Job Discussion Forums

[veiledsentiments]

Just thought that I would throw in here that the civil ID problem is as much, if not more, a problem of the bureaucracy than your employer. This amount of time seems to be standard. I arrived at my job for KU in August, and got my work visa in January. I had been warned beforehand that this would happen and to bring enough money to live on for that period.

That said, I had no trouble renting a flat from a landlord who rented to other people from the university. I just had to pay the rent and furnish the flat with my own money. When I finally got paid my salary and housing and furniture allowance, I bought a new car with my ATM card and sent a big check home covering what I spent.

The Kuwaiti government bureaucracy is totally hopeless and deal in obstruction at every step. Add to that an inefficient employer... and the fun begins.

(the students and the wasta situation tends to be SOP too... )

VS

[Dedicated]

This is addressed to Home Owner - I only hope you are not an English teacher. Your grammar, spelling, lack of punctuation and capital letters are atrocious. I have a friend at ACK who would take issue over "anybody being able to teach English".

If ACK has employed somebody to teach with this level of English, no matter which department, then there is no hope!

[Dedicated]

This posting is on behalf of a languishing friend at ACK :

*In response to Monkeybreath, that "many students are polite, genuine respectful" why is it that the most frequently used adjective to describe students in the staff room is FERAL? I have never used such a word about a student in my life.

* As for " the recently revised Level 3 program is currently being externally validated by TAFE Tasmania".....any Australian currently in the education field in Oz, knows that if you pay enough, you can get validation. However, it is how the program is implemented. The fact that the current level 3 teachers are ditching all the textbooks (Lecture Ready/Headway Academic Skills) and all "doing their own thing", shows that the program is in chaos.

* Everyday, instructors are coming from Engineering and Business bewailing the woeful standard of students coming from 3 semesters in the Foundation Program. They are totally unable to cope, most of all with the vocabulary. The FP instructors are losing credibility vis-a-vis the departments. They are asking, what are you doing in the FP?Something is going horribly wrong.

* A Foundation Program should be teaching EAP, English for Academic Purposes, preparing students for the academic skills needed at college/university level. It is not a language school. The hours spent playing Scrabble, (of which the Head of FP is so proud - Scrabble has landed) and cutting up coloured card, guillotining and laminating games are more appropriate for English for Entertainment Purposes. These activities would not be deemed appropriate in any EAP program, ( and forget the huge cost) unless of course, the students can produce business/engineering vocabulary, rather than words like "book, table, cat, dog".Of course, with 8 hours in the building, you have to look busy.

* The current entrance test is obviously far too easy and not benchmarked against a world-accepted standard. Level exams are often taken from coursebooks, and students can bring dictionaries to the exam, from which grammar questions can merely be copied. Some reading passages are pe-taught in class. It is virtually impossible to fail - then the students get to their departments, and the instructors there are in despair.
No doubt Monkeybreath will still call these teething problems, but some students have graduated.

* Does Gulezar (earlier posting) still insist the"FP is well organized, systematic and running smoothly"? One questions where on earth he/she worked before - I'll take a guess, Saudi Arabia. It's all relative I suppose.

* The Vice President for Academic Affairs is also leaving - good people move on when faced with this corporate mess.

* All the energy that should be going into building an academic learning environment is going on survival. No one is backing the good guys. Folks keep their heads down and call their cowardice discretion (or "playing the game"). Forget them. They are the kind you wouldn't want to be fighting in the next trench to.

[veiledsentiments]

Just to put Dedicated's post into the Gulf context, I have never been involved with any Gulf university where the content teachers didn't constantly moan about the level of the students who were pushed out of the Foundations courses into their majors. The fact is that the majority of students enter the Foundation programs at a very low level and it would take magicians to get them up to speed in a year or two, which is what is expected. The truth is that most of these students could not get an acceptable entrance score in the IELTS or TOEFL if we taught them for 5 years. And neither the students nor the administrations will accept that length of time. (again it all goes back to what is taught in the schools... which is not much... and none of it academic English)

It is hard to speak to the methods being used, but it sounds like they have a group of language school teachers without much experience teaching Academic English, but perhaps you exaggerate for effect. The problem is always that the expectations of students and administration rarely match up with the reality of how quickly an average human can learn a language to a level appropriate for academic study. Add to that the constant debate in our field of how to do it. I was never a member of the cut paper bits and play games process of teaching English and never used it... with the exception of limited use to teach paragraph organization in the lowest level of writing class.

And any teacher who describes his students as 'feral' should probably be leaving the country soon as his prejudices are clear... just as the teacher(s) I worked with who referred to the students as the 'bloody wogs.'

VS

[15yearsinQ8]

dedicated.......
we must have the same friend because your last post just described ACK as I know it - including the scrabble.

MOD edit

[Dedicated]

Here is the latest bulletin of news from ACK.

Vs has summed it up perfectly, when she said " ACK have a group of language school teachers without much experience teaching academic English". One teacher even asked in the staffroom "What exactly is EAP?".
However, ACK have stated in their strategic plan, that by 2010, 90% of teachers would have relevant qualifications and 60% would have a postgraduate qualification. That is 3 years away - the implication is that they currently don't have these qualifications. These people would never get a post at a university anywhere, so they are so grateful to be at ACK.

In the Business/Management Dept, instructors are being pressurized to sign contracts for 28 contact teaching hours.(They have signed for 24). That means on average, a Management instructor has about 150 students and all the associated admin. They also have to fill in for staff who are ill, new staff on visa trips to Bahrain, staff who planned to leave, and staff who walk out. ( One Business instructor walked out last week).No overtime is paid.

The classrooms in the main building are not large enough to house the size of the classes (25+). Currently courses are being run that need the use of computer labs but instructors do not have access to them.

There is no hierarchy or structure that encourages promotion and growth with the organisation, and no professional development opportunities (but after 28 contact hours, one would be too exhausted anyway)

Contracts are not transparent and are proving divisive amongst staff due to lack of consistency. There are no time related or qualification related increments. A 12 month ban on working for any competing organisations,prevents natural attrition and market forces.

Over in the Foundation Program, yet another resignation after a 3 month stretch. The favouritism is cringe-making, with the sycophantic Rice Krispies group being called " love/honey" whereas the others are ignored, not even a civil " Good Morning". Is it ethically correct for teachers to announce their birthday to students, waste class time on parties, then collect expensive gifts just 2 weeks before exams?

There was an admissions exam last week, at which students, when asked why they were applying for ACK, stated " It is so easy. This is my last hope, as I cannot get anywhere else". As for the speaking exam, there were no criteria - just tick a box saying " Beginner/pre-Intermediate/Intermediate/Upper Intermediate". What is the benchmark?
This is despite the rhetoric " ACK enjoys a reputation in the community for the rigour and fairness of its academic processes and for the integrity with which assessment is conducted here at ACK".

No, as Monkey Breath insists (25/11), it is not a writhing pit of misery, but it is not a happy, professionally organised place.

[grab-bag]

This is definitely a place to avoid at the moment. Some excellent teachers there who just suffer suffer and suffer some more. If you're a new inexperienced teacher, I would recommend this place - you'd learn a lot more here in 6 months than you would in a more stable environment. You'd learn how people can backstab you without warning and how the administration will not back you up or support you. The administration is run by people who lack communication skills and don't know how to manage a big department. The director reminds me of a character I worked with in Qatar years ago - sly, sneaky and watching you all the time. The guy in Qatar managed to get himself promoted to a department head by manipulation, dirty tricks, blackmail and subterfuge, this man carefully orchestrated the forced departure of an excellent head - once my colleague many years ago. Absolutely disgusting. If you can put up with sneaks, spies and power mongers, then you might be able to cope. If you want to work with decent administration types, this is not the place for you - at least not as long as the present administration is there.

So much good teaching potential being wasted by incompetents, it's a crying shame. The admin people need to clean up their act: they need to take care of their teachers, fix up the housing situation, revise the benefits and family status situations of their staff. If they took care of these, they might have happier teachers. But as long as they exploit the staff by overwork, underpayment, inadequate benefits and disgusting housing, nobody wins. I have met so many great people from this place and it is really a crying shame that they are treated like dirt. Unfortunately, a lot of places around here are very similar. Exploit, exploit, and more exploitation of teachers is their mantra.
Be very careful about this place.

[monkeybreath]

What a shame that when asked by a colleague for a definition of EAP, your response was a condescending online jibe. I give you that it is an unfortunate question, but perhaps you could have taken the opportunity to simply improve his/her understanding of the world we work in, rather than relegate your colleagues wholesale to the shabby status of language school teachers. (�These people would never get a post at a university anywhere� � aren�t you currently employed at ACK too?) When did our industry become so pretentious?

Several of our colleagues have Masters in TEFL or Applied Linguistics, several are working towards their MAs, and others have the DELTA. I must be one of the dreadfully ill-educated types you view with such disdain (only a CELTA Pass A and ten years experience � oh dear!) but I have met plenty of academics laden down with post-grad accolades who really aren�t much chop in the classroom - I guess it depends on what you value. Great qualifications don�t always mean great learning. With or without MAs, there are plenty of instructors in our staffroom who are far more than just �language school teachers�. Your disparaging comments about the skills and experience of the people you work with make me wonder why you have not volunteered your knowledge and expertise to those you identify as needing some guidance .

I am all for rallying together with my co-workers for better benefits, a more satisfying, secure and transparent work environment, and more rigorous implementation of programs at ACK. But I think it�s unfair to slate your colleagues indiscriminately in order to justify your negative opinion of the college in general.

Finally, perhaps the �sycophants� you mention have simply developed pleasant working relationships with their colleagues and boss, and are just trying to get on with their teaching lives while maintaining a modicum of good humour and goodwill.

(As for contracts, all instructors regardless of program, sign contracts stipulating a possible 28 teaching hours. Very rarely have Foundation staff (or Engineering from what I have heard) been asked to exceed their usual 20 hours. Business instructors have drawn the short straw here, due to exponential growth in their student numbers, and ongoing difficulty recruiting the 40-something instructors needed � a situation which will hopefully change very soon, else the department implode!)

[Home_Owner]

dedicated you are correct i am not an english teacher i am in the engineering department and with over 20 years of industry experience i think i know what the students need as the industry hasnt changed that much in the 4 months since i left.

the second eid period is now over and xmas is upon us once again. merry xmas to all.

now more of my ranting!!! there has been another teacher pushed out the door due to student complaints the teacher in question is not a bad teacher and works hard to try and get the students to learn but like has been said before if a student doesnt like you and they complain you are gone. the teacher has been asked to resign if they do they will recieve the 2 months pay and a ticket home if not they will fire them and they get nothing all this over student complaint. what ever happened to investigating these claims by the students who is there to look after the staff. not to many people by my account. i might be a bit inexperienced when it comes to teaching but i know what is right and wrong and forcing a teacher out the door because a student complains is not good enought.

dont get me wrong i like most of my student quite well and i treat them as if they were in the industry they aspire to one day join but i will NOT NOT EVER just pass them for the sake of getting more students in the college.

now for the english department as i know some of you are probly reading this. please tell me why (i really need to know) there are semester 3 and 4 students who still require someone to translate for them just to talk to me about what my classes are about. i know that the spoken langue that is english is not easy to learn but when the students tell me that they took the english FP and they still dont speak english "because they cant" what is the english FP doing?!!!! maybe someone from the english department can tell me cause i need to know as it feels like i am teaching english and my subjects at the same time.

for the managment: i understand that the amount of paper generated by the goverment of Kuwait is mountianious but there has to be a faster way of getting things done here. the new president has been in country for less than 2 months and has his civil id he must have lots of wasta. on speaking with a few other expat managment people (VP's and the like) they didnt have to wait almost 5 months for a civil id why? putting that aside the biggest problem is that there is nothing that can be done by me to aid in this endevor why not i would like to help i am generally a helpful person. one day i will understand that

that is about it for the moment but dedicated please take this for what it is a vent DO NOT CORRECT THIS i am an engineer not an english teacher.

[veiledsentiments]

Mr HO

What you are encountering is way too common all over the Gulf. Private institutions are notorious for not only iffy management, but letting the students run the show. (also a cultural issue here to add to the problem) The students will always go over the teachers' heads to get what they want... whether it is to get rid of a teacher they don't like, or to pass the courses when they shouldn't.

These new small universities often end up giving in to the students in fear of their leaving and taking their tuition money with them. Rare is the place that will push for quality of students over quantity. I worked at one private college in Oman that enforced standards of English, and the students we failed because of their abysmal level and exam scores immediately left to go to another private college, where they would enter their highest level English class and be considered a star. I always pitied their content teachers having to deal with students just as you described.

As a teacher, our only option if we don't like it, is usually to leave. Until a place is unable to get teachers, they won't change the system. This place has a longer list of negatives than we have seen for a long time on this board. Low pay, large classes, short holidays, and poor management... It looks to be passing Abu Dhabi University in this department.

VS

[Dedicated]

Merry Christmas to all, and thanks to Home Owner for his honest post, though I have to admit that here in the UK, engineers do have to spell etc!

I have been asked to assure you that the new teachers in the Foundation Programme who arrived in September are acutely aware of the standard of the students that have been passed up to the Depts, and are struggling to do something about it. The sad fact is that the cheapest teachers ACK can find that do not make trouble for the front office are the ones that stay. The "trouble" might mean not complaining about students with behavioural problems; dreadful accommodation;large classes;unpaid holidays.

Qualifications are promoted and only used to get paying customers to pay more for their services. Qualifications are important to meet certification.
We totally agree that, as Monkeybreath hastens to add, " great qualifications don't always mean great learning", regardless of whether it is a relevant Masters or a CELTA pass with Grade A and 10 years of experience. What all the newcomers are shocked by, and despise, is that these people have acquiesced to a system, and passed these students up to the departments, knowing perfectly well they will be unable to cope. They have "played the game " very well, and continue to do so. Why don't you come and speak to these sycophants who have been at ACK for years and see if they can look you straight in the eye and consider themselves professionals? They have done a disservice to the teaching profession and to their students, but they really don't care - they have kept their miserable jobs and picked up their 1,200/1,300 KD a month = 30 pieces of silver.

The newcomers who are questioning the status quo are getting a lot of hassle and told to "play the game", or they leave. "Don't upset the apple cart. Pick up the big bucks".

As for the " pleasant working relationships with colleagues...with a modicum of good humour and goodwill" have you ever worked in such a miserable office space over the Christmas period? Totally dead. Even Kuwaiti supermarkets have a Christmas tree on display.

I think monkeybreath's final sentence " else the dept implode" could be a prophetic statement. Then let them go scurrying to see where their CELTA Grade A gets them. There are thousands of them about. Establishments read this board, like here in the UK, so anybody staying too long at ACK, will be limiting their future prospects.

Keep up the good fight! Some of us support you, and things will change if we get our way, but too late for this year's Level 3.

[monkeybreath]

Come and look me in the eye � I will tell you that I have worked professionally and worked hard the whole time I have been at ACK. Dedicated, you totally overestimate the amount of influence Western teachers have in the Kuwaiti education system..

I do not suggest that one should roll over and �play the game� � many of us have been criticising the way ACK operates for a LONG time � entry test ranges are too high, allowing students into higher language levels than they should be in, and into the Diploma when they could easily spend significant time improving their language skills; past assessment schemes (namely an Australian migrant qualification called CSWE III which was auspiced through TAFE Tasmania) were rotten (and not a single long term instructor will argue otherwise, I assure you!)

I completely understand why HomeOwner is exasperated by the poor language skills of some of his semester 3 and 4 Diploma students. I think Home Owner would acknowledge that Semester 1 and 2 students coming from Foundation have significantly improved skills, as CSWE III was not the determining factor in their matriculation. Please remember too that any student who has needed to come through Foundation will have far weaker skills than students entry via direct entry who have been studying in English for 13 years in British and American schools (as VS mentioned in a previous post � improvement is possible, miracles are not!)

Management�s expectation of what can feasibly be achieved in three semesters of English study, and the acceptable range for failure (90% pass rate is pitched as the lowest possible acceptable rate) have had dire effects on the quality of language in the Diploma. Absolutely, no arguments from me. This is certainly where most effective changes can be made.

Dedicated, you make too many assumptions about the instructors who have been at ACK longer than you. Perhaps we are sticking with it in the hope that we can affect some changes too � you are not the only one trying to raise the standard. Decisions have often been made in the past against which instructors are powerless- you have acknowledged yourself the influence that students and profit margins have. It is not naive to hope that the academic department will be able to operate without interference from the very powerful Arab non-academic side of the college in the future. However this is certainly not today�s reality. Instructors who get fed up trying to work within the confines that exist currently do leave. Nothing changes in their wake.

I hope you do hang around and propose some radical changes, rather than just verbally bashing the people you work with. If you had a chat to those you accuse of �doing the teaching profession such a disservice� perhaps you would find that you share similar ideas about what can be done in the future.

[BK64]

Well said Monkey breath - I completely agree with you.

Dedicated -
How about posting some constructive criticism and possible solutions to the problems here, rather than just attacking co-workers and middle management.

Also I find it offensive that you use points raised in the Faculty rep forum without keeping them in their original context which was constructive. This just undermines the work of a wide cross section of faculty that spent time and effort considering workable solutions to these problems at ACK.

Time not spent flaming colleagues in an anonymous forum online.

For someone that espouses 'professional conduct' etc, your repeated personal attacks on individuals are not a particularly fine example of this.

[Home_Owner]

I know that the instructors in the english department are getting things a bit better. S1 and S2 english is better than the S4 classes but now I ask why did "we" let them thru the program with out better english skills. We need to ensure that all the students learn to speak read and write english so that I do not have to grade assessments with the word "the" spelled "ZA". Change happens slowly but in the case of english it needs to happen with a bit more speed than usual if the students can communicate how are they going to learn anything outside of Kuwait.

[veiledsentiments]

In my experience, it is rarely to never the EFL teachers who get to decide who passes or fails based on what standard. It is the management from supervisor to the top. In many (most?) cases the private schools get the bottom of the barrel academically. These are the students who didn't have high enough grades to get into KU or to travel overseas to study.

The EFL department is too often (always?) expected to work a miracle in a year and couldn't succeed even if they were the best English teachers in the world. The pressure is to pass them so that there are upper level classes... professors, after all, have been hired and are sitting about being paid. They need graduates in order to recruit more and hopefully better students.

If this institution is at all serious academically, this situation should improve with time.

VS
(interesting that in all of my years of teaching writing in the Gulf, I have never seen any Arabic speaker write 'za' for 'the' - even at the lowest elementary level. It makes me wonder what nationality their English teachers have been as they couldn't be a native speaker...)