Job Discussion Forums

[chickyabroad]

Does anyone have any information on typical salary levels in Turkey for non-teaching EFL jobs - such as curriculum design, assistant director of studies, course coordinator, etc? Or have any idea where I could find such information?

[kazazt]

There are precious few jobs and without specialist qualifications and experience no chance. About as rare as non TEFL jobs for foreigners.

[chickyabroad]

Not looking for a job in any of those areas, just doing research on salary levels. So really don't need opinions on the likelihood of me getting a certain type of job, just some basic salary info.

[kazazt]

For ADOS and DOS slightly more than the teachers-2000 YTL a month but I have never heard of an ADOS in Turkey who doesn`t have to teach and cover classes.

Curriculum design in Turkey?? Never heard of any employer paying for a full time post.

[bulgogiboy]

I don't think there are any purely non-teaching ESL jobs in Turkey. Even the pitiful lackeys who work at ET HQ making books (Read: toilet paper with incorrectly-spelled English scribbled on it) still teach classes as far as I understand.

If there are any such posts they would require some pretty decent qualifications, and the compensation might be a bit higher than the average TEFL'er but it would still be in line with Turkish salary standards (i.e crap).

[kazazt]

The only TEFLers I have ever heard of who have had very good jobs by Turkish standards are those who worked for Koc University-were employed via the TESOL conference in USA and all had Master`s in TEFL. Very well qualified and experienced teachers working for MEF high school but it is a really tough job, six long days a week. A few PHDs working for Bilkent who were employed from USA as part of a progamme with a US university.

That is it.

[PC Parrot]

Donkey's years ago, at a state univeristy in Istanbul, we once had a position open for materials writing but it was for the same pay as for the teaching sfaff, which wasn't very good. Hopeless in fact, if you didn't use the accomodation they offered.

The position required no special qualifications or experience and the woman who did it, CELTA + 3yrs experience, was given the position because she made things that looked nice. There was no theory involved whatsoever. When she finally realised she was way out of her depth and that people could see beyond the superficial, she resorted to some rather childish behaviour.

We also had one position for professional development that was filled by a guy with an MA in Antropology, who the program head informed us had a PhD in TEFL. She told him that he'd get more respect from the staff if they thought he was qualified for the job. He was paid 50% more than the teaching staff. But 50% of nothing isn't very much.

In my day, many of the non teaching ESL positions were filled with people that made it up as they went along. Even that maker-of-women-cry, recently written about here, was program deputy-head for a year or so!

So going back to the question of salary, whatever they got paid was too much. Some of them deserved nothing.

[kazazt]

And that uni is one of the five best unis in Turkey. Some years ago my wife and I were taking a short cut through the uni `campus` and they had old fashioned army tents set up in the grounds and were actually teaching classes in them. It astonished me that conditions were that bad.

You have got to love the unbridled, unashamed, amateurism of TEFL.

[bulgogiboy]

It's one of the few professions where you can have several years experience, a Masters degree, or 2-3 Masters, or even a PhD, and still be expected to work for peanuts. So why am I still attracted to it...(please don't say it's cause I'm a monkey )?

[coffeespoonman]

I'm pretty sure that you'd have to get a job as a teacher in a uni first, and then work your way up over a few years - most of the kind of jobs you want go to people on the inside, except in very rare cases where everything is all messed up on the inside and they need to bring in someone for damage control - not the kind of situation you'd probably want to walk into anyways.

[eclectic]

I assume a non-teaching ESL job is a clerical or secretarial type of role that one plays in a school that teaches ESL? Never heard of this category of work b4.

[kazazt]

One constant has been the unbridled hatred the ancillary/admin staff have had for the native speaker teachers. The local teachers are always treated with much fawning and called hocam while the native speakers were treated with contempt. I guess they do it because they can and because their pay and conditions are infinitely worse than than anyone elses.

[atoklas]

The public universities offer a paid "research assistant" position for people doing their phds. It's usually only a 1-2 year post, and it pays around 1500 Lira/month + health benefits + a 1/2 price akbil. I suppose you could work curriculum and materials design into this context...