Job Discussion Forums

[VN-Teecha]

[wayne1523]

[yogurtpooh]

Vietnam is so desperate for teachers right now that degrees and everything you read online and here aren't always necessarily true. You'll be fine with a three year degree and a CELTA. I also think that most language schools won't care if you have a TESOL or a CELTA... hell- most of them don't even check to see if your TESOL is an online course or not. It's not hard getting an English teaching job here, but the pay is the real question. Btw- even though ILA claims they accept TESOL or equivalent they actually want people with CELTAs who graduated from their program. My friend and I (both VKs) applied and got flat out rejected. Oh well, I'm teaching history and ESL at a private high school here without working shitty night and weekend hours. But then again, I got lucky.
Just come here- don't worry too much about the discrimination. If you are capable and a good teacher, you'll find work here in Saigon.

[yogurtpooh]

And no, if you have credentials from abroad and clearly born abroad you will NOT get paid the same as local teachers. Local English teachers are honestly a part of the problem. Their pronunciation skills poison the students from a young age. All of my students have been pronouncing Arkansas as if it has anything to do with Kansas and in a few months they'll be getting high school diplomas from America. For these reasons and more, local teachers will always make less than you. You will often make less and get treated less than a white person, but these are just generalizations. There will ALWAYS be exceptions. It's really not that hard. And yes the white face is important, but more and more students and parents are aware of how looks can rather be deceiving... but then again I work for a school that purposely does not want to hire white people because the man who hires foreign staff members is a VK himself. Btw, I beat out a white man with 20 plus years of life experience over me for my current job. Oh and anything's possible here- if African Americans are getting jobs here, you will too. This is truly a flexible place to live.

[wayne1523]

Nice posts, yogurt. Thank you

[sigmoid]

[I'm With Stupid]

[CThomas]

[LettersAthruZ]

[toiyeuthitmeo]

US liberal arts programs mandate that even students who wish to become engineers must study a foreign language and a literature class or two, just as literature students find themselves choosing from Calculus or Biochem 1. It's actually quite extensive, and your major composes a slightly minor part of your total credit-load. When I take a look at my transcripts I am both amused by and gracious for having been educated in classes with names like "Theology of Black American Music" and "Digital Studio Post-Production." Some argue that it is a waste of time to require an aspiring museum curator to dabble in acoustical physics (that was a fun one!) but the idea is LA programs produce well-rounded, inquisitive young adults. It certainly has to do with the reality that prevails in the States that your field of study has a small chance of actually becoming your field of employment. Or maybe it creates that very condition! Either way, that extra year is certainly not a waste of time unless you are a waste of time.

US education has no A-levels and unless you drop out, you are in school from age five (kindergarden) til age seventeen or eighteen (senior year in high school). Those fortunate enough or silly enough immediately enroll in college ("uni") which takes four years for most to achieve a BA or BS. The British system allows for people to gain a Master's degree in nearly the same amount of time, which does not equate to a US Master's degree. The typical US Master's degree requires an additional 4 years of post-grad study (with plenty of 1 or even 2 year options, depending on the field and time commitment).

Personally, I would have much liked the concept of a "gap year" and/or the possibility to finish school at age 16, as well as the possibility of becoming a tradesman rather than shipping right off to uni. But I suppose it's turned out well enough. After all, I'm only, uh, living in Asia and meeting wonderful people every single day.

[generalgiap]

The main differences between the US and UK university system is in the UK one has to decide around the age of 16 whether they will study at a university or go into vocational training. Therefore, most students who enter the Uni in the UK know exactly which subject they are going to study and therefore do not take general university requirements in the first year like the US. Regarding master degrees in the US most are either one or two years, there is no such thing as a 4 year masters degree programme in the states. The main difference between whether it's a one or two year masters degree programme is the subject and whether its a thesis or non-thesis masters. So if you are getting a MA in the sciences, it will generally take two years this is based on one year of courses and one year of research in the lab on your thesis. Furthermore, most PhD programmes take about 4 years after getting your BA, two years for masters and two more years for the PhD. After getting your MA, your PhD studies will focus on research for your dissertation, one generally does not attend any classes but you will be forced to teach first year students, most of the time. Some PhD programmes are only 3 years after BA depending on the subject, such as Education, but it depends on the uni. There are also PhD programmes that do not include the masters, go directly to the PhD, depends on subject and uni. Let's not forget that most Americans have a 9th grade reading ability and the first year of uni is basically high school.
I forgot to add that most uni in usa do not require students to study a foreign language and students do not study biochem as a GUR(general university requirement), biochemistry is an advanced course for students studying biology or chemistry and is usually taken in the junior or senior year. They can take chemistry 101 as a GUR but it is a basic course and focuses more on inorganic chemistry. Thanks catlover for the information?

[spycatcher reincarnated]

This shows the grades by national curriculum:

http://bisvietnam.com/index.php?o=modules&n=admission&f=admission&idtype=151

The UK and Australia officially start fromal schooling (year 1) a year earlier than America and Vietnam. Some people argue this is just nomenclature as I believe the American Kindergarden year does resemble the British and Australians year one in many ways. However, it is generally agreed (no reference) that the average year 13 British and Australian is academically above the level of the average year 12 American.

If a Vietnamese person, an American or somone from a nation that officially only has 12 grades of schooling before university, wants to study at university in the the UK or Australia they will usually need to study an additional foundation year before they would be allowed to enter an under graduate course.

Most developed nations seem to have 16 years of formal study to complete an undergraduate degree, whether that be broken down as 12 + 4 or 13 + 3.

Hmm... the link doesn't agree with me about the Australian grades, but I still think I am right.

[Oh My God]

[generalgiap]

I am fully aware of what I write. However, I focus on fact not fiction.
I suggest doing an independent research project on literacy rates in USA and one will find numerous studies with the same conclusion.


From Wikipedia
1951 to 2000
Lyman Bryson at Teachers College in Columbia University led efforts to supply average readers with more books of substance dealing with science and current events. Bryson's students include Irving Lorge and Rudolf Flesch, who became leaders in the plain-language movement. In 1975, Flesch collaborated with J. Peter Kincaid to create the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, which uses an algorithm to produce grade level scores that predict the level of education required to read the selected text.[3] The instrument looks at word length (number of letters) and sentence length (number of words) and produces a score that is tied to a U.S. grade school level. For example, a score of 8.0 means that an eighth grader can read the document.[4]
Others who later led plain language and readability research include educator Edgar Dale of Ohio State, Jeanne S. Chall of the Reading Laboratory of Harvard, and George R. Klare of Ohio University. Their efforts spurred the publication of over 200 readability formulas and 1,000 published studies on readability.
Beginning in 1935, a series of literacy surveys showed that the average reader in the U.S. was an adult of limited reading ability. Today, the average adult in the U.S. reads at the 9th-grade level.


Another study

National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL)
The US Dept. of Education, Institute of Education Sciences has conducted large scale assessment of adult proficiency in 1992 and 2006 using a common methodology from which trends could be measured. The study measures Prose, Document, and Quantitative skills and 19,000 subjects participated in the 2003 survey. There was no significant change in Prose or Document skills and a slight increase in Quantitative skills. As in 2008, roughly 15% of the sample could function at the highest levels in all three categories. Roughly 40% were at either basic or below basic levels of proficiency in all three categories.
Thus, if this bottom quantile of the study is equated with the functionally illiterate, and these are then removed from those classified as literate, then the resultant literacy rate for the United States would be at most 65-85% depending on where in the basic, minimal competence quantile one sets the cutoff.
The 15% figure for full literacy, equivalent to a university undergraduate level, is consistent with the notion that the "average" American reads at a 7th or 8th grade level which is also consistent with recommendations, guidelines, and norms of readability for medication directions, product information, and popular fiction.

Another study

U.S. credit card agreements unreadable to 4 out of 5 adults
Contracts written at a reading level most can't understand

Credit card agreements are written on average at a 12th grade reading level, making them not understandable to four out of five adults, according to a CreditCards.com analysis of all the agreements offered by major card issuers in the United States.
The average American adult reads at a ninth-grade level and readability experts recommend important information -- such as credit card agreements -- be written at that level. Only one in five adults reads above a 12th-grade level.

"It is clear from your study that something must be done to make these agreements easier to read," says Lauren Z. Bowne, staff attorney for Consumers Union, the nonprofit owner of Consumer Reports magazine.