuts.

What is to be done?

Dave

[Gordon]

Dave,
You said it yourself that you are part of the problem and I agree. They will pay you nothing if you agree to take it. So why did you?
I used to live in Vancouver and there are hundreds of schools in the small downtown area. They range from glass and oak classrooms to dumps that will practically hire any bum off the street. The lousy schools charge almost the same as the good schools, but the teacher's pay is extremely low, $12 CDN/hr. It is up to you and others to not accept the crap wages and the bad schools will have to pay up.

[BethMac]

So, Leeroy Badboy-Brown, why stick around? There's money to be made elsewhere, if that's what drives you. Gordon is right...if you want better wages, stop accepting crappy ones. You're young, you have no ties, you can afford to go where you are appreciated. If they truly appreciate you where you are, they'll make you a decent offer to keep you there.

I love what I do but I wouldn't do it for less money than what I can comfortably live on.

[daveryan]

As you (Gordon) quite rightly point out, the only solution is for people such as myself to refuse to take the jobs paying such low wages, and if everybody followed this line we should be able to force rates of pay up to a reasonable level. Unfortunately it isn't quite as simple as that as I'm sure you appreciate. On a personal level, having completely run out of money I felt that I had no choice. Even casual labouring work that pays above minimum wage is hard to come by in London these days, at least that was my experience having beeen offered jobs paying around five pounds an hour. As you also rightly point out, there are any number of Language Schools with dubious credentials and equally dubious motives operating in London. The more reputable schools will pay a reasonable wage, but market forces being what they are, are forced to compete with the solely money orientated operations. A further consideration is with regards to the numbers of Aussie, Kiwi, and South African visitors to London who arguably disrupt the permanent labour market through their willingness to take on low-paid, temporary cash in hand positions.

However, I do accept that this is a 'cop-out' on my part at least to some extent. Unfortunately circumstances leave me with no other option at the moment with the possible exception of crime of some sort, and I am not willing to follow that particular path at the moment.

Cheers
Dave

[Gordon]

Fair enough Dave. We all do what we have to do to put bread on the table (rice in my case). Hope the job situation improves for you.

[Newfoundland]

The great and talented Mr Sperling was able to get this great site up to help so many teachers. I wonder if he or one of the other ESL veterans could be the one to start which all us ESL teachers long for. An ESL UNION The dream lives on.

[leeroy]

Apparently in London it would never work - as most people are only in it for the short-term (as per the gist of the OP!). In principle, an ESL union would be a great idea.

[Wolf]

Japan has unions that might be considered "EFL unions." There are other countries where EFL teachers' right get stomped so bad that unions would be a survival tactic no matter what your politics are.

Leeroy's comment about the transient nature of EFL teachers applies not only to England. As long as few people depend on EFL for a livelihood, then unions will either be small or nonexistant.

[daveryan]

...but I have doubts as to the practicalities. Perhaps a more realistic suggestion would be with regard to a national validatory body, that could lay day minimum standards etc both in terms of the content of courses, minimum levels of qualification for teachers and a national pay scale. Does anyone know if Trinity, CELTA or any of the certificate and diploma awarding bodies have any input into issues regarding individual language schools?

Dave

[dmb]

UCLES has guidelines about the course content and what students need to achieve to pass. Registered centres are aware of these and if there any any developments then they are sent them