Job Discussion Forums

MELEE · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 4:52 pm Post subject:

Not all kids in Mexico are spoiled--in fact I'd risk it and say MOST are not. But as dixie was alluding to, the ones a native English speaker are likely to teach, are. You know the RICH ones, who's parents can afford to send them to expensive bilingual schools. I've never met, nor expect to meet, a native English speaker teaching in a public elementary or secondary school in Mexico.

Samantha · Joined: 25 Oct 2003 Posts: 2038 Location: Mexican Riviera

Guatetaliana wrote:

jfurgers · Joined: 18 Sep 2005 Posts: 442 Location: Mexico City

MELEE · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject:

I don't think I will ever understand why would want to put their kids in a school like that.

Phil_K · Joined: 25 Jan 2007 Posts: 2041 Location: A World of my Own

ESLmontana · Joined: 25 Feb 2008 Posts: 12

No....there is no need for me to go into my experiences in regards to Korea. I learned quite a lot from my time there, and I am thankful for playing my part.

Yikes...........teaching at a bilingual school in Mexico does not sound like what I had in mind. Although, I've worked with kids whose parents were well off. I can honestly say that some of them were great, and others were horrible little monsters. I am one for having good times in my classroom, but I do believe in routine, structure and good behavior. It seems as though my teaching philosophy would not go well with most down there. When I am in the classroom, I do not consider myself to be a "McTeacher", "Communication Coach", "Customer Service Rep", or any other title that takes away from being an ESL teacher. Granted, I am not a drill instructor getting students ready for basic training. After all, it is only English. But, I do not let students walk on me.....or each other. I lay down that law the first day in class.........along with letting them know it is OK to give a wrong answer, and the most important thing to do is try their best.

I guess it is the same B.S. everywhere you go, in regards to teaching ESL.

Again, thank you for the input.

eslmontana

Jetgirly · Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 741

I'm teaching in a bilingual high school. I submitted my first set of grades right before Semana Santa. I had students who didn't attend a single class, so I had never met them, and obviously they didn't do any work. I informed admin long before I submitted my marks that they were not attending (in hopes admin would address the attendance issue), and admin told me to give them zero. I gave them zero, but when I looked at the report cards I saw their marks had been raised to 70% (the minimum this school requires to pass). I don't understand why I even bother submitting grades if they are so meaningless. Actually, I don't know why I even bother showing up. Oh well, only 77 more days (including weekends!) until the end of the term...

notamiss · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject:

There exists a vast pool of private schools that are beneath the radar of foreign English teachers. These schools have minimal or more likely no websites, they don't recruit internationally, they don't have expat students (thus the expat community doesn't know them) and they likely don't pay enough to attract foreign teachers. I'd guess that the problems described in this thread are much less or non-existent in thise schools, at least that was my experience as a parent at one such school.

jfurgers · Joined: 18 Sep 2005 Posts: 442 Location: Mexico City

TheLongWayHome · Joined: 07 Jun 2006 Posts: 1016 Location: San Luis Piojosi

It's not only expensive schools that have a 'cannot fail' policy. I work in a government uni where students are allowed 8 absences per class per semester. If they have more, they fail the subject, in theory. So the students go about planning how they're going to spend their 8 free classes (as they see it) and inevitably miscount and end up with more than 8 absences.

I have discovered that it is just not worth my while to fail them for absences. Perhaps I'm now part of the problem but last time I put their true number of absences, there was uproar. They were chasing me up the street trying to get me to change them - teacher, all you have to do is go to control escolar and say you made a mistake?!?! WTF! I made a mistake? That coupled with various indecorous proposals makes it virtually pointless to do the right thing. What I hated most was that the students, without exception, all acted like it was my fault. So they did everything they could to get those absences wiped off, and they succeeded. If only they put that amount of effort into their studies.

The Mexican teachers always oblige of course because a) they're Mexican and b) they think they'll lose their jobs if the students fail.

notamiss · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:34 am Post subject:

Just to contribute another data point: my offsprings� experience at an UNAM Prepa ranged from teachers who didn't even show up (for months at a time) (or showed up but never stayed to teach a class)�to teachers who were super-strict to a degree that wouldn't have been permitted in my North American experience (at least in my days), and had no qualms about failing the whole class if they didn�t measure up.

MO39 · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:02 am Post subject:

ESLmontana · Joined: 25 Feb 2008 Posts: 12

Jetgirly · Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 741

I was really sick one day, so I came in, taught my 7:00 am class, and then went to the school doctor. He told me I should go home, so I wrote out lesson plans for the day and submitted them to the coordinator of the bilingual program. The doctor also wrote me a "medical absence" form or something that I gave to the coordinator. When I came back the next week (this happened on a Thursday and I don't have classes on Fridays), my students told me that they waited and waited for me, but I didn't show up! Where had I been? Why didn't I come to class? Even if the school doesn't have substitute teachers, the least they could have done was gone to the students and announced that class was cancelled or something. I suspect the school deliberately took no action to make me look bad, as the students made it very clear that normally when a teacher is sick they have a substitute teacher.

Jetgirly · Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 741

(We're on cockroach watch at the moment - we spotted a huge one in the spare bedroom - our first in Mexico! - and won't go to sleep until it's dead dead dead...)

Notamiss - I obviously would not fail an entire class that did the work, but what would say if a teacher failed an entire class and the reason those students failed was because they didn't hand in enough assignments to get a passing grade? About 30% of my students have a grade below 25%, because they simply don't hand in any work. I ALWAYS give the students enough time to finish the assignments in class because I've learned that once it becomes homework there is no way it will get done, and I also accept assignments by email if the student forgets to hand it in during class or needs extra time... but I only get about half the assignments on time, and then another ten or fifteen percent come in late (the school has a policy of zero for late work, but I take off 10% per day instead, as I'm making an effort to assess learning, not organizational skills)... with the rest not coming in at all. I've got quite a few students with zero absences, who have been in class every day, who haven't completed a single assignment. The class is "Reading and Writing" so there are only so many ways I can differentiate my instruction to accommodation different learning styles, but I do feel I've given them a lot of variety in terms of what we've done and how we do it... yet they somehow hand in NOTHING.