Job Discussion Forums

Non Sequitur · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 4724 Location: China

BBT Fan.
I mentioned my assessment of teachers so I can hardly be against it.
My point in respect of both FT assessing FT and CT assessing FT is the lack of interest in improvement.

Lobster · Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2011 2:36 pm Post subject:

Baozi man · Joined: 06 Sep 2011 Posts: 214

Supposed assessments primarily serve as a reason to keep your salary level low, i.e, to justify not giving you a raise. Chinese English teachers believe that they better grasp/teach English than you do. Many, indeed, do, especially in this context. They refer to the assessment to strengthen their position. Since what you do is different than what they do, your method can only be worse, certainly not better, than theirs.

The only time I ever heard anything about my teaching was at contract renewal time. It was always portrayed in a negative light, along with snide remarks of a personal nature.

If you have a job, just do it. Don't expect constructive feedback. Remember, you are mainly just a white face referred to by administrators in order to con parents out of some tuition money.

Some schools charge students ~ 4000RMB more/yearly to have a foreign teacher. Do the math: Seventy students times 4000RMB= 280,000RMB; minus salary, housing, and so forth. I'm earning them ~ 180,000 a year. That's just one class. I have another, with fewer students, which is virtually all profit for the school. There are other expenses which doubtless consume a lot; nevertheless, the profit margin is significant.

Got to go quite a distance off the reservation for the people getting rich off of you to end the relationship. The assessments are a joke on you.

wangdaning · Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 3154

DosEquisX · Joined: 09 Dec 2010 Posts: 361

I haven't personally experienced that. However, the students keep in close contact with the dean of the foreign language department here and it is not uncommon for students to rat out a teacher for one reason or another. Personally, I have not experienced such a thing.

My gut is that the students who ask to randomly sit in on my classes are not there because they are interested in my class. Rather, I think they are there to evaluate my class and report back what they observe to the dean.

jaydizzle · Joined: 25 Nov 2011 Posts: 57

Classroom observation is common, and no big deal as far as I'm concerned. I figure the school has a right to check in on me, since they've invested a fair amount of money in me.

We complained one time our first year here, because my wife was observed for 5 weeks in a row, with at least 5 people present--all of them suits and officials with the school--and it was way out of proportion to the rest of us, who only got observed once and by one or two teachers. (They also delivered criticism in front of her class, which was inappropriate.) We had to "smack" our school leaders around a bit for that, but they pretty readily admitted they were over the top and never did it again.

In the 3 years I've been here, the observations have decreased dramatically. Last year, I had one that I know of, and it was just a CT. I haven't had one at all this year.