Job Discussion Forums

[nocturnalme]

Does anybody here have any experience or knowledge of this school? I've seen their adverts and schools on my travels but don't know much about them. They promise 'individually-tailored lessons' - What does this this mean exactly (unless, of course, they mean one-to-one)?
I'm just being nosey, basically!

[hrvatski]

They teach some form of the Callan method as far as I can gather. I've read a fair few complaints from students on forums about the kind of contracts they suck you into and how much you eventually end up paying. A branch of the Empik school group if I'm not mistaken?

[Scawie]

[hrvatski]

Apart from the fact that students end up hating the school and in turn you.

Is it one of these schools where you have lessons with a computer then meetings now and then with a teacher to clear things up?

[maniak]

I work for a Speakup school. Students sign up for a "level" where 1/3 of the course is on a computer, 1/3 doing a mind blowingly easy students books, and 1/3 with you. You as a teacher teach 1 hour lessons on either grammar, conversation, writing, and reading/vocabulary, and lessons as a follow up to what they did in the book and computer, plus stuff like "clubs" focused on a particular topic, everything tailored to their level of course.

The pros and cons are huge. The pay is ok, but you can rack up a lot of hours due to morn and evening classes, the lessons are by the book photocopies but youll need to spice things up if you want to keep your students attention but its really straightforward, you will only teach relatively well to do college students and adults (since the school is so expensive), there is a huge turnover rate because most students find the school and levels/lessons either too easy, too rigid, or just were talked into signing up by the consultants into 6000zl worth of levels. But then the students will find out they have to pay a huge cancellation fine of like 2000zl. And the turnover rate of teachers and employees there is really high due to the corporate pressure that exists in the school.

My personal opinion ranges from 'a decent deal for students with heavy work schedules' to '21st scam of the century'. As a teacher Id say I like working there, but you got to cut it.

[sharter]

How do you 'teach' conversation, listening and reading?

Sounds like a school that hires the newbies to me.