Job Discussion Forums

[Heatherbnm]

Hi I have been offered a job at Aci schools, teaching English to 1st or 2nd grade at the Ortakoy or Sariyer campus. Anyone know any details about the school and or area? I am coming from Korea and have never been to Turkey....need to respond to the offer soon so that if I decline they can offer it to other candiates. Thanks for your help!

[Shalana]

I don't know how helpful this information will be, but a friend of mine taught kindergarten at one of the branches north of Ortak�y. She lasted one month.

She was buried in paperwork. They had to send out a daily report for each child written in both English and Turkish and a weekly report and keep a portfolio on each child with things like art work. She had a Turkish co-teacher for her class.

She also had to eat lunch with the students and encourage them to eat because otherwise they would play and run out of time and leave the cafeteria hungry.

Teachers were also not allowed to be totally honest with the parents about bad behavior. They had to sugar coat everything and not use negative words. For example, if Ali punched Mehmet, they couldn't just say that. They would have to say something like "Ali has not been playing appropriately with Mehmet." They also had to fill out a report on everything and anything. For example, if Mehmet had a red mark on his arm because Ali punched him, a report would have to be filled out about it and what treatment was given for the red mark.

The pay is good, but she felt she earned every lira of it. Maybe things are different for the other grades.

[Heatherbnm]

um yes that certainly does help....I cant say I love Korea but its definitely easy here. I would have been jumping ship here to go there so I might as well just stay where I am, get my bonus and then bounce. After that I can try to get a real international school job not a private school internationally for next year. I dont want to get myself into a bad situation just to get outta here early. thanks for your post!!

[Shalana]

This was just one friend's experience last September and it was kindergarten and maybe things work differently for kindergarten. But, if you have it pretty good there, if I were you, I would definitely stay to get my bonus, assuming it is a decent amount. Good luck to you.

[Heatherbnm]

I would be teaching first grade english so I doubt things would be that different especially one year later. I might as well just finish what I started here seeing as how I will be done here next March and dont want to be stuck in a bad situation there for an additional 6 months. I think they know there situation is bad because in the contract I believe it said if you quit early you are responsible for paying them up to 3 months salary which is rediculous! So that really would mean I was stuck there. Thanks for your help though, just made the decision to decline that much easier.

[somewhere_else]

Thanks for the information, too! The clause in the contract about paying the school three month's salary for quitting and being fired for saying anything negative about the school or the founder definitely raised some red flags for me, and after hearing about other people's experiences there I definitely feel much better about refusing the job.

[Shalana]

The thing about paying them back 3 months salary is just a scare tactic and some schools do it. Think about it. How could they make good on their threat? The worst thing they can do is not pay you the last of the salary they may owe you. But, the fact that they feel they need to make this threat says a lot.

[PC Parrot]

Good for you guys.

All too often in this line of work we are supposed to treat monkeys like royalty while we ourselves are treated like donkeys.

Until employers like these start doing as they would be done by, let them whistle for it.

[JLS89]

[gloomyGumi]

[christmas]

I worked for them and only lasted from Jan - to June. Actually I barely lasted because I quit. They had a teacher that left early and needed someone to take over and I filled the space. The kids were completely undisciplined and the management was (and still is from what I hear) very unsympathetic. The problem with there being so much paper work is that there isn't enough time to teach properly. On top of it you are getting kindergarten kids to perform way above their abilities just to impress the parents. The kids hate it and this is part of what causes them to behave badly. Also, the school in Levent is just a bunch of old houses joined together. Some classrooms are big and some are really small. The number of students in each classroom is the same. Also important to note is that in Turkey air conditioning isn't allowed in the schools so it gets hot and everyone is bothered by it.
The good thing is that there are a lot of schools here to apply to. Don't take the first job offer.

[delal]

Strange about the aircon: I've worked in 2 schools here and both had it

[billy orr]