Job Discussion Forums

[shmooj]

Surely anyway, a person whose username on a forum is a blinking email address needs to be given a wide berth...

Klute - you deserve some kind of distinguished service medal or something for getting the facts straight for us and the many who were just about to rush out and apply to Interac.

I'm just off to burn my application now... care to join me anyone?

[Gordon]

I changed my mind too. To think I almost threw away 5 months a year of holidays to work at Interac.

[[email protected]]

I wasn't going to write again- how often does one talk to a brick wall?

But Klute- even you might laugh at your last posting where you comment on my mis-spelling "langage"- (which is clearly a typo) followed by, in your words, "you"re language." I think you meant "your" language, didn't you?

And you call yourself an English teacher.

[Wolf]

You didn't address any of the points he - or anyone else - made. I think that says a lot in and of itself.

[Xerius]

You can always tell that when a poster gets down to solely nitpicking at typos, they have absolutely nothing of value to offer to discussion. Way to go, gimp208 . . . that's showing 'em.

[[email protected]]

Actually Mr. Xerius it was Mr. Klute who starting the nit-picking about typos.

And your last posting was only about nit-picking, so who is doing the nit-picking now? You are clearly guilty of the very sin you accuse me of.

Besides, someone who doesn't know the difference between "you're" and "your" (any 10 year old does) obviously isn't qualified to teach English and should be the last person to be "nit-picking" about typos. Even Interac wouldn't hire Mr. Klute- he doesn't have the langauge abilities.

[BenJ]

so are there 207 other gimps like you?

[Gordon]

Gimp,
You still haven't answered my question about what your qualifications are. You say you've been in Japan for 10 years. Doing what.

[TokyoLiz]

I think Mr. Gimp is really Agent Smith. He's all over the place, evil, and he won't seem to go away. Do we have a Neo on the forum?

Where's the moderator on this issue? It seems we have a troll here...

[Wolf]

In the general discussion forums, I've been labled Keanu Reeves, so here goes:







Me defeating Gimps 1 - 208.

[[email protected]]

Gordon seems intersted in my "credentials." I have lived almsot 10 years in Japan and am definitely older than 95% of teachers here. I have a B. A. and a B. Ed. and have a Canadian teaching certificate. I have been teaching all the time I've been in Japan, including High School, JHS, and elementary schools. I also worked in a conversation school for a couple of years. I got tired of teaching kids and have since been teaching business classes as well as doing some testing for a major company.

I happened to meet a few Nova teachers in my early days here and found out- much to my surprise- that most of them enjoyed their jobs. I've actually made a point since then, of asking gaijuins, when I meet them, how they like their job. Most of them do. Of course there are bad situations from time to time but there seems to be a simple correlation between the number of employees and the number of bad experiences. My personal conversations with teachers at the big schools leads me to conclude that they are not nearly as bad as one would think by just reading this website.

How about your credentials?

[shmooj]

[Gordon]

Gimp,
I have been teaching for 10 years as well (the last 2 in a university in Japan). The other 8 was in Korea and Canada, in colleges and language schools.
Since you are obviously trained as well, I don't know how you got such a big chip on your shoulder or do you think that you are right and everyone is wrong.

[[email protected]]

Gordon:

Take a look at some of the things I've been called- evil, questions about my sexual orientation, people making fun of my name- and you say I've got a chip on my shoulder? Get serious. I'm still waitng for answers to most of my points.

There is also a letter from someone who worked for Interac for three years that has gone totally unchallenged. There is just no way that Interac or any of the big companies can be anywhre as evil as they are presented on this website. They wouldn't be around it were true.

Who said I'm right about everything? I've certainly been told I'm wrong about everything? Yeah a few people have gotten a raw deal from the big companies. Maybe a couple have had a really bad deal. Probably a few people at Toyota and Sony have gotten a bad deal too. Welcome to the human condition.

This is all geting to be a very tiring broken record.

Later- if at all

[anthyp]

Let's hope it's not at all. I work in China but like to browse the other forums ... and always enjoy reading about the exploits of my fellow TEFLers in Japan. Sounds like you are all getting a real bad break there ... "What a pity!" as my students always like to say. I originally wanted to teach in Japan but decided not to because of the institutionalized teaching represented by schools like Interac, Nova, etc. I don't know much about them but they have absolutely terrible reputations ... like great English - teaching machines, rather than places of learning.

Though it's true that you tend to only hear the horror stories about places, it's also true that if you hear enough of them, there's probably a little truth to what you're hearing. Quite honestly considering the lifestyles we enjoy here, I am surprised you are all settling for so much less over there. But I'm sure you got into it for the teaching ... and the adventure. Zai jien! as we say over here. Or, Sayonara, if you prefer.