Job Discussion Forums

[barabbas]

[eclectic]

Barabas, thats an interesting and enlightening reply. I assumed also that being more beaurocratic via its governmental status that Ankara would actually be more easy for foreigners to live in than a tourist trap like Istanbul. I guess its not far enough east for it to exude any real heavy eastern feel like I imagine Diyarbakir and Erzurum would.

[mellea]

I recently applied to Bilkent, but from what's been said here, it doesn't sound like a great place.

Is it looked down on by other schools/universities worldwide because of the lack of freedom and creativity it allows its teachers? I don't have a CELTA qualification so I thought to combine it with teaching would be great, but now I'm having second thoughts and I'm thinking of paying to do a CELTA and finding work afterwards.

Any thoughts on this?

[Ankara'dan Nana]

As someone has already mentioned in this thread, social life in Ankara can be exciting if you know the right places
Here's my list - "November" pub, "Salata" bar and night club, "The drunk pub" somewhere close to METU campus.

[duende]

Well I posted the comment about Bilkent and my account was made inactive. No explanation was given. I had to create a new account. I haven't heard anything from Bilkent at this point but I do wonder if they somehow contacted Dave's ESL and threatened them. Hm . . . .

[duende]

As I am sure many of you know, posts reflect the writer just as much as what is being critiqued. It is especially true when writing in the heat of frustration. I have thought about my accurate use of language (something I teach my students but sometimes fail to practice).

So a few things need to be amended.

First, it is not true that the "only" teachers who stay long term are married to Turkish people. A more accurate description would be "most teachers who stay long term are either Turkish or married to a Turk." There seems to be an unusually high turnover rate for native teachers. The statistics that Bilkent uses does not reflect this since they count the lifers (again mostly Turkish teachers and a few natives married to Turks).

In general, there seems to be quite a low level of job satisfaction. This may be due to a number of things (personality clashes, expectations, failure to adapt to the very unique Bilkent culture etc.).

My background is in teaching academic writing. My MA is in teaching academic writing. As I mentioned before, I have taught at colleges and universities for over ten years. So all of this background feeds into my expectations of Bilkent.

I was expecting to be part of the university faculty and to be treated like regular faculty like I was at universities and colleges in the U.S., Poland, the U.K., and South Korea. This, however, is not the case. BUSEL (both for the prep school and for the faculty of academic English) are support units and are treated as such. What I mean is that if you work at Bilkent in the FAE or prep school it is very much run like a language school with sometimes less freedom and autonomy.

However, there are more perks than working at a language school. The biggest attraction is regular working hours (no split shifts) and a paid one month summer holiday.

If you are beginning teacher, Bilkent might be an ok first stop. Like I mentioned before, just get your CELTA (not sure if the DELTA here is worth it but that's another issue) and then leave.

I did not do the MA here so perhaps it was wrong of me to rely on a few others experiences. However, I think an MA in education management from Bilkent doesn't do much for jobs in English speaking countries. It might, however, help you with jobs in Saudi Arabia (perhaps the middle east in general) and Turkey. So if you would like to teach in the middle east, perhaps Bilkent may be worth the pay-off.

None of these things work for me since I don't need an MA. MA's in education in the U.S. are generally not rigorous either but will certainly carry much more weight than a largely unknown university in Turkey. Again, this mainly applies if you want to work outside the middle east or Turkey.

So Bilkent is not an ideal place to work. However, if you come for a specific purpose and get out it could lead to better jobs.

In terms of my comparison of METU to Bilkent, I believe it is largely accurate. Again, though, it depends on your expectations. Bilkent can offer more for a beginning teacher and also has more perks (a flight home and paid residence and work visas for example). METU seems to allow for more freedom in their department of modern languages. Again, I don't have direct experience of METU but have to rely on three native instructors who have worked at METU in the past. Unlike Bilkent, the department of modern languages is an actual department and not merely a support unit.

I have learned an important lesson here. Wait a few weeks and think things through more critically before posting on Dave's ESL.

Also, there are some good people here at Bilkent despite the work environment.

There now I feel more balanced!

Oh and before anyone gets the wrong idea . . . no one is making me do this. I have heard nothing from Bilkent about these postings.

[simon_alexander]

Postpran,

I am currently being interviewed for an EAP Instructor post at Bilkent, so have obviously read your posts with some dismay. (I've also received two detailed emails from long-term instructors there who paint a much more favourable overall picture of the place, and both of whom are to differing degrees aghast at some of your initial comments, and also question their accuracy/perspective.)

That said, as I'm also one of these over-qualified/intellectual types to which you allude with a couple of MAs and a PhD in philosophy/literature, I'm pretty concerned about stuff like professional recognition/respect and so forth, however, as well as some of the other issues raised on this thread.

Could you comment specifically on the following:

1. The source/link for this worrying/bizarre-sounding article you mention written by the MA Course Instructor about the 'expendability' of EAP Instructors.
2. I have been told that the MA is actually free to BUSEL staff -what, then, is the basis for your claim that is mainly a 'money-making' venture?
3. Both the MA and DELTA are, I am told, validated by Cambridge. Again, please provide at least some evidence for your counter-claims about their standing.

If you prefer to email me personally (I can't yet do so, annoyingly, via this site as a new poster), please feel free to do so on [email protected].

Thanks in advance for any up-to-date/experientially informed feedback you and/or others may be able to provide.

ST