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[teacher X]

WARNING: What follows is me pissing into the wind and complaining about a very common occurrence when ESL teaching for McSkools.

I have graded and level checked students for about 4 years. I think it's safe to say that I have a vague idea of what level bracket a student should fit into.

I'm also fully aware of the business side of ESL teaching and that, at the end of the day, the priority is keeping students happy and keeping their money coming into our pockets.

With this in mind and having experienced similar things before, I really shouldn't be as annoyed as I am today.

Anyway, a week ago I tested a potential student. She was unable to competently answer any of my questions. When a student is unable to tell me their name, age or identify basic vocabulary from flash cards, I feel it's safe to class them as elementary level. The girl, though 12, couldn't count past 3 and had absolutely no grasp of even basic grammatical structure.

Despite my suggestion (and at the behest of her mother), she was put into a 'More 2' class. Even if you haven't used the text you should be able to guess from the '2' that it's a bit advanced for someone unable to count to 5. More 1 ends with Past Simple, so that gives you an idea of what ability you should have in order to proceed onto More 2.

Alas, the mother was still not happy that her genius daughter was in such a low level group. Now, the main issue is her age. At 12, she is quite a bit older than the rest of the class and this obviously caused some embarrassment. So after some complaining from the mother, the administration decided to move her up to 'More 3'.

Her teacher at 'More 2' rolled his eyes and simply agreed with me that she is in no way able to move onto such a level of English but that it's a waste of breath to complain about it. Her new teacher also questioned the wisdom of the administration.

In short, rather than simply admit that the decision to move her up 2 levels above where she should be is simply down to money and keeping the parents happy, they essentially blamed it on my ability to level check competently. Her mother says that the girl can easily do More 3 as she understands English very well. My level checking ability is flawed and I completely failed to grade her correctly.
Although, I asked her teacher what he thought about her comprehensive skills and he confirmed that she didn't understand a single word he had said throughout the entire lesson.

So, after some 'discussion' between the teachers and admin, we have a classic example of Russian administration ignoring the advice of 3 teachers who have a combined teaching experience of 25 years. The admin (who are apparently experts in Pedagogy) explained that the student would 'grow' into the level and that when you put a low level student into a high level class, they increase their ability much faster and that she'll be the right level in just a few weeks. I rather sarcastically suggested we just advance her to an upper intermediate adult class and then she'll be fluent in English in just a couple of weeks.

I then suggested that we do away with the whole level checking system entirely and just ask the students what level they are. Clearly they know better than we teachers do. I think I am currently in the bad books for disagreeing with the infallible logic of the administration.

So, what do I do now? Well, I dislike my opinion being dismissed in such a way, especially by those who know nothing on the subject. Therefore, I have decided to grade all future students as advanced level students.

Don't know the alphabet? Join an advanced level class...you'll 'grow' into the level in a week or two. You'll be speaking English fluently in no time.

End of rant.

[Jazziz23]

haha! when it comes to $$ they'll tell the students anything to keep them. I feel bad for the girl though, she won't be learning a thing.

[Sashadroogie]

"I like dog. Understand all, but no can speak."

[RussianWinter]

Ooh, I experience this one about a million times a day. The result: a class full of bored and confused students who don't understand the material and don't talk. It's awful.

[coledavis]

Ah, 100% market-driven approach. It should mess them up in the medium term as it becomes clearer to more people what a cr*p school it is. Meantime, you've got to try to hang in there until the summer and learn whatever you can from the experience. Or find something else, easier said than done, but you have every reason to feel that they are acting in an unethical way (whatever mum's demands based on her evident expertise).