Job Discussion Forums

[OzBurn]

I'm still interested in coming to Turkey, but I have read so many negative things about the rudeness of students in K-12 schools that I have serious doubts. I should add that I am a strong teacher and had few problems with discipline in the US, although I had some very tough students there; and that Vietnam so far seems like a piece of cake. Hungary was another story. There, the students (not all, but many) were insanely rude and uncooperative, and I had a pretty miserable year. It's not an experience I would willingly repeat. (I am not implying, by the way, that this is typical of Hungarian schools. It may well have had much more to do with the school where I was working. The Hungarian teachers were as fed up as I was, and insisted it was different elsewhere in their country -- except for one who said that at the other school where she had taught, the students were even worse, and actually offered physical violence.)
My main demands are that students listen while I am talking, minimize use of their native language while in English class, and not make rude, cruel, or hateful comments to each other (or for that matter to me).
Or maybe I should just stick to teaching adults? How feasible is that?
Suggestions and experiences, please!

[yaramaz]

Do I dare say I enjoyed my time? It wasn't easy, especially since my previous teaching experience had been mainly with small groups of teens and adults from north east Asia ( japan, korea, taiwan, etc) who presented almost no discipline problems at all. Aside from the occasional rabidly competitive teenage korean boy who had to beat every other rabidly competitive korean boy at everything we did, it was pretty straightforward and calm. Oh, and that month of English Immersion with the 10 year old Mexi-kids. But aside from those experiences I was wholly unprepared for classes of 35 screaming 11-13 year olds. Turkish kids expect very strict discipline from their teachers. Some teachers (many) still hit the kids. They yell at them a lot. I personally dont think it is conducive to good learning but hey, it's just something you have to work around. You'll be dealing with kids who see foreign teachers as weak, easy, free-time. A lot of foreign teachers just play games to pass the time. The kids expect an easy ride. I had a hard time establishing immediate order inmy first year because I didnt realise just how stern I had to be to be taken seriously. My second year was a breeze in comparison.

From what you said about your experiences in the States, you'll be fine. Turkish kids aren't so different, and in fact, they have a lovely naivete (at least where I was) that I found refreshing after the sarcastic, ironic kids I came across back home. Basically, I found that if you were firm, consistent and fair, you needn't yell or be as overwhelmingly angry as many of the Turkish teachers. The kids responded well to a quiet but stern voice when discipline is needed.

However, after all that, I'm still moving on to teach adults in autumn. I'll miss the kids but I needed a change and I need to work in a place where teaching isn't 75% discipline...

Oh, and Turkish kids can be creative and imaginative and very interesing if you nurture these aspects of their intelligence, which usually have been ignored by their regular school system. I found my kids responded wonderfully to drama and poetry and other things not used much in English language learning there.

[ghost]

Avoid the elementary sections in Private K-12's....most of them are hell, and you will not get any backing from the Admin. because the parents pay top dollar (or Turkish Lira) for their progeny to attend those Institutions masquerading as places of learning.

If you want to teach in a K-12, insist on teaching the 'academic' sections of grades 9 and above, the scholarship students, and those doing University Prep. classes. You have a better chance of landing a real teaching job with the latter classes.

Teaching Elementary is more class management and 'entertainment' rather than teaching because the vast majority of students do not take the subject (or you the yabanci teacher) seriously. There is a serious lack of respect.

Be very careful of what you accept, and do not be fooled by empty promises from prospective schools and their administrators. Ghost found this out to his peril, and many others too.

Do you have a Master's Degree? If that is the case you would be better off applying to Universities in Turkey. Be informed, however, that University teaching in Turkey is no longer as easy as it was. Budgets have been reduced in English Departments. Professors have not had their contracts renewed and many Professors will now have 24 'contact' hours instead of 8-12 which was the rule in the past. Many University Professors are now doing double the work, double the load, with the same pay as in the past.

[yaramaz]

Ghost, although I will readily agree with you about the lise being preferable to the primary (for me it was a breath of fresh air), I don't think you are qualified to judge ALL primary sections of ALL Turkish k-12s since you barely lasted 2 months inone particular school in, um, a certain city on the mediterranean coast (or whatever you called it).

I initially had a hard time in the primary, as did some other teachers who had been primarily trained as ESL teachers for adults. The CELTA syndome. We were not at all prepared for the classroom management involved in teaching little ones. Fair enough. I will admit to being underqualified there (kindly refrain from gloating) but I learned quickly.

The ones who had fewer problems were the trained teachers who were very strict and had several years of dealing with kids of a certain age. My flatmate had been a grade 4-5 teacher in South Africa for several decades and had no problem adapting the strictness she learned there to the Turkish system. The kids were terrified of her but they didnt give her any problems.

However, that said, even trained North American teachers have had some difficulty because our school system is very,very different from the turkish one. Turkish kids arent used to having a say in things, nor are they used to being allowed any freedoms in the classroom. It is very regimented. They do a lot of marching and drilling in Phys. Ed. classes too. Lots of shouted recitations. They literally flip out if you ask them to do a classroom activity that isn't done whilst sitting at their desks and memorising and reciting from a book. They also seem to need to be told how to do EVERYTHING. These are quirks of the Turkish system that tend to confound the North Americans who teach far more than the more regimentally trained S. Africans. They can be worked around but you have to recognise them first and then try to figure out how to address them without resorting to the Yell-'n-Smack school of discipline which was surprisingly popular.

[Otterman Ollie]

Hi

A lot of what Yaramaz said is close to the mark . A lot of what Ghost gives is more down to his own personal issues and doesn't have a lot to do with the kids .
Some schools can be very demanding but if you can stick it out for a year or two it can be very rewarding . It makes the next place that little bit easier, only a few people jump into the teaching pool first time with out problems . A lot of what you were told at teacher traing school is not going to help,you need to think on your feet and be firm from the start .Some people think hours of prep before a lesson will give you an edge but from my own experience a more flexible approch is going to give you fewer headaches . Whatever happens good luck .

[ghost]

The fact that Ghost only stayed two months in one dubious Kolej is irrelevant. And that place was well representative of the vast majority of Primary Sections in Private Kolejis throughout Turkey. Just look at the evidence, both real and anecdotal.

Why not tell things as they are, rather than send Oz Burn to the lions and get eaten up? A guy who seems as intelligent and perceptive as OzBurn would do a better job in an environment where he could really use his knowledge and teaching skills. Teaching in a Primary Section is not really teaching as most of you know. It is all about classroom management and entertainment, and trying to stop the kids from destroying you and the other kids. The mob mentality in a Turkish classroom is not one that one would wish on one's worst enemy. The stress level is phenomenal.

Just ask Yaramaz - how much English did her students in the Primary Sections of her College actually learn? Very little.....

Why do you think the kids of the bourgois families go to schools like EF overseas in the summer? To learn English and catch up all the wasted hours during the year. And the kids finally do learn English when they are sent to Britain, U.S.A. and Canada, because they live in those places with anglophone families, and they get to practice English in a live setting, and one that is not artificial, like a Turkish classroom. Further - the little monsters do not usually have the guts to replicate their nasty behaviours in the new foreign settings.

Do not be fooled by what people say here, OzBurn. By all means apply to Primary Sections of Private Colleges K-12. But your chances of having a horrible time are greatly increased by working in those sorts of places.

Otherwise how can you explain why the turnover rates in those K-12 is so high. If they were that good you would have teachers staying longer than 6 months to one year.

[OzBurn]

First, I appreciate all your comments, negative and positive.

Maybe I should say that I taught special ed junior high kids in the US (among other experiences), and found my Hungarian students an easy match for the worst of them. I have a lot of training in dealing with difficult and unmotivated students; unfortunately, I found that many of the techniques that worked wonders in the US had little or no effect on my Hungarian kids (it wasn't the cross-cultural experience I thought I was looking for, but then again, it certainly opened my eyes to the differences among cultures). For example, with American kids, you can get a typical "bad" class to turn around very quickly with a dose of highly interactive, effective teaching and a heck of a lot of contingent praise; but praise has almost no effect on the Hungarian kids I taught, and, I suspect, on Hungarians in general.

Anyway, I run a pretty regimented classroom with objective goals, and I don't much cotton to CELTA techniques, as you will discover if you read my other posts. Partly this has to do with my character, and partly it has to do with my experience that few classes learn anything without drills. I do a lot of drills, and have found they work well with students who don't respond to communicative techniques (which I also employ, in their place -- that is, at the end of a sequence of instruction, rather than at the beginning). I've never smacked a kid in my entire career, and don't want to, but in Hungary I did throw a lot of little *beep* out of class. What shocked me about Hungary wasn't the need to be firm -- I'm used to that -- but the sheer ingrained unwillingness of students to conform to rules even after I had made myself clear, and perhaps even shouted at them a time or three. (They did eventually follow my rules; but six unpleasant months preceded that with some of them.) Part of it was that their previous foreign teachers were weak-willed, immature, and silly; and they had let the students cheat. (This is what the students told me, by the way.) In the end, I had better control than probably anyone else on staff, and many of the kids (including former "bad" students) asked me to stay...ironic, isn't it?

I find Turkey attractive -- the land, the people, the music, the art. Just about everything. Vietnam is okay, and the money is good. I'm not unhappy here. It just doesn't resonate with me at all. So I suppose I should give Turkey a try, come what may.

Thanks for all your feedback.

[ghost]

You are right about Vietnam. The money and the conditions are decent, but most teachers get bored there, because the Vietnamese are not willing to go the extra mile to get to know the foreigners.

The Orientals in general are totally indifferent to foreigners. We are just a bizarre, oversized species, and we are not interesting to them. You will be treated with polite indifference in most cases, but that gets tired pretty quick. It is very difficult to feel a sense of connection.

Turkey - people will be all over you, literally - with questions about your personal life, etc....and they will initially be interested in you, too. But at the end of the day, Turks prefer their own too, and you will always be an honorary guest in that country, at the best of times.

But from a cultural standpoint, we are more similar to the Turks, than we are with the Vietnamese and other peoples of South East Asia.

[yaramaz]

OzBurn, any tips for CELTA-style trained teachers who are frustrated by some of the limitations posed by communicative based learning? I read your posts and nod along quite abit... especially when it comes to teaching young Turks. I agree that drilling is important and very underrated. I tried to do some regular dictations every morning to help with listening-writing skills, an area where they have a lot of problems, and it seemed to help a lot. Any other simple techniques that helped you?

The kids aren't as bad academically as ghost says. Basically, in any demographic in any age level, some kids are exceptional, some are average, some really don't seem to learn anything at all. I had students who were fluent in English in grade 5 and others who didnt understand even simple instructions in grade 11. It may be partly due to how they are taught (constant memorisation without practise and language presented as mathematecal formulae, followed up by a few hours of 'lets play a game!' from the foreign teachers) and partly due to the attention level and interest of the child. Same as back in Canada for the mandatory french classes. Some thrive, others coast, some sink.

[OzBurn]

I will prepare a post that explains how to use some of the ALM drills that I've employed. I've also invented some ways of using the Pimsleur memory schedule (loosely) to teach vocabulary, and some ways to teach reading skills and use flashcards.

There used to be a couple of web sites that explained the basics of ALM drills, but they seem to have disappeared. I will post the links if I can locate them again.

[OzBurn]

P.S. I agree that dictations can help a lot. One thing they accomplish is to give you and your students immediate accurate feedback about how much they are hearing. Have you ever had students pair up and dictate to each other? This allows the rate to be adjusted to each student (once the students learn to work with each other). This could admittedly be difficult, because of the ambient noise problem, but that can actually be helpful to students in the long run because it gives them practice in dealing with noise. You can give students photocopies of simple readings (stuff you know they can read, maybe at the start stuff they have read before under your supervision, and thoroughly understand) and do one-minute timings: how many words can you hear and write in one minute? They enjoy this challenge, typically, and will compete with each other to see who can improve the most. Some students will rush and do sloppy work, however, so you have to be careful.

Another simple drill that builds up listening skill is the transformation drill: for example, students transform a statement into a question (T: He went to the store. S: Did he go to the store?) or vice versa. Expansion drills also work: You say a sentence, they repeat it, then you add a phrase and they say the whole thing back: T: She went home. (S: Repeat). T: At noon. (She went home at noon.) T: With her friend. (She went home at noon with her friend.) T: Suzy. (She went home at noon with her friend Suzy.) T: And Suzy's cousin. (She went home at noon with her friend Suzy and Suzy's cousin.)

And so on. This kind of thing strikes many CELTA-style teachers as inane, because it has no communicative value, but it rapidly builds auditory comprehension. (It should be done for only a few minutes, or the students get cranky -- ten at the most.) I should add that the best way to do these is generally with a group response. You give the original statement, then snap your fingers or tap on the table or whatever to signal them to all respond at once. This lets every student work at the same time. If you have time, you can do individual turns after the group seems firm (this is also important to do because it motivates some of the weaker students -- they want to be able to do well on their individual turn, even if they couldn't care less during the group routines).

If you do the drill, then follow up with a communicative exercise, I think you will get better generalization and retention. (For example, students could drill on forming questions about their weekends, then actually ask each other and fill in a chart, or some such.)

A brief comment: You might be very surprised by how difficult drills such as these are for some students, at first. Sometimes they can't seem to repeat anything longer than three or four words. But that of course is highly significant, since it is unlikely that they have been comprehending anything longer than that -- which means that all those long tapes that these silly textbooks want them to listen to are barely getting through at all.

Another way to build comprehension in weak students is through intensive questioning. (You could call this a Q&A drill.) For example, you play the CD that comes with the program, but instead of just having them chat about the one or two questions that the book asks, you pause it every sentence or two to ask the students basic questions (5W + H and yes/no questions are generally the best for this level). At the end of the tape they might have answered 10 to 30 questions, and will be surprisingly able to deal with the content as a whole. Again, the students should be asked to respond as a group. They can chat later.

You can easily adapt this to use of a reading, as well -- just read a passage aloud to them, and pause frequently to ask a basic question. (A variation is to have them close their eyes and ask just yes/no questions, which they answer with thumbs up or down -- my young students thought this was quite amusing, and they did very well at it. It also gives you a good sense of who is getting what.)

Well, more later. Drills: I love 'em. I could talk about 'em all night...

[OzBurn]

[ghost]

OzBurn - it is true that it is possible to form friendships across cultures, but the point one was making was that it is difficult to get close to many people in South East Asian countries - even when you know the language...you will basically never be accepted on an equal footing, and that can be frustrating and annoying for foreigners.

Ghost met many ex-pats in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos who had been ''ditched'' by their girlfriends/wives, as soon as the latter got what they wanted....money, titles to property, income, foreign papers, landing rights, citizenship, etc....

Don't kid yourself about that....true love is very difficult in those places, because most of the people in the countries mentioned have little interest in you, beyond the depth of your wallet. Perhaps you should go to those places and start talking to some of the ex-pats who have had those experiences.

Ghost also travelled extensively in South East Asia, under the illusion (before going there) that he would encounter a nice world full of nice "chill" people.

In Cambodia, Ghost spent time with some NGO's who had been in the country for years. These NGO's spoke fluent Khmer (the language of Cambodia), but even then, the NGO's were not fully accepted by the locals, and they could never get really close. We - as foreigners - just do not fit into their plans. We are basically of little interest.

We are talking about homogenous cultures (many cultures in Asia) where stepping away from that homogeneity means you will not be accepted on an equal level.

Even in Japan - a country that often serves as a model in Asia - foreigners often find the going tough.

[OzBurn]

Was it Aristotle who said that equality is the first condition of friendship? Equality is hard to find in a country where the vast majority of the citizens are earning perhaps one-tenth of your salary, while even the middle class is making, usually, only about one-half or one third.

If I had to struggle by on 60 to 100 dollars a month like so many Vietnamese, I suspect my number one interest would be money.

However, the girlfriend/wife issue is a separate one from friendship. A wife can legally be entitled to half of her husband's assets, as well as privileged access to green cards and the like. These are tangible things. I don't know how much that has to do with simple friendships.

[ghost]