Job Discussion Forums

tpacapt · Joined: 01 Aug 2010 Posts: 10

I've gotten an offer to work at a private school in Turkey (ages around 10-14). Any general advice - are they generally better to work at than language schools? Or anyone know anything about the Doga Koleji schools specifically?

Captain Courageous · Joined: 03 Aug 2010 Posts: 3

A google search has revealed several bad stories, not to mention a Facebook page entitled "The truth about Doğa Koleji." Take that as you will.

Shalana · Joined: 08 Oct 2006 Posts: 150 Location: Istanbul

I worked at a Doga high school. The people that worked there were fantastic - admin and staff. I loved all of my students as people, but some of them were really bad students.

Some of them acted like their goal in life was to come in and disrupt my class every day or every lesson. I am talking about the kind of disruption where students in the first row could not hear me. And, in case you are wondering, it was not my first high school experience or my first in Istanbul.

In their defense, many of the students, especially the 9th graders had way too many hours of English classes per week (13 periods per week for my 9th graders) and this included Business English for 9th and 10th graders who have absolutely no interest in these topics.

Another problem is that the high school students have no creative outlet. It was all academic with 2 lessons of gym per week. No music, or drama or art class, which they do have at the primary school level.

During my nine months there, I almost quit three times and two other Turkish teachers tried to quit. In April, I told the person that hired me that I would not be back in September because I was more of a babysitter than a teacher there.