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Chris_Crossley

Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 1797 Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 3:55 pm Post subject: DELTAs and ordinary classroom teaching jobs |
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NilSatis82 wrote: |
Maybe, before flying halfway round the world, you could have taken the trouble to ask a few more questions as to whether the DELTA/Trinity Diploma really was absolutely necessary. |
It would certainly be an interesting strategy to question people closely as to why they would want a DELTA for what was, in this case, a plain grass-roots classroom-based teaching job. Your recommendation is duly noted.
NilSatis82 wrote: |
If they think there are enough DELTA/Trinity Diploma holders out there, then why shouldn't they make this a requirement? |
Just to do the same kind of job that people with the CELTA or the Trinity Certificate have been doing for donkey's years? Unless I were really desperate to earn money, I doubt whether I would go to the time, trouble and monetary expense to gain a DELTA, only to settle for a job where I felt that what I may have learned in the DELTA may not apply to any great extent, if at all. I reckon that it might not have mattered to the people who interviewed me if I had had 8 years' experience or 18 or 28. No DELTA = no job even if it was an ordinary classroom job.
Perhaps the university believes that there must be plenty of DELTA holders "out there" going begging because they are unable to gain TEFL jobs involving management responsibilities? If that is the case, then it must be pretty disillusioning for someone to gain a DELTA, only to find that there is a dearth of full-time jobs (excluding the peak summer season) where the knowledge and skills can be used.
NilSatis82 wrote: |
Also, if it's 'definitely one university to avoid in the future' then why don't you tell us which one it is? |
Why? I thought that name-dropping was risqu� on online forums such as this! You never know who might be reading them!  |
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SueH
Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Posts: 1022 Location: Northern Italy
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Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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NilSatis82 wrote: |
I agree that they made a mistake, but surely you should take some responsibility too. After all, you applied for a job which required a qualification that you didn't possess. Maybe, before flying halfway round the world, you could have taken the trouble to ask a few more questions as to whether the DELTA/Trinity Diploma really was absolutely necessary. |
I'm with the applicant on this one. All employers, not just in education, have an ideal candidate, and I'm sure most of us have looked at job ads and chuckled at the dichotomy between the long list of what a company were ideally looking for and what they were prepared to pay. The candidate has every right to assume that the absence of the qualification was not a show stopper. The fact that they invited them and immediately asked a question at the interview regarding information readily apparent on the cv/application form really shows negligence. Did they read the form and what were their criteria for inviting someone to interview? Most unprofessional, whatever the business. |
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NilSatis82
Joined: 03 May 2009 Posts: 110
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Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 5:04 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: |
It would certainly be an interesting strategy to question people closely as to why they would want a DELTA for what was, in this case, a plain grass-roots classroom-based teaching job. Your recommendation is duly noted. |
I didn't say ask WHY they wanted a DELTA, I said ask IF they really did want a DELTA. A lot of adverts post such requirements for jobs, some really mean it, some don't. In this case, they obviously did.
You say it was a 'plain grass-roots classroom based job', but surely working in a university is a step up or two in terms of pay and expectations than your average language school in the UK. Otherwise, why did you fly halfway around the world just for an interview?
Also, why wouldn't the knowledge and skills learnt on a DELTA be useful for this job or any other kind of teaching job for that matter? The DELTA is after all, a course about teaching and not academic management. |
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Chris_Crossley

Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 1797 Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 3:17 am Post subject: The DELTA - worth getting for doing classroom teaching? |
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NilSatis82 wrote: |
The DELTA is after all, a course about teaching and not academic management. |
One wonders.
Whilst it may certainly be true that those DELTA-holders with year-round jobs in the U.K. would be expected to have a certain teaching load as well as an administration load, my shockingly-limited perspective is that those who have DELTAs and are engaged in summer jobs spend practically all of their time doing admin work and no teaching whatsoever apart, possibly, from the occasional substitution.
I worked on behalf of one company this past summer at two separate locations. Both directors of studies were (I assume) holders of the DELTA (or equivalent), since having such a qualification is a British Council requirement, and neither had any regular teaching duties.
One assistant director of studies, also a DELTA holder, found that classroom teaching was a blessing because her duties otherwise entailed being up to her eyeballs in paperwork, and she cursed the powers-that-be for putting her in this position.
My impression seemed to be that applying for such positions (at least for summer work) is not worth bothering if it means having no regular teaching input. Yes, the pay for DOS and ADOS positions may be better for an intensive summer season than for round-year positions, yet, if the result is going to be disillusionment, the question arises as to why one should bother applying for such positions in the first place.
Of course, there would be nothing to prevent me from wanting to do a DELTA and it is perfectly affordable financially as well as feasible chronologically (with the summer given over to the intensive phase when I am not required at all by my full-time employer in China but still get paid ), though I reckon that it would only be worth my while getting one if and only if I was certain that I was going to return to the U.K. permanently along with my family.
I think I have learned a valuable lesson from my experience at that university. It would certainly do universities no harm in hiring or engaging properly trained HR people to conduct interviews with tutors present simply to support them and to ask any additional pertinent questions. However, the fact that the interviewers themselves were all tutors meant that they are ordinarily up to their own eyeballs in whatever it is they have to do on a day-to-day basis.
Yes, teaching at a university would certainly be a step-up from being at a private (chain) language school, and that was certainly what I was hoping for even if the job was part-time. In fact, I can tell you that another university invited me to an interview (thankfully one by telephone!) for a pre-sessional job teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP), which is what I do now in China and have been doing for nearly five whole years now.
Unfortunately, the start date of the new academic year at my employer in China was moved up by two whole weeks by Head Office (based in England) for reasons unexplained, so, unfortunately, I had to let the university know that it was not even worth doing the interview ( ). I did make it clear in my C.V. and covering letter to this (other) university that I do not have a DELTA, yet I was still invited to an interview.
At least it seems that not all universities in the U.K. absolutely insist on people having DELTAs (or the equivalent) for just classroom teaching jobs! |
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