Job Discussion Forums

[John Kopetz]

Dear Teachers
An experienced English teacher, I am planning to set up a new school. After years of teaching in many parts of the world, I am tired with badly managed schools, and want to do something better.
However, I realise that we are all different, and where one teacher is content another might be far from happy. As part of my planning process, and because I am genuinely curious, I am collecting information about what matters to English teachers around the world.
I am asking that you take a couple of minutes to share your teaching experiences by answering the questions below. I have made this questionnaire open, rather than multiple choice, this means it will take slightly longer to answer, but I hope it will allow you to respond more freely.
May I thank you in advance for your help with this, which will certainly be of benefit to others in the profession. Please do not hesitate to contact if you have any questions or further comments.

Warmest regards

John Kopetz ([email protected])


1. Where do you teach (location, if possible school name)? And how long have you taught there?

2. What is the standard contract for a qualified teacher? I do not wish to ask you specifically about the conditions of your personal position, but rather about the norm at your school/location, I am interested to hear about contract length, salary, other benefits (flights, housing, local language classes etc).

3. Do most teachers complete their contracts? Stay on for others? How does the school behave if teachers want to leave early? Is the school constantly recruiting, and if so is this because teachers keep leaving?

4. In general, how to you feel about the management of your school? Do you feel that it runs well? Is the management sufficiently concerned about the interests/needs of the students and teachers?

5. How does the school compare with your expectations? (Consider aspects such as class size, timetable, student profile and any other that might be relevant)

6. What kind of training is available to the staff of your school? Are classes in the local language available?

7. Would you say that most teachers are happy in their experience at this school/location? Is there anyway the school could improve this?

8. What factors are most important to your satisfaction as a teacher? (while working and when looking for a job)

9. What factors do you think matter most to students?

10. Would you be interested to know more about my school when it is closer to opening? May I contact you if I have other questions? Would you be interested to hear a summary of responses?

Please send any answers to [email protected]
Thank you very much for your help

[Louis]

Anyone else notice that the advertisements are becoming more commonplace on these boards? Moderators??

[John Kopetz]

Dear Louis
I am sorry you regard this as an advertisement. I would be curious to know exactly what it is that you think I am advertising?
From my perspective, I am not advertising or selling anything, simply inviting people's opinions about EFL. That, as I understand it, is what a job discussion board aims to do.
It is true that I will use the results of this survey, but would it be better if I didn�t?
I have been perfectly open about my interest and intention, and furthermore, I took the time to advise Dave Sperling of my intention to post this survey beforehand.
If you are not interested to support a fellow teacher looking to start up a good school then perhaps it would be more appropriate simply to ignore him, rather than posting a negative, unconstructive reply.
John

PS. May I take a moment to thank those of you that have answered these questions, I will be in touch personally too...

[Louis]

[jbeadle]

Louis
I joined this forum a few days ago. In that time I�ve read a lot of empty, half-hearted postings, some of them close to being funny.
I am not sure why John�s request for information from teachers annoys you. You seem to be a prolific participant of this forum, you also seem to be easily annoyed, or simply using this site to vent yourself, no more commendable than what John has done. And at least his posting is an attempt at being constructive.
To be frank, I don�t care if he is genuine or working for someone else, although there seems little reason to doubt his honesty when he�s openly soliciting for opinions.
Why does it bother you that someone would do something productive with this forum? I guess you are assuming that John is profiting from this? Even if he were, that wouldn�t bother me since it will hopefully benefit some teachers somewhere sometime.
Oh, and by the way: Market research is consumer side, EFL market research would directed at students not teachers. A survey directed at teachers would go down as a human resources activity, not marketing.
HR research can be profitable, but it is more directly connected with making organisations run better and be more enjoyable places to work. The world of EFL could seriously use a little more HR, and a lot less unproductive hot air.
James

[Louis]

[jbeadle]

Not that much to chew on really. Or perhaps it starts to seem all the more unnecessary once you explain that your point was simply that you would rather the survey appeared on the jobs posting. That's where we diverge. I see the job posting pages as solicitation for teachers, and this as something more like an open discussion about teacher interests.
Perhaps the survey will pick teachers up on the way but that seems quite a reasonable concept on a job discussion forum. Actually, now I think about it (starting to chew perhaps!) this seems an ideal message for this board. What restrictions would you place the job discussion forum?
As an academic, I have been involved in several open research projects about business concepts, these were conducted openly across broad communities of people they affected. I admit that none of them were HR related, but I am quite certain that HR research is not purely carried out internally.
Call me a realist, but I have worked for a couple of good schools that took an interest in their staff needs, and don�t automatically assume that a school would use this information against teachers. In fact, I would go so far as to say that cynical attitudes play a role in the poor quality of many schools. It�s a sad state of affairs if teachers aren�t even prepared to help schools get it right, or give them the benefit of the doubt when they claim to want to.
More than enough already. Principally disagree about whether there is a more suitable location for this message. Perhaps Mr. Sperling has an idea about that?
James

[cimarch]

[moonraven]

I don't see anything wrong with this survey being presented on the forum. At least it shows someone is thinking about doing something besides calling other posters stupid, suggesting that their sexual orientation is suspect (by whose standards?) or that their mothers wear basketball shoes if they don't agree with him. A big percentage of what's put up on this forum is either whining or infantile insults that reflect the rampant anti-intellectualism of certain cultures--or both. I find it refreshing that he is asking questions which some of us should be asking ourselves....

[John Kopetz]

Its not exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for, but its all very useful. Thanks to Moonraven and James, and those who emailed me, for being open minded enough to take my survey as it was intended.
As to Louis and Cimarch, thanks for showing me the kind of attitudes I need to keep out of the school, I will certainly be paying careful attention to recruitment and interviewing.
For the benefit of open-minded readers, I have five years experience, which is enough to tell me that people have different interests and needs, and that things are done differently in different countries. Its also enough to tell me that different people want different things. Where I was an unhappy teacher, others were quite content, and vice-verser. Its easy to say that we want perfect accommodation, perfect resources, high pay, easy working hours, la la la� The aim of my survey was just to try to find out what to prioritise, in a world where I will have to pay investors and banks to keep the school running.
The reason I did not put any more information up about my school is because I am not ready to: I am currently negotiating with two venture-capitalists in my home country, having experience in several countries I am conducting market research to determine which would best. That is market research about competitors, number of potential students costs, tax, laws governing the existence of educational institutions, stuff like that.
What I was doing on this site was trying to find out on a broader scale what interests teachers have in the schools they go to and consider going to. I have been a disgruntled teacher before now, and would always have defended teachers against the school. But here I am, only a fraction of the way into planning a school (something I am doing only for the challenge of it, because I think it can be done well and rarely is) and already I am seeing the other side of the coin. You�ve pushed me into the school�s perspective and its very different.
To those that have criticised my survey, I would ask:
What is your objective in this discussion? What are you so angry/offended about?
If you don�t like my survey just ignore it. And, if you insist on criticising it then at least stay vaguely practical. I do not think that my placing it here deserves so much negative attention, which is probably why your arguments are so self-contradictory.
My apologies if I have offended you, but thank you, all of your responses have been helpful.
John

[cimarch]

First of all I would like to apologise for the petty way I answered your post. I would like to excuse myself by saying that I read your post after trawling through a pile of spam e-mails from recruiters, and schools given my e-mail by recruiters, that I never gave my e-mail to, but that's no justification. So I'll simply say a sincere 'Sorry'.

I think I did try to give you some constructive criticism though and it is good that you are seeing things from the school's perspective, something too few people seem to be able to do. Although I said it harshly in my original reply you do need to consider WHY many people have these problems and why the schools don't fix them. Lazyness? Just don't give a damn? Sure in many cases but I think you will find that a lot of them are rooted in the finances of the school.

To answer your questions I was offended because you appeared to me as a recruiter exploiting Daves and the posters here. As I'm sure it appeared to many others.

Although you probably aren't interested in my replies now I will answer your original survey. Consider it my penance.

[John Kopetz]

Thanks
And without being too mushy, I apologise too. If anyone reads my survey as being such corrupt material, then I should have designed it better. I should have designed it better anyway, because I can count the answers on two hands at the moment (so please do complete the survey!). I just thought that we all like to talk about our work, so I could put it out there and people would actually enjoy answering it.
Your reply riled me as it was more offensive than those of Louis, but I neglected the valuable comments you made in the process. Please know that they were and are appreciated.
John

[Roger]

I think this is not a useless survey; we have been through several of a similar vein. Here my tentative answers:

1: Location is southern China, a provincial university which occupies rank somewhere between 75 and 80 on the national ranking list;
completed one semester, signed for a whole year beginning this September;

2: Standard contract: Don't know, but my working conditions don't differ from those of my colleagues (whose contractual stipulations I happen to know); it is not at variance with the majority of public tertiary schools either;
terms and conditions include a salary of RMB 4000 to 5000 (second year an increase), travel allowance and roundtrip airfare as well as housing, medical care and basic visa costs covered by employer; several outings organised by university during the year;

3: How many complete their contracts: if you don't you stand to lose your airfare; so far none bolted;

4: How is management: It's a "noninteventionist" type of administration; you are largely left to your own devices and won't get any feedback from them unless you produce sensational incidents; unfortunately I also feel they don't give a hoot about your opinion on anything;

5: My own expectations have for the most part been met (except for the above); in addition I (and some others) asked for privileges such as Chinese classes and a news publication in English - which were turned down;

6: There are no plans to offer continuing training/eeducation;

7: "Happy" might be a somewhat confusing word - but I would say you can be reasonably satisfied and content here;

8: Important for me: I would appreciate job stability (a dream in China), the right to offer feedback and personal opinions on teaching aspects and syllabus designing, and last but not least: clearly defined objectivefor each subject!

9: Students' expectations: A holiday plain sailing through the succeeding semesters and miraculous results at the final exams;

10: Yes, probably.

[Teacher in Rome]

Actually, I think that Cimarch raised some good points in his / her first post. For example, where you set up your school has a lot to do with the type of contract you offer teachers.

Could I make a suggestion and ask you to say where you are setting up your school, then post your survey on the appropriate country forum? That way you would get answers based on what teachers in that country feel about their present schools. Terms and conditions that a teacher might expect from a school say, in China, could be a lot different from a teacher in Italy.

[John Kopetz]

Its a nice idea, I certainly will be getting information and feedback in the chosen country, when I am ready to do so. I am a little bogged down with other stuff at the moment so that will take a while. One of the ideas of this survey was that I think there are probably a some standards that should be included and often aren't (free language classes for example).
Thanks for the suggestion,
Also thanks Roger for your input.