Job Discussion Forums

[BindairDundat GotdaTshirt]

First, it was difficult to get a job in Poznan. This city was saturated with language schools. Last year I was lucky to find one -without a nationwide franchised name- that hired me at the average rate of 35 zlotys per 45 min sessions after taxes. I was doing okay, students got to like my style, till I began to dislike the owner. It's pretty common to see a woman running the show or them being the owners of most of the language schools in Poland. Anyway, this "many years experience" despot was getting on my nerves with her disrupting observations and no idea whatsoever of technique. Some of you would agree with me that when the situation becomes personal the best thing is to leave while you still have the upper hand. And so I did. You always feel bad for the students because they can't see why teachers are often unhappy. For us, teachers, the main focus is to teach and gain the students' confidence. The reward would be their full attention and their improvement in using the English language. For the owner, it seems to be that his or her sole purpose of being is to become somebody's pain in the ass by making unqualified observations. Owners either don't have the visibility of the students' needs or they just try to justify their presence at the school by pushing teachers far enough with administrative nonsense, demanding lesson plans and whatnot. Well, TEFL used to be fun, a creative innovative experience, away from the academic clich�. Don't students get plenty of it during the whole day? After a long day of lectures or work, they don't need to go back in time to learn English using the Callan and methods alike; or even following a student book or materials with irrelevant information for their current needs (to be able to find a job in the UK or USA for the most part) and more oriented for the mainstream secondary education. Shouldn't we the ESL teachers/native speakers have more control and more saying in what and how lessons should be taught?
Shouldn't we from this forum start reforming the ESL system or trend in Poland?
I wish I had the money to open a language school with integrity and professionalism where Poles can learn English effectively and use it to get a job in America or the UK. Where the students can get their money's worth. I wish the rest of Americans could benefit one day from the good nature, highly educated, willing migrating force from Poland.
If it wasn't for the red tape...

[Sgt Bilko]

I had similar experiences and it used to get me upset too until I realised that the Polish way of working is incredibly hierarchical and that owners/directors expect total obedience from their workforce and are not at all embarrassed by demanding admin staff to make coffee (even when they are busier than the director at the time) or do their shopping or whatever. Sackings are commonplace (mind you, nobody's safe - at the school where I worked last year, the director was sacked after 7 years without any warning) and everyone has to be very careful about how they refer to each other (Pani this or Professor that). Into this system comes a bunch of teachers, many straight off a four week CELTA course who feel no inhibitions about using first name terms and giving advice about how to run the business (I'm not talking about you, here, just from my experience). They know their rights and can leave at a moment's notice if they don't like the place, unlike the local staff who are faced with 15% unemployment rates. For us, it's like we are a breath of fresh air in the Polish system but put yourself in the director's/owner's shoes. It must be really difficult for them to come to terms with this way of doing things - in their school, in their country!
Still, unemployment rates are falling and more and more people are experiencing decent conditions in other countries so, hopefully, the old fashioned way of working will change soon.

[Kymro]

[Kymro]

[the new guy]

i was going to read this thread, but decided to forget it as i hate reading 1 paragraph stories.

do us a favor and break it up somewhat.

i'm going to go kill that barking dog(for the last 20 minutes) outside of the Berti, and hopefully you will have fixed it

[BindairDundat GotdaTshirt]

[Grrrmachine]

Bindair, I'm all for intellectual debate, but please don't be insulting. The comment made about you needing to break your paragraphs up was a fair one, as it can be a real strain on the eyes using an old CRT monitor to try and read large chunks of text.

As for the debate itself: the only way an owner is going to know that the wages he is paying you are justified is by seeing what's going on in the classroom. If he doesn't like it, then he has every right to comment on it.

It's all very righteous to say "good school this, bad school that" but there are still different philosophies about what makes effective teaching; take a Callan approach into a school marketing the Communicative method and you're not giving the students what they've paid for, and vice versa. My relaxed conversational approach yields fine results for the students I have, and they do grammar as and when they need it.

A school which demands a more comprehensive plan, which results in secretaries that can read Shakespeare, is a wonderful thing to aspire towards but just isn't what a lot of people want to pay their money for, especially when in Poland that money is often very hard to come by.

Different strokes for different folks. If some people want to be spoon-fed, they can go to Berlitz. If others have a very fixed ideal of what they want, they'll bounce from school to school until they found an approach they like.
Remember, to make wild generalisations, some Poles have high expectations of what a class should be, whilst others are so ****ing lazy they expect to be spoon-fed everything. Schools target their methodology based on this (Communicative and Callan being my examples.) The person who set up the school you have chosen to work for will have thought about all this long before you even sent them your CV, so if they want to make sure you're not risking their livelihood by not teaching what they've told their clients you will, they don't really have many options than to sneak a peek into your classroom occasionally.

If your beef is with the school owners, then your only option is to set up your own school. If you have higher moral principles, you should try working in the state sector where the reforms are more highly needed; and, of course, where your apathy towards the market economy concerning how schools run means that you won't be upset by your substantial drop in pay.

[BindairDundat GotdaTshirt]

Grrrmachine, I stand corrected though I wasn't insulting. Nevertheless, I tend more to retort.
Don't take it personal, new guy, after a while, in this forum one has to develop thick skin. I learn just as much from these threads than from the schools, teaching environment and all. One thing I learned though, and that is to respect the "authorities" in this forum like Grrrmachine, Alex, but I don't presume to be an authority in ESL in Poland. One year of experience teaching in Poland taught me a thing or two about school management.
Back to the topic, how many teachers out there strongly believe that their owners/bosses are qualified to make observations/critique and reports. Please, be honest. Only someone with a higher degree, or a DELTA can give guidance or partake in a 'constructive criticism' session with most of you.
Another subject, don't you think that most of the students want to improve their English in order to get a better job elsewhere. Just about 80% of the ones I surveyed in Poznan were fresh out high school and already in college. School websites don't need to sell their plan or method (don't get me started with Callan). Students just want to get the extra exposure to the foreign language of choice to better their lives somewhere else. If you ask them, and with this I want to generalize, they will simply tell you that by signing up with the school their ulterior motives are to move to an English spoken country for a holiday job, or to hands down migrate.
There have been attempts in the past to start private schools exclusively run by native speakers. Some teachers did the right move by establishing themselves as independent contractors i.e. redsoxfan. I'm sure the quality and interest in giving the right ESL approach and method is much higher than the one most schools advertise or pretend to offer. I would like to hear their opinion about what is failing in the TESOL in Poland and why they decided to take the high road.
Perhaps I'm beating the dead horse with this thread but it takes one teacher to care and make others to second his or her opinion. I strongly believe that English school owners don't give a damn about what the students want, and they are unqualified to observe their teachers. All they can contribute to the teaching experience without effort is counting, by how much money they can get from them, and how to shortchange his or her teachers and how to make them (native speakers and Polish teachers) feel threatened or dependent.
I rest my case.
"But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make myself like the many? and if I do, how shall I still be purple?"
Epictetus

[Kymro]

[Kymro]

[Kymro]

[the new guy]

[Grrrmachine]

I doubt it's a case of the bosses not caring about the students; more of not caring about the teachers, which is far more common. Using subtle tricks, weedling, threats and promises to squeeze everything they can out of a teacher is very common in Poland, and I expect it is in most professions. My main business ethic is "what's in it for me?" - I'm more than happy to produce elaborate worksheets, record TV and radio shows and bring them in and scour the net for interesting articles for my students in theory, but if my boss is going to moan about me using the photocopier to do it, or not get the TV fixed when I ask, then no, I won't bother and I'll tell my students that they aren't getting the course that was advertised.

In the same way, if they can't be bothered to do their homework, then I won't bother to give them any more, and that way we're both happy. Explaining that to my boss, however ("Grrr, why haven't you written anything in their homework section?" "Because I didn't give them any?") is bashing my head against a brick wall.

If a qualified DoS is observing my lessons, then no, I don't have a problem with that. If, on the other hand, it's a jumped-up ex-teacher/now housewife who's set up a school with the money her rich husband lent her making observations and trying to make suggestions that were out of date in the theory of teaching 10 years ago, then I will tell her that. If I've only got one year's teaching under my belt, I'll broaden my experiences a bit before making comments.

And as honoured as I am to be credited as a Board Authority, really, I've only been here two years - I just keep my eyes and ears open.

Kymro - I'm interested in what made you work for the state sector? Was this just so long ago that there wasn't much private-school work around?

[BindairDundat GotdaTshirt]

This Kymro subject, for instance, is the kind of owners I wanna expose and get them out of business. By quoting me and making one-liner comments shows enough of his ( I'll lay that you are a male) inability to make qualified remarks.
Man, you take it personal and try to be a smart aleck. Please, learn to spell the words "competetive" or "liceum". I'm sure they're way out of your league, or the teachers beneath you can help you in that matter.
Kymro is probably the kind of owner, who runs an illegally established school (out of a room in a lyceum?). He also takes my comments personal as if being alluded to the kind of "business" he's running out of one room.
So, Kymro guy, why don't you tell us which school is the one you own? Or would you be so kind to tell us which qualification made you earn 350 PLN per month?
By the way, one year teaching in Poland was enough and contributed to my 10+ years in the ESL field.

[BindairDundat GotdaTshirt]

Look, ladies and gentlemen, by all means, let's not get this thread to the point of overreaching. If someone felt alluded to my comments on owners, I'm sorry about that. Nobody likes to see himself going off the high dive. I am very aware that I can't compete against 300+ posts of voiced opinion. So I won't retort anymore or single out people. I'll read more and learn some more from those with more experience in the country and authority in this forum. They earned it and it's fun to pull rank occasionally.
I'm sorry, Kymro, but we seem to share a proclivity for off-line argument. Let's not make this sound unsavory.