Job Discussion Forums

[Conquense54]

I am British (male) currently teaching in Bolivia, next week I have a Skype interview for a senior management post with Apollo in Hanoi. I have never considered Asia before (after teaching for 30 years) but have had a really bad experience here in Bolivia with a school which hired me via the internet from the U.K. and turned out to be a den of corruption. So I would be really grateful for your views about making yet another new start in a country and part of the world I know very little about, would I be stepping out of the frying pan into the fire? There are so many mixed views in these forums I don't know what to think, I've obviously got a lot of experience and am not prone to culture shock, and Bolivia being the second most poorest country in Latin America has prepared me well for the poverty, corruption, etc., which seems to prevail in all under developed countries. Advice, please? Many thanks.

[Kornan DeKobb]

[Conquense54]

Thanks for replying, but am I missing something with your initial comment? And does anyone else have any ideas/advice/suggestions about making the move to Vietnam? As a linguist passionate about teaching and learning languages, how difficult is Vietnamese to pick up the basics? Any recommendations as to a good (free) online course with audible pronunciation practice?

[bje]

[Conquense54]

I stand corrected...

[mark_in_saigon]

it is my experience that this kind of thing is not the concern we face here with decision makers. They are not truly qualified to judge your English skills, they are looking at "other things". If you have the right qualifications on paper, make a nice presentation, sound good, look good, they will think you invented fire. It is very common to find errors in the English of the correspondence we get from these schools and decision makers, we all see this. The industry is trying to create a system of mass production, it is not art. It is not a perfect world here, at least in that department.

[Conquense54]

Thanks for that, I thought this forum was about content and getting answers to the questions posed, not an exercise in correcting mistakes in grammar, pronunciation, etc., etc. There ain't no pleasing some folk!!!!

[LettersAthruZ]

I used to know a person who taught at Apollo in Haiphong for a long time. They quit about five months ago. Met an American who taught there and suddenly disappeared after three months.....heard that they were harassing him.

From everything else that I have heard, though, Apollo is VERY above-the-table. ALL paperwork, pay packets, etc. etc. are handled promptly and professionally.....which, as we ALL know, isn't usually the case in Viet Nam!

[bje]

[mark_in_saigon]

position, likely his language skills are not the most important need for the job. We have all seen many of the more senior administrators working here displaying less than perfect language skills. It does not matter, it will be a very long time before the VN are speaking English at a level sufficient to notice those kinds of things. It is much more important to have some actual management skill in these establishments than have a dreamy intellectual whose every word is poetry. If our skills are THAT freaking high, what are we doing here? This is a fun place, and we can certainly help these people with their needs. It is not art, it is not literature, and it is not perfection, at the least the English part is not.

[shanewarne]

I has been working ere as a english teacher for many a year and had no porblem with me teaching or compliants from da students. Just av some fun and get paid for it, thats me thinking.

[mark_in_saigon]

no ... compliants from da students

one can only hope you are finding compliants from the general population then.

[Oh My God]

[Kornan DeKobb]

[londo]

because most of us use this board after work when we're tired, had a drink and don't want to worry where our fingers stray on the keyboard.
anal, anal, anal.....please life get a
oh, and a possessive adjective before 'language use' might be useful.