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happy_woman
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 8
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 Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 7:17 pm Post subject: Doga schools |
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Stay away from this school.
Last edited by happy_woman on Wed Jun 25, 2008 7:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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happy_woman
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 7:19 pm Post subject: Doga schools |
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| stay away |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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Would you care to elaborate?
From these posts, perhaps the school is so great that you want no competition to work there. Are you allergic to other teachers?
Or maybe you're posting out of altruistic motives and we'd all be best off to avoid the school for our own safety? |
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happy_woman
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:01 pm Post subject: doga schools |
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Ok here goes
firstly they promise you all these good benefits such a residence permits health insurance mobile phone etc. They managed to take out a residence permit with a minority of the teachers,however those who did not had to remain in this country illegally until they decided to cough up money to allow the teacher to do boarder runs. Teachers never recieved any health insurance. Salary not paid on time you have to constantly chase them up to send your pay. So you can forget the mobile phone. Dumped in a campus where you have to teach a large number of classes as they cannot be bothered to have more than one native teacher in the school. Always dumped work from turkish english teachers who sit there oing nothing and gain all the credit for the job the native does. Promise to put you in a certin school and then you end up being somewhere you did n ot want to go. promise good pay if you sign up for the next year but forget that you will be lucky to get 100 dollars plus rent allowance has been the same dry 300 YTL for the past 3 years. Competition? what competition at that school. |
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happy_woman
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:04 pm Post subject: Doga schools |
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Oh by the way dont forget this. Because all the native speakers work there illegally, when the men from the education authority turn up and spend a whole week at the school you are not allowed to go home. Oh no you are expected to dodge the men from the education authority by hiding in rooms that are not used. Plus you cannot even teach basically you cannot be seen.
So go ahead and work there. |
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calsimsek
Joined: 15 Jul 2004
Posts: 775
Location: Ist Turkey
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:16 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| happy_woman- Salary not paid on time you have to constantly chase them up to send your pay. So you can forget the mobile phone. Dumped in a campus where you have to teach a large number of classes as they cannot be bothered to have more than one native teacher in the school. Always dumped work from turkish english teachers who sit there oing nothing and gain all the credit for the job the native does. Promise to put you in a certin school and then you end up being somewhere you did n ot want to go. promise good pay if you sign up for the next year but forget that you will be lucky to get 100 dollars plus rent allowance has been the same dry 300 YTL for the past 3 years. Competition? what competition at that school. |
All of the above is true, in fact it's not even half of it.
The owners of this Mc chain of K-12 High Schools
(They have around 12 schools) are in bed with the king of the Mc English Schools English Time.
If you think natives have it bad, wait till you hear about the local staff.
They each have to spend one weekend at a shopping center to work as marketing staff, thier wages are often lower than what the state pays, and they have to attend school at least 6 days a week. Also their summer break is less than three weeks long.
IN SHORT THIS IS NOT A SCHOOL ANY ONE WHO HAS A CHOICE WOULD WANT TO WORK IN. THEY ARE SC-M |
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asn23
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 10
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:18 pm Post subject: don't believe everything you hear |
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| I have some friends that work there (Turkish and foreign) and they are perfectly happy and signed up for next year. You never know why people complain and feel the need to post those kind of messages, maybe they got sacked and are trying to get back at the school. |
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happy_woman
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:26 pm Post subject: doğa schools |
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| I doubt it very much I worked there for 2 years and my final year was a nightmare. There was constant problems with management and some turkish staff. I am only saying what ı and many others have experienced at that establishment. Some people stay there because they have friends there or that they are not qualified in teaching so they know they cannot get another job anywhere else so they stay and put up with things. Yhis is a site to inform teachers of all the goings on and to prevent teachers from falling into traps. |
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tararu
Joined: 07 May 2006
Posts: 494
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:15 am Post subject: |
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| Happy-woman, Have you worked at both ET and Doga recently? I just ask as you posted on the ET thread a couple of days ago, aswell. |
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happy_woman
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:42 pm Post subject: doğa and english time |
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| yes ı did unfortunaely |
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cijay
Joined: 05 Jan 2009
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 7:11 pm Post subject: Re: Doga schools |
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| happy_woman wrote: |
| Stay away from this school. |
| spiral78 wrote: |
Would you care to elaborate?
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I will. My experiences included some of the ones here but not all of them.
I never had a problem getting the resident permit, mobile phone or my money. All of my prescriptions were reimbursed and the school owned lodgement was fine. The only problem with the lodgement (which was no problem for me) was it was very far from the 'action' and 'nightlife' and that bothered some people. But it was a quiet, clean neighbourhood and that was all I needed.
The co-ordinator (who is no longer there) was a walking bag of lies and every time she opened her mouth, another lie came out of it - and the school backed her. Before I even left Canada I made it clear that I could NOT live with smokers (I have asthma) and she promised me she had an excellent non-smoking flatmate for me. And they did. For a month. Then they had to do some shuffling and they moved me in with someone who 'only smoked in her room'. A month later they moved another smoker in there and so until June, I had one continuous lung/sinus infection. My choice was to stay there or move in with two guys, one bi-polar and the other paranoid schizo (and smoker). My flatmates were great girls so I stayed with them. I did insist they buy me an air purifier however so I lived the whole year in my bedroom. Ate, did my prep work�everything�which wasn�t easy for awhile because the light was broken. Every day they�d say someone was coming to fix it� shortly after I bought a lamp, they fixed it. Nice, it was by then early April and there was tons of daylight. Every time the GM asked how I was I told her I was ill and she'd laugh (yeah, all heart they were.)
There were about 4 people who handed their prescription receipts to the lying co-ordinator and never saw their money�and the school wouldn�t chase her down for it. That�s why I took my own prescriptions in and got the money for it. I had a medical emergency (found a lump in my breast) and needed someone to go to the clinic with me to interpret. This co-ordinator first tried to send a male teacher (who was Irish but spoke a little bit of Turkish) with me. I told her I'm not going with some man I don't know who speaks a little bit of Turkish and this co-ordinator then asked if I was busy next Wednesday because then she could take me there herself. (Their compassion just blew me away!)I think one of the lowest things they did was hire someone with a very strong accent and a severe speech impediment. This person worked there from February 'til June - was just THRILLED to be working there and loved it, then this co-ordinator said "nobody can understand you so you'll have to leave". I was so offended on behalf of this person because it wasn�t like this impairment just started, it would have been apparent in the interview.
The school itself is a nightmare. There are 12 Doga campuses around Istanbul and I think I was at the nicest. It�s just a beautiful campus on the side of a mountain in Akbaba. There are horse stables and hiking trails, an agricultural garden and the kids learn about botany and gardening. There�s a small petting zoo (if you want to call over 2 dozen sheep crammed into a barn and a camel in a box) and just acres and acres to roam, it�s just beautiful. The students run the school�fortunate because they have more brains than most of the teachers. They gave me a special ed class. Well, most of the school is special ed, there are even some students who just wander around, going into lockers and destroying everything in their path. (Even pulling up all the flowers/plants and killing the snails�doesn�t sound severe but nobody would stop them). They�re supposed to have minders but they�re never around. There is no special counseling for these children. The whole concept is brilliant � put the kids in a peaceful environment and if they don�t get the gist of algebra and chemistry, at least the animals and gardening (and they had some arts � ballet, piano, classical/folk dance) and other things will calm them down. It�s such a wonderful concept but they don�t follow it up with anything. Garden implements were left all over, the kids were chasing each other with picks. One time they (not the students) came down to where we were eating a picnic lunch and sprayed chemicals to kill mosquito larvae right there. HAD to come at noon and do that, right?
Nobody is in charge. Our Christmas decorations weren�t good enough but we had no supplies to make any more. Basically we were told �I don�t care what you have to do but those ones really suck.� One day (same day as the mosquito spraying, actually) a bunch of 9th graders came to the playground and turned a little footbridge into KINDLING! I went to tell them to stop it and got the grand �who do you think you are� type of look. I went to a bunch of teachers and asked if they could talk to these kids, the only one who spoke English said �We�re on our break now.� I went to the office and nobody knew anyone who could help me. They would just lead you to someone else who doesn�t speak English or maybe they know two more words.
I think the thing that made me roll my eyes most is that we had this sprung on us that we were supposed to put a little program together for the children�s festival. We were told one morning that the GM was coming to watch our program. We knew nothing about it. So we went out into the compound and sat on the grass�so when the GM got there we were just to say �Oh, we already did it, you missed it.� Everything in that school is phony. If a teacher�s name wasn�t �white� enough they had to change it. Oslem became Annie, Buket became Betty, Ahmed (or Abdul, can�t remember) became Albert, Mohammed became Bob, some other lady who had a Turkish name became Juliet. Some of the �English teachers� barely spoke English but the Turkish parents didn�t know that.Any time we asked for something to be done, the answer was always the same �the parents pay a lot of money to put their children in this school�� Well, they�re getting ripped off.The second to last day I was there, the GM came to me and asked if I was going to re-sign. She knew how I felt about the school and the co-ordinator! I said I wasn�t and she tried to lay this guilt trip on me �we gave you a place to live and introduced you to Istanbul and you�re only going to give us one year of service?� They gave me a room that did more damage to my health in 8 months than in my entire life and their idea of introducing me to Istanbul was to give me a bus pass. Everything I know around here I either was told about by other teachers or found by accident. They did NOTHING to welcome us.The new crop of teachers who came this year are all gone already. 2 got jobs at a university, one is still looking for something and the rest of them went home so, if anyone wants to put in a year with the school from hell (but in a FANTASTIC city), come on over because you�ll LOVE Istanbul! |
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nomad22
Joined: 14 May 2007
Posts: 71
Location: Auckland, NZ
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 9:44 am Post subject: ET |
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i can well believe that working at doga sucks, but leave ET out of it. ET rocks. ive worked for them on 2 separate contracts at 2 different branches and thorooughly enjoyed it both times. there isnt juch icing at ET as such, but the cake is good  lol |
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cijay
Joined: 05 Jan 2009
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 5:07 pm Post subject: Re: ET |
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| nomad22 wrote: |
| i can well believe that working at doga sucks, but leave ET out of it. ET rocks. ive worked for them on 2 separate contracts at 2 different branches and thorooughly enjoyed it both times. there isnt juch icing at ET as such, but the cake is good lol |
I'm talking about Doga, not ET |
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nomad22
Joined: 14 May 2007
Posts: 71
Location: Auckland, NZ
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:17 pm Post subject: yes |
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| well in that case, doh, the post wasnt directed at you. |
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fishmb
Joined: 08 Jul 2009
Posts: 184
Location: Istanbul
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| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Did doga get you and your co-workers work permits? And what was the process, exactly, you used to make sure you got reimbursed for your health costs? |
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