What the H is a sentence?

[woodcutter]

I'm certainly on shaky ground with Berlitz and my history lecture! I must confess that what Berlitz seems to do today and the "direct method" as it is described with reference to 1870's dudes Berlitz and Saveur are confusingly different. Due to the cultish nature of methods, finding out what they do is tough.

Even the "Callan Method" seems to vary somewhat from its child, "The Avalon Method", which I used to practice, but seems to more closely follow the original direct method precepts.

The history of the 20th century according to ESL literature is repeated ad nauseum and takes the line Grammar Translation-Direct Method-Audio Lingualism-Method Madness-Extreme Communicative Teaching fading into the now, the "communicative approach". I'm sure that "Mr.Gradgrind the Grammar Demon" has been in reality the most popular approach for most of this time! However, natural methods, paying close attention to how children learn, are another one of the things that academia has apparently toyed with and found wanting. So the books say, anyway.

If you want to find the people who don't accept that natural approaches are kind of old hat, they are sometimes to be found in various, erm "left-wing" (for want of a better term) method schools, which are often very keen to do away with grammar and formality of all sorts. So you see, there is a place in the multi-methodic world I advocate for all members of this forum! Not that I'm an enemy of a well organized, clearly outlined and relatively inflexible plan from an individual teacher either, whatever the nature of it.
I'm just tired of being a crowd pleasing monkey with a farty textbook.

[LarryLatham]

However, natural methods, paying close attention to how children learn, are another one of the things that academia has apparently toyed with and found wanting. So the books say, anyway.

I haven't seen the books. But what I find amusing (amazing, shocking) about this is that we haven't really known much about exactly how children learn until something like the last five years or so, because the technologies to examine their brains while they're learning haven't been available until recently. Even now, it's a work in progress. Assumptions of the past are no more than that, and many of them are being found to be wrong. So any "methods" that have been based on "how children learn" from the 1980's are not surprisingly found to be wanting.

...people who don't accept that natural approaches are kind of old hat, they are sometimes to be found in various, erm "left-wing" (for want of a better term) method schools, which are often very keen to do away with grammar and formality of all sorts.

Perhaps there are such people in the business, but I don't see any of them around here. No one I'm aware of who drinks at Dave's champions doing away with grammar and such. Are you preaching to the choir?

And I couldn't agree more with you about farty old textbooks or coursebooks. I haven't yet seen any I really liked, but then there are thousands, and I haven't seen them all. Besides, I'm probably too crusty and curmudgeonly by now to be pleased with anything.

Larry Latham

[revel]

Hey all!

Back in the '80s I heard the rumor in New York City that a Berlitz school there had dismissed a teacher because the teacher was not using the Berlitz method and material as was expected. How did the administrators know this? Why, there were secret microphones planted in the classrooms to monitor the work of the teachers. Don't know if that rumor is true or simply the type of revengeful storytelling that might come from a disgruntled ex-Berlitz employee, but thought I would share it here. Teachers who aren't allowed creativity within a given set of methodological rules are in their right to get frustrated and quit and look for something closer to their vocation. And Berlitz will always be able to fill teaching posts with uncreative, non-vocational "teachers", there seem to be a lot of those around....

peace,
revel.

[LarryLatham]

Well, it sounds a little dicey to me, to tell the truth. Someone would have to be truly paranoid (clinically ill) to install secret microphones in classrooms to spy on teachers. I suppose it's possible, but maybe we'd better put it down as another good story...good for a small release of some of the frustrations we all have with bosses.

It does seem interesting that so far no one has had a good (positive) story about Berlitz.

Larry Latham

[metal56]

Well, it sounds a little dicey to me, to tell the truth. Someone would have to be truly paranoid (clinically ill) to install secret microphones in classrooms to spy on teachers. I suppose it's possible, but maybe we'd better put it down as another good story...good for a small release of some of the frustrations we all have with bosses.

It does seem interesting that so far no one has had a good (positive) story about Berlitz.

Larry Latham

Berlitz

The producer of excellent phrase books and tapes has two schools in Bangkok. Berlitz has developed their own system for language teaching that uses very few of the accepted practices and works on a kind of "drill it into the brain and hope the students remember it" approach. Many "sex tourists" work here and this school will take ANYONE who walks through the door wearing a shirt and tie. They have a mandatory one week unpaid training course to complete before you start working for them - about 50% of people who do the course stay on to work there.

Within their buildings they have microphones in all of the classrooms that allow the branch manager to listen in and hear what the class / teacher are doing / saying. There are regular checks to ensure that you are following the Berlitz way and you will be condemned if you are teaching using anything other than the fixed narrow minded and downright stupid Berlitz approach. Needless to say, this school is for unqualified teachers.

This school is for those with no teaching qualifications and no desire to think about what they have to do. If this is you, it's probably your dream job.....sex tourists take note!

Overall: Sweatshop

http://www.ajarn.com/Education/Language ... iews_1.htm

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=n ... 2Bin+class

[LarryLatham]

Wow!

This is indeed sick.

Larry Latham

[metal56]

Wow!

This is indeed sick.

Larry Latham

But true. I even heard of one English First school having hidden cameras!

[LarryLatham]

I am genuinely shocked! I guess I am part of an earlier, gentler era where I and my colleagues were expected to be professional, and it was assumed that we respected that. Administrators always hear from students (at least in schools catering to adult students), or parents (for schools serving child learners) anyway when there are complaints to be made. Cameras and microphones aren't necessary. And they are disgusting.

Larry Latham

[woodcutter]

A one month qualification is no guarantee of morality, nor are method schools the only schools which do not require such certificates. So to claim that method school teachers (who are by definition not tourists) are to be blamed for sex tourism is ridiculous.

Why should method schools particularly desire such qualifications anyway, which briefly drill into the student teachers a one dimensional ethos which differs from the school ethos? They operate on the principle that if you speak good English, then with the help of the method you can teach it to a reasonable level, and that people in the developing world do not then have to shell out for the services of highly educated people.

Nobody wants to work under observation (and in the Callan type schools one usually does not). However, those types of systems are there to check that the method is actually being employed. They are there for the benefit of the students. Much like the school itself, for the alternative may be the same unqualified hedonists in a free environment where they can employ an even worse method.

[Stephen Jones]

that people in the developing world do not then have to shell out for the services of highly educated people

Nothing at all to do with the developing world. Most Inlingua and Berlitzes are in the first world, and students normally pay them a lot more than they would pay for an fully trained and highly educated teacher elsewhere.

It is the owners of the franchises who are are saving the money.

[metal56]

A one month qualification is no guarantee of morality, nor are method schools the only schools which do not require such certificates. So to claim that method school teachers (who are by definition not tourists) are to be blamed for sex tourism is ridiculous.

I don't read it that way at all. The piece simply says that thrre are many "sex tourists" who need to make quick buck in order to be able to stay in the country. Schools that let ANYONE through their doors are inadvertently supporting such rogues. Very few people would bother to spend time trying to pass a teaching cert. in their home country just so they can go of on some "sex tour". The demand by academies for certificated teachers simply helps sift out the rough from the smooth and also maintains professionalism

Why should method schools particularly desire such qualifications anyway, which briefly drill into the student teachers a one dimensional ethos which differs from the school ethos? They operate on the principle that if you speak good English, then with the help of the method you can teach it to a reasonable level, and that people in the developing world do not then have to shell out for the services of highly educated people.

So do the Berlitz' prices differ from other academies that are filled with qualified teachers?

Nobody wants to work under observation (and in the Callan type schools one usually does not). However, those types of systems are there to check that the method is actually being employed. They are there for the benefit of the students

.

Absolute nonsense. They are there to protect a methodology that fools students into thinking they will learn to USE and, more importantly, UNDERSTAND why they are using the language. Such schools are like conveyor belts of education. Quick buck saloons.

[metal56]

Much like the school itself, for the alternative may be the same unqualified hedonists in a free environment where they can employ an even worse method.

You would be a perfect DOS at one of them. Maybe the other alternative would be a native speaker who knows how the language is really used and would protect the students from some ex-pat jerk who hadn't even heard his language spoken in any real way fror years.

[woodcutter]

For some reason, the Berlitz school in Turkey I once applied to won't leave me alone. Will you give me a reference Metal, if I go for DOS?

I must admit I got a little carried away over value for money. I would like the schools who use unqualified people to charge less, they could, and they should. However, usually they don't. Lots of people out there are prepared to pay a lot of money to study in such places. Still, would you care to explain why that is?

As I have already written here, my explanation is that you are correct, they are like conveyor belts, factory like, but capable of doing a task quickly.

If the Berlitz school is the only place using unqualified teachers in Bangkok then you have a point of some kind. Though I am no expert, I suspect, however, that there are zillions of unregulated schools. Particularly those teaching kids perhaps. If it is like that, then there is no cause to blame method schools. Anyway, people do get that one month qualification only in order to travel, and surely this is a local and political matter of only marginal relevance to a discussion about the worth of the schools.

[LarryLatham]

I would like the schools who use unqualified people to charge less

Have you ever heard of any school, regardless of what you might think of their 'quality', to admit or advertise that they use unqualified people?

Larry Latham

[lolwhites]

This is one reason why I sais in a previous thread once that students should steer clear of "method" schools. If a school takes the ethos that all the teacher has to do is follow a method, it follows that he or she does not need to be qualified or even have any people skills or the ability to think on their feet. Just follow the method like a robot end everything will be OK. And if you don't we'll sack you. Charming.

Would you be happy to be in a class with a teacher like that or would you prefer someone who had learned some applied linguistics, how to motivate a group, knowledgeable enough to handle students' questions and able to assess their students' needs and plan a course accordingly?