Job Discussion Forums

Al-Mansoor · Joined: 15 Aug 2010 Posts: 76 Location: Here

Not the same person and you're not a 'meanie' for pointing out errors...in a polite manner. We all make mistakes. Ahem...including the wise old man.

Lonewolf · Joined: 05 Dec 2008 Posts: 6

Merely being a Native English Speaker isn't enough.
From my experience, foreign language institutes and places of higher learning in the KSA employ English teachers from countries they have visas for; eg. Can, US, UK, etc. These visas are issued by the Saudi gov't.
If Valaki didn't meet the visa requirements, it's understandable why he was turned down; eg. if Valaki is Australian but the school has not been allocated visas for Australians. There are exceptions to this. Hiring "Locums" native speakers, or near native speakers who are legally (often through marriage) entitled to work in the kingdom.
However, KFMMC should have been aware of this right from the beginning and informed Valaki of this rather than string him along for 3 months.
It may be small comfort to know that KFMMC isn't the only institution in the KSA that makes this mistake.

dutchman · Joined: 10 Mar 2010 Posts: 84

But KFMMC is also a government institution. So I believe it should not be too difficult to arrange the necessary block visa for Valaki's nationality; they would have enough wasta to do that.

Lonewolf · Joined: 05 Dec 2008 Posts: 6

I concur with the Dutchman.
That would be the most reasonable thing to do.
Unfortunately for Valaki, most Saudis don't think that way.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Why employ a Dutchman or a Hellene who speaks Standard English when you can hire a "colourful" native speaker whose idiolect is quaint and totally incomprehensible to anyone from outside his home town ?

Valaki · Joined: 17 Aug 2010 Posts: 85 Location: Japan

Thanks for the support guys.

We non-NESTS are ideal teachers because we know what our students are going through and how crazy English is (in a positive way - no disrespect). So much inflection and the stress placement rules are crazy.

In my native language, which is nice and agglutinative, I can say "Do you think I was allowed to go home?" in one word. And the stress is always on the first syllable.