Job Discussion Forums

[paddyroyal]

I am teaching in a university in Latin America and would appreciate some feedback. My program has about 20 teachers, and only two of us are native English speakers. We are increasingly dismayed by the lack of preparation and training of the native teachers and by their heavy workload such that they only have time to focus on getting their work done and not on the quality of it.

It is also difficult to deal with the inequalities between them and us. We get higher salaries, have flexibility to work at home while they have to clock in, and it appears that we have lighter workloads, at least so far. While I am not interested in giving up my perks and in fact find it necessary to do some of my work at home because of a medical condition, I do worry about setting myself apart as someone who is more "important."

My colleague and I have signaled that we are available as resources without being pushy, and we have good relationship with our coworkers. However, we are disheartened by the lack of rigor, quality, and critical thinking. This week we were asked to correct a guide for a distance course in phonetics, which in itself seems like a pretty nutty idea for non native speakers, and when we met with the teacher to get a sense of her real openness to corrections, she let us know that she thought the guide, which would horrify most English speakers on many levels, was really quite good and just needed some tweaking.

I have two questions:
Does this scenario sounds like a familiar one in LA?
How do other people deal with it?

We're not out to save the world, or even the university, but we do feel drained by being in this environment and are wondering about approaches or attitudes that will leave us with some energy.

Thanks!

[Salverston]

At least as far as my experience goes, yours is not unusual. I do some work with a local university, and have dealings with English and Business Departments in a few others. Most programs are not that rigorous - activity that we as Westerners would consider blatant plagiarism is seen as okay. I have found that some programs are quite good in many universities- Philosophy, Physics and the like, foreign language instruction invariably is quite bad.

The difference in foreign and local hires also is quite pronounced.Most locals put up with restrictions because they need the job. But foreign hires get paid more and get many more perks because 1) Foreign hires generally provide and expertise the university otherwise cannot provide, 2) Local students generally like being taught by foreign teachers because of the (generally correct) belief that they are bringing greater knowldge to the classroom and thus having foreign teachers generally is a great draw to the school, and 3) most Western teachers wouldn't put up with the problems typically dealt with by local hires.

I have found that there generally is not a lot of resentment against foreign teachers for their perks and higher salaries. Part of this, I think, is the cultural class consciousness (and to some extent, racism) that exists in most Latino societies. Foreigners are considered to be members of top classes, which by nature mean they are expected to take greater perks and liberties than a local. That sounds weird and even a fair amount offensive to Western ears, yet it is true, IMHO.

As far as the situation with the instructor and the Phonics program. Very typical. She probably expects that she is well trained and knows her material, which by SA standards she may well be, but by Western standards her training and expertise is quite low. The problem is that you have dueling needs of fulfilling your role as an expert but you don't want to embarrass her.

My approach would simply be "Maria, I think you have done an excellent job. There are some ways we do it differently where I come from. Can I explain to you some differences of how we would do such a program? If you want, there might be a few ideas that you might want to include? Let me know what you think.

The key here is you present it that it is still her baby, and you are not just muscling in. Since she is still in control, you can subtly steer her in ways that can bring her to the decision that changes need to be made, even some massive changes, but it is all tweaking she wants for her program.

That's how I would do it. You have to deal with her. Worse, it seems the more incompetent a person is tends to equate to the more powerful her family is, and you don't want to antagonize the family if her uncle is the Minister of Education or something.

Anyway, those are my observations. I hope they help in some small way.

[naturegirl321]

That's the way things are here. I can speak for Peru and know that lack of planning, self inicitative and organisation are reasons why this country is the way it is.

[paddyroyal]

Thank you for your responses to my questions.They aare very helpful and put the situation in perspective for me.

I like your approach to "Maria." We took a similar one, but yours had more elegance, so I will borrow that. We sat down with her and suggested some areas where we would do things differently given our backgrounds. I then sent her an e-mail, with her permisson, taking several short sections of her original writing and showing her possible rewrites and asking for her opinion. As you point out, it is her baby. And as you also point out, it seemed clear that she thought her work was just fine. Why would she think differently?

I had an interesting exchange with a friend fron the States last night about this. He completely overlooked the bad English, and in fact didn't even notice it, because he was drawn instead by the welcoming quality of her writing. That was a good perspective for me to consider.

The news news is that I am working on the translation team with three native colleagues, and they have been wonderfully responsive to and eager for my feedback and have been helping me as well.

So, one more question: Given the low level of English instruction, where do you find your own struggles and satisfactions with the job you have?

Thanks again.

[Salverston]