Job Discussion Forums

[veiledsentiments]

I will agree with you to a point volgaman. The start-up was more disastrous than most in the Gulf and the first few years left a trail of unhappy teachers and students. But, I think the criticism was well-deserved. They blew it. The major reflection of the difficulties that they got themselves into was that they were forced to go to 2, 3, 6, and 9 month contracts because they couldn't recruit any credentialed experienced teachers. Something no other university in the Gulf has ever done.

I will consider them an equal of the other universities in the Gulf when they have the same requirement for credentials and experience... and treat these new people in the same way that the other universities do. That means MA plus a few years of tertiary experience, private housing, school fees for the children, annual flight tickets, 45-60 days of paid summer holiday. This is for their academic program.

Since they seem to do outreach training and special courses also... similar to CERT at HCT... that would be an area where credentials could be different... more toward CELTAs and DELTAs.

No one has mentioned salary scale. How does it stack up against the rest of the tertiary level in the UAE? It seems to me to have become an acceptable entry tertiary-level job for many teachers.

VS

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

Well put, VS!

NCTBA

[Splitting Hairs]

VS said
I will consider them an equal of the other universities in the Gulf when ------ means MA plus a few years of tertiary experience, private housing, school fees for the children, annual flight tickets, 45-60 days of paid summer holiday. This is for their academic program.

VS - it is common knowledge that you do not need an MA to teach at the tertiary level in the Gulf becuase the standard at which students go into universities is common to that of a 14-16 year old school age child in the rest of the academic world. These students require teachers not academics.

It has been common practise in the Middle East from KSA to UAE to require an MA for deselection purposes or accreditation (USA) reasons.

If you go out into the rest of the world and check qualifications (not USA) you will find an MA is sometimes required, quite usually preferred but if someone has a cedible teaching qualification and experience then they are considered as well. You have a a dellusional idea that only an MA qualified person has the ability to teach at tertiary level. You are completely wrong to say that the tertiary level here needs MA qualified staff - the complete lack of world knowledge, global perspective, insulation from political and social issues as well as the inability to think critically, solve problems and work independently and some of the crucial differences betwwen the UAE student and a comparable student anywhere else. You only have to see what is going on in the schools to know how far behind 90% of the students are - inflated grades, shortened schedules, poor teaching, limited learning environments, CEPA scores tampered with. You have students entering tertiary who could not enter secondary. No these students need TEACHERS not lecturers.

[veiledsentiments]

[johnkg]

[veiledsentiments]

True Mr KG... but one mustn't confuse job searchers or those who want to be able to judge employers. It needs to be clear that one person's opinion on whether MAs are necessary to teach the students isn't the same as a fact that the best employers require it anyway.

VS

[johnkg]

[PeterWilliams]

VS has a point - the reality of the situation in the Gulf is that the best paid jobs require teachers to have Masters degrees. But it IS worth stating that this doesn't make an awful lot of sense. There's not much evidence that teaching low level students actually requires this level of qualification, or even that it produces better teaching - the evidence of my own eyes is that frequently it does not.

I am happy to be working in an outreach programme where politics do not dictate that a Masters is critical - in fact, I've recently knocked back teachers with MAs because their experience in the tertiary sector did not convince me that they were able to teach (or would be satisfied with teaching) other kinds of learner. Different horses for different courses. No pun intended.

Personally, for the reasons given above, my preference is for more DELTA qualified teachers and strong, experienced CELTA teachers who are focused on professional development.

[johnkg]

[veiledsentiments]

I don't disagree with any of that... and in fact, said much the same thing above. I found the variation in teaching abilities to be quite striking. Few MAs provide practical teaching experience, although the program that I was in required that you had either a BA in education with practice teacher (which I did) or previous EFL teaching experience, which is what most other teachers in the program had. Not to mention that it was a Fellowship so I was teaching there for free to pay the tuition, but employers didn't consider that two years of teaching as experience.

As an employer, the CELTA/DELTA provides you with a known commodity. You can usually be confident that they know the basics and can handle the lower levels adequately. Where I found that it fell apart was when these teachers were put into the advanced classes or academic writing/reading classes. This is the place in Gulf EFL where the communicative CELTA approach falls apart. In a perfect world employers would probably require both the CELTA and an MA. (perfect for them, not necessarily the teachers, of course. )

[johnkg]

... and let's not forget oneupswomanship

[veiledsentiments]

[johnkg]

[Pikgitina]

[johnkg]