Job Discussion Forums

[leeroy]

(Like a machine gun, I'm just firing out these OPs...)

My school has continous enrolment, whereby new students come and go every week from the class. We do (in theory) have terms and coursebooks which the students must buy, but this is (in practice) a bit farcical as the class will most probably be completely different by the end of term compared to how it was at the beginning. Some stay for a week, some for a year.

Continuous enrolment makes it difficult to recycle language, to build a class rapport, or to embark on any extended "tasks". In fact, continuous enrolment is so bad, I wouldn't even wipe my *beep* with it.

I presume there is a reason why English schools in London operate like this, though for the life of me I can't think why...

[Gordon]

One reason: money

Continuous enrolment makes the school flexible so students can start at any time and not go to another school or have to wait. It sucks for teachers and students because there is no continuity and it is more difficult for teachers to recycle the same lessons. I worked at a school once where we negotiated with the school that students could not enter our classes after the first week (on a one month course). It was much better.

[Roger]

Not confined to the London private school scene - it was the first anomaly I noticed in Chinese language mills.

[Lynn]

It's the norm in New York City. It's all about money. That is one of my biggest complaints about my job. My dream job is to have a set term. A start and a finish.

[latefordinner]

There is continuous enrolment where I'm currently teaching, but the classes are kept as a unit so the lesson that I use with one class will be used with another 2 or 3 weeks later. The school that I worked at last year had set start and finish dates, although students were permitted to drift from one class to another. If you couldn't make Saturday's class you caught next Wednesday's, it was the same lesson. Neither of these are among the best run schools in China and they find ways to cope, so with a minimum of organisation your school's management can deliver reasonably consistent classes and not have to sacrifice mega-yuan.
OTOH, I did once find that 3 of my adult students _didn't_ take the next session that I taught because another school offered the same course starting a week before ours began. They were wonderful people and it would have been great to have them as the core of the next class, it would have made it just a bit easier to get new students engaged. <sigh> Win some, lose some