Job Discussion Forums

[billybuzz]

I'm gonna stick my neck out here ,may get chopped off but its something thats being bugging me for a while .
I started teaching here 5 years ago in various places and in the beginning my role was basically go in the class and make the students speak which wasn't easy as they had just got to grips with the present tense only ,sound familair ?Talk about pulling teeth, a one sided conversation class fun it was not !
Later I joined a more (better paid) up market set up in a lyse only this time they wanted me to focus on the language production , and basically reinforce the grammar structures using the four basic skills of reading, writing, listening , speaking . I was pretty comfortable with that and it gave me a lot of flexibility how I could structure my classes around different activities which was relevent to what had been taught in the past . I also felt that my expertise as a native speaker was been exploited in the fullest sense and in a positive and productive manner . May be I should have stayed ,but .
I left there after a few happy mindless years to go to greener pastures in what is now a new private uni. To my dismay I now find that instead of making the most of our god given talents we have the "grammar" label thrust upon us doing the kind of job that our Turkish partners are better suited for and they have become "skills" and "language " teachers having very little knowledge of our language outside of grammar structures .Maybe I have a blind spot on this issue but is there anyone else in Turkey who feels that we are not used or exploited in the classroom as well as we could be ?

[molly farquharson]

So you are supposed to teach only grammar? Grammar is everywhere, so it seems to me that you could use the various skills as a vehicle to teach it. Or do you have a book assigned to the class? Even then you can tweak it.

If you're not happy where you are, where would you like to go?

[tekirdag]

I started a new job just a month ago. It is a fairly good place to work given that I am out in the Trakya boondocks.

I noticed the Lise 1 textbook was REALLY grammar heavy and fast paced. I asked the only other English teacher-Turkish fellow-why that text book was used and he explained that most Turkish teachers of English prefer such a book because they can teach something different each lesson, give lots of notes and get the students to take it more seriously.

Many young folks- with that cute lack of life experience- don't see the point in practicing skills. Not filling pages with notes? Not keeping noses to textbook pages? Ahhh, not a lesson! (Cue sounds of noisy teenagers not paying attention)

I had a devil of a time at my job in a private college last year. I taught only skills lessons and the kids DID NOT take it seriously.

Perhaps someone expected your students not to take the foreigner-led skills course seriously and so assigned the foreigner to grammar. Perhaps they did you a favour.... ?

[billybuzz]

Thanks for the comments so far and I got a pm double thanks . Molly I may have given you the impression that I'm antigrammar thats not really the case and I take on board the view that kids don't always take "skills" lessons seriously I think that largely depends on the person at the front of the class how you connect with them regardless of what you are teaching . Having said that I get the most resistance from them when its time to teach grammar its seems overkill is the byword here ,they get a hell of a lot of the stuff and frankly they are bored to tears with it so many mechancial exercises and very little chance to put any of it into practise .
I know Ankara in its all seeing and knowing wisdom dictates thats how it should be done but by now we should all aknowledge that this system is just not working for the majority of learners .

[Otterman Ollie]

Good point Billy ,most of my kids are totally pissed off with grammar and any chance they get to TALK about anything and everything they drop their pencils and let rip at the moment ita all about bird flu and all the hype .