Job Discussion Forums

[workingnomad]

Hi Guys, two questions if you please.

Are there any casual / part time teaching jobs in HCMC?

Secondly is being British going to be a handicap? I get the feeling there is a strong desire for North American English which is quite ironic seeing as the language came from Britain!

Anyway your thoughts would be much appreciated.

[Snaff]

....................

[workingnomad]

Maybe you don't get the British sense of humour / irony? Glad you found it funny though.

Anyway does anyone know about availability of casual jobs? Thanks.

[lexpat]

Look. What is the biggest, most successful English language school in HCMC? RMIT. Yes, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Typing, I mean, Technology. No bias against the Commonwealth there. In fact, I suspect the opposite.

What is probably second? ILA. Many, if not most, of the teachers there are recruited from Britain via the Internet. There are probably ten times as many teachers at ILA (conservative estimate) as at, say, Cleverlearn or that Canadian school that just shut down. Brits are probably more welcome at ALL American run/name/marketed schools than I would be at the British Institute.

This Brit self flagellation nonsense is a cultural thing, as weird as Mr. Bean but a lot less amusing. Viets don't often care. We're just a bunch of foreigners to them. Maybe Yanks get a bit of a boost from having a couple of vast Little Saigons in California for the locals to aspire to. But then Sydney's got that too. Brits have Chelsea, ManU, and Arsenal (though it seems to be free of English players at the moment) to help bond with their students.

In short, no pal. There's no real bias either way.

[workingnomad]

Thanks for the info.

I totally understand why there might be a biased towards the U.S. English seeing the role the U.S. takes in the world these days.

It is funny as well but now I have travelled a bit I realise what a small role the UK now plays in the world - you get a different view if you just stay in the UK!

Certainly the English Premier League and the BBC has quite a bit of impact but we are just a small country now on the World stage.

I think as India and China gain more power countries like the UK will need to focus more on the collective power of the EU rather than themselves, and that goes for France and Germany as well.

[lexpat]

Well if you want an Anglocentric scene I would suggest Thailand. Many schools in the Kingdom are modeled on British notions of what a school should be: uniforms, games day, Royalist enthusiasms. There are plenty of people in Thailand who think 'British English' is the real deal. Besides, there are many, many long term English expats in Thailand in positions of power in the schools.

I would say the pop culture appeal of US culture is balanced there by the elites sense that British standards are simply higher. I'm not sure that's true, but the people Who Can Pay think they are, which is more important.

In any event, I think you need to make a distinction between the English used in business and technology (internationally outside the EU, American) and the English taught to students in actual schools (kids' schools that is). Counter intuitively, perhaps, the Brits are better at educating the masses than are Americans. We Yanks may have the more democratic society in some ways, but while our elite educational institutions are the envy of the world, our primary and secondary schools suck. We are bad at discipline. Creative, but slack. There is a certain carry over when schools are run by, or modeled on, American ones.

I've been teaching in Southeast Asia for awhile now and in my experience the best teachers of kids are, ahem, Scots: "Ya gonna sit down 'n ya gonna sit down now!" That accent scares the hell out of your basic Asian kid. Used to scare me a bit too. Americans tend to try to be chummy, which doesn't work with your basic spoiled Chinese blooded elite Thai, or Vietnamese, kid...

Don't worry. Brit teachers do fine. Truth be told, many of the best teachers I've known in SEA have been smart as hell Brits with a cert but no college degree. In the US, they give undergrad degrees out like drivers licenses...