Job Discussion Forums

[esbam2002]

Found out what I wanted to know

[Oh My God]

[esbam2002]

[snollygoster]

Unfortunately, there are always going to be a number of people like Mdm Doan. Ruthless, lying, conniving individuals who couldnt care less about truth, honesty etc- so long as they get their job done.

I once worked with a foreign government agency in Vietnam, and was told by the highest of the high that the "official-unofficial" figures on dishonesty in Vietnam were that Vietnam held the honour of being number one in the world, and that employees of that organization were to not believe anything that any Viet said.
I also once worked in another country where deceipt was considered a very positive virtue amongst the locals- for example, they thought Judas Iscariot was the hero of the Bible. So what we consider deceipt can sometimes be a racial or national characteristic, and not considered a bad thing.
To my way of thinking, it was a bit severe to suggest all Viets need to be considered deceiptful, but it illustrates my point that people like Mde Doan are more numerous than we westerners would like. Chinese quote from quite a long time ago "The face of deceipt lies in Hanoi". Its a cultural thing and if you want to live and work in Vietnam, you have to accept that there just are going to be people like that, and your chances of running across one in your career are pretty high.

I recall once asking a Vietnamese friend to act as an interpreter for me with a high ranking government official (Vietnamese). I was surprised to hear after the interview from my interpreter that almost everything the government official said was a lie, or said in a way to deceive me.

I have also met deceiptful people in the west-Vietnam does not have a monoploy-its just that they are more likely to get away with it than those in the west.

[esbam2002]

I am well aware of that and the level that some/most, but not all, Vietnamese discriminate and behave. My main area of focus was not on the country as a whole but the teaching industry here. I used three examples, my own, and two other teachers to find out some information, under the cover of another reason....in short sort of a deception to discover two points.

In this I found that what I thought in the main point was correct to my theory that most teachers here are more than willing to not care about what happens to us, no matter how poorly we are discriminated and treated, despite how much they complain about it. These people are not backpackers or tourists, but actual teachers, and they are more than willing to accept how they are treated in the interest of only caring about money and what they get, in short they are willing to drop their pants, bend over, and say "thank you Mr/Ms Vietnamese manager can I have another" all for money. To me this behavior is the same as a prostitute really. This is also 1/3 of the problem with the teaching industry here and no different than the schools here that care only about money and not English teaching.

This is why the Vietnamese here are better and do what they do....again they are united and we are separated with some prostituting themselves for money to them.

[haller_79]

[Beautiful Loser]

AHS is now AIS (The Asian International School), BTW.

It's not worth the money/hours, trust me.

[esbam2002]

Yes, beautiful loser I know that IPS, AHS/AIS, and SIU are not worth the time and money to work there, which is most likely why they are offering now 400,000 � 450,000 VND to new teachers since they have such a negative reputation and image that they are hoping to bribe teachers with experience into working there�.since without us they would go out of business, or at least have to lower the prices that they charge since it would be schools filled with Indians and Filipinos�.not what Vietnamese parents that send their kids there want. This is why I asked the original question to find out. This was just secondary though. Who ever �Oh My God� is I question his motives as he is the only teacher, out of near 20 I have heard from, that has even defended IPS and Ms Doan�s actions�.all the rest, including the Vietnamese staff, hate the school, talk down about it, and have a word for Ms Doan that rhymes with witch.

The main function of this though, again for the partial readers, was to answer a theory that I had, based on experience, as to the behavior of the foreign teachers here. Not trying to fight a battle though the field was on the grounds of foreign teachers. It goes to show why they behave and treat us as they do. The Vietnamese are united, stick together, and protect each other. Where as we as foreigners are separated, unorganized, cutting each others throats and stabbing each other in the back for money�.In short most teachers here act like common street whores. The Vietnamese Government to me is 100% correct in stating that the failure of the English education system is our fault. We are not Vietnamese, and we are taught from birth to think independent, to know right from wrong, but instead we come here, don�t care about our students, look for the easy money, and just take�.No, wonder Vietnamese Teachers look down on us as �fake� teachers who get paid huge amounts of money to do nothing.

Just my opinions and views....

[1st Sgt Welsh]

[esbam2002]

1st SGT Welsh merely checking a theory and getting information....I have been gone from the school a year, but every time I hear about this school and Ms Doan it is followed by how a new teacher got harassed and hosed by her. As for Union not exactly since I understand the pit falls to everything, but clearly there needs to be some unity, not holding people back from working there, but a way of announcing as a group good or bad schools to work for, or else the Vietnamese are correct to blame us for the failure of their English Education system....Saigon ESL did this for a while before it became a dead site, and really these prostitute teachers annoy me since they are 1/3 of the reason I have students that study English 3 years and all they can say is "Hi how are you?", "My name is ...." and so on. Don't worry I am fairly open about things so understood your comments.

Though I will repost my original text which I removed after finding out want I wanted to know....

Have the question if The International Primary School (IPS), The Asian High School (AHS), and The Saigon International University (SIU) have been blacklisted yet by the foreign teaching community here? I know they all have a very negative reputation and image in the teaching community here, but their BS is starting to go above and beyond in treatment of their foreign teachers, as well as Vietnamese staff.

I know that currently they are paying foreign teachers 400,000 � 450,000 VND an hour, I can only guess due to problems finding teachers, but they still continue to harass, discriminate, and extremely poor treatment of foreign teachers by the Vietnamese management. I thought my problems with the teacher manager, Ms Doan, at the Cao Thang campus was an isolated problem. Basically issues with my work permit and refusal to sign and stamp my work permit application, after seeing all degrees and documents legalized and finished, then fired me for not having a work permit, added with this being forced to teach a certain way, only to get blamed for the failure of it, and the ignoring of all facts and evidence to show the forced behavior of the Vietnamese manager. The worst though being that the teacher manger will play favorites with her staff, which normally seems to be based on whom she wants to date, or who is giving money to her business partner.

She as well will use the observations as a means to harass, and fire teachers she deems not worth her time, by this I mean making up negative things, and ignoring all positive. She actually ignored all positive things from my TA, and ordered her to find, make up if needed, problems that she could use. After I left she publicly shamed my TA as an example, to the rest of the Vietnamese staff. I ended up writing a 6 page complaint letter about her behavior, which I can send to anyone interested, which was of course ignored by the owner, even though the facts and evidence was solid and proved her conspiring against me, to include illegal actions involving my work permit as told to me by a lawyer here.

She didn�t stop here though and when contacted by VUS on my application there lied and told them I was fired for poor teaching, and extreme lack of cooperation. We will forget my 7 highly positive observations prior to my 1 negative observation which was just done to be vindictive, and the two TAs that wrote me about how prior to her personal issues with me stated that she praised me for being a great teacher and admiring my methodology, as well as telling the owner to give me a raise, higher than most teachers at the time, for being such a good teacher. Of course VUS listened to her, the observer in my demo class, I felt, had his mind already made up before I even started, as he paid little to no attention to my teaching as his face was in a laptop the entire time, and the final result was the same, I mean exact same near word for word, as Ms Doan�s final observation�.I don�t believe in coincidence. This also remains my one and only negative observation on a demo class, and when I cut her out of my CV I returned to no problems and all positive.

As annoying as this is this is not an isolated problem with this teacher manager at IPS. I recently was informed by another teacher there, that she recently fired for poor teaching, that the same had happened to him. Now I didn�t say what happened but asked questions to get the answers to find out. Same things, but for him she changed and ran him off when he refused to pay money for mistakes in grading the student weekly tests. IPS has the policy that the foreign teacher pays 40,000 VND per grading mistake on a weekly test, which is supposed to be double checked by the Vietnamese TA, but this teacher was refused this double checking by the Teacher Manager, Ms Doan, there. He stated that after he refused to sign the paper allowing the school to rob him of this money, his next observation was extremely poor with nothing in the positive, the same as I had happen in my final observation. He as well stated that his TA, who was normally friendly and kind with him changed and refused to help in his class after this issue. I guess the public shaming of my TA for helping me had the effect that she wanted. The other problem he stated to me was that the Teacher Manager, Ms Doan, ordered, but with her it is forced, all teachers to give grades and marks for the month of October, before the month even started, by which giving false grades to the students.

So now this has happened twice that I know of, from the same Teacher Manager, Ms Doan, at the IPS Cao Thang campus. I know as well that the other campuses are not better either in the unprofessional, personal, and vindictive behavior and mistreatment of foreign teaching staff at the school, all ordered by the owner, Ms Truc, and carried out by her Vietnamese managers. As well recently a teacher who was there 6 years at the Cao Thang campus, who give his time as the MC for their presentations, and had a child in the schools ask for a raise to be paid near the 400,000 VND that new teachers are getting, and was refused this raise keeping him paid around 300,000 VND. The behavior of these people, from the owners to the Vietnamese management, to me is unforgiveable in how they treat their foreign teaching staff.

[Beautiful Loser]

AIS does have a union for foreign staff. I know because I looked over the English translation of the paperwork for their big CIS inspection. The union is ran completely by ownership, believe it or not.

CIS is a joke as well. Shoot off an email to them and ask how the GAIE got accredited by them. Here's the contact I corresponded with. They did nothing wrong and GAIE is a legit operation, of course.

[email protected]

The problem starts at the top and works its way down. Nothing will change that as long as they can get teachers, which they'll always be able to do, as long as they're willing to pay what they do.

[esbam2002]

I wrote them too a while back Beautiful loser....the CIS didn't care either about the server mistreatment, and discrimination of foreign teachers, though they claim to stand up and support them....Truman State University in Kirksville, MO who is a partner with them (IPS, AHS, SIU), and from my home state, didn't seem to care either that students were getting fraudulent certifications and grades, and that teachers were being ordered to do this, and fired if they gave real grades....wonder if DHS would care....

[Oh My God]

[esbam2002]

Oh My God trust me based on what other teachers who have worked there, all IPS/AHS schools and not just Cao Thang, have said, compared to you it sounds like you are defending them. Added with your comment "Not true BUT they are under a lot of pressure to keep paying customers by whatever means necessary by the owner." which I have never met a teacher in IPS/AHS that would agree with you on this.

If a teacher in general, not specifically you, is making way more in pay than the other teachers my experience with the IPS/AHS system is that they only care about themselves, were watching out for their money, and not caring about their students. Every teacher I have seen that has got this level of pay is in some way kissing butt, or being a good order taker, which elevated them to the level of a favorite teacher of the Vietnamese management. These teachers are the problem with the school system here, as they are the ones prostituting themselves to the highest bider, or thinking and behaving like the Kapos, Jewish prison guards, in Concentration camps.

Again I knew a guy who worked in IPS 6 years, MCed all their presentations, helped out anytime they asked, even had his kids in the school. All he did is ask to be paid near the 400,000 VND an hour of new teachers....and was refused by Ms Doan and Ms Truc.

If IPS/AHS is so great why do they have to raise the pay to one of the highest levels I have seen in Ho Chi Minh to attract new teachers?

Why do they still have one of the highest, if not the highest, foreign teacher turn over rates?

Why did, at or near, 20 Vietnamese teachers and TAs quit on them last September, with more assumed the following October, at the Cao Thang campus, because of the abusive policies of Ms Doan and the owner, of all the IPS schools, Ms Truc?

Why is it that every teacher who has worked there, other than you, all say the same thing....great kids, but extremely poor, unprofessional, discriminating, and abusive Vietnamese Management?

Why were they getting ready to be "blacklisted" by Saigon ESL right before it became a dead site?

[deadlift]