CASE STUDY: ENGLISH TEACHER Z
Fresh out of the local 7-11, English Teacher Z zipped off into the exotic East with a worthless (yet expensive) teaching certificate and a pocket full of dreams. Read about what he found. . .
How long have you been teaching, and where?
I started teaching in May 2002. I've taught in China for 1 year, Indonesia for 3 months & I'm currently working illegally in South Korea with one of the sweetest deals ever.
Do you have any training, and did it help you at all in class?
I got a TESOL certificate through Teach & Travel. It cost
about NZ$1500. It was a part-time course that ran
for 5 days. There was no practical training element & one year later I found out
that some schools were not
hiring teachers with these certificates. So $1500 for a bullshit cert. is not
helpful. I was nearly sent
home in my first month of teaching, it was that bad. Luckily I have
experience now & that seems to outweigh
any cert. or Uni Degree.
Why did you decide to get into teaching?
I had nothing better to do. I was working in a 7-11.
Who have been your most venal and incompetent employers?
Oh gee whizz! I couldn't name people, that would be unprofessional. Viona Arifin,
Gusti & Mustika from
English First Pluit Jakarta. School manager, recruitment guy & school owner.
They were the lowliest
of the low. The whole concept of 'face' got completely out of hand. Most of the
time they would tell
bare-faced lies for seemingly no reason.
What's been the worst moment for you in the classroom?
I can't think of anything too bad, but I tend to freak out
if a kid gets hurt. One girl in China got
pummelled by the other students in a game & her father was downstairs. She was
hysterical. One student in
particular was expelled for punching her. I will never play 'Simon says touch
Nancy's shoe' again.
What do you usually do if you have ten minutes to kill in a difficult class?
Only ten minutes? Any resourceful teacher should be able to kill entire lessons, English Teacher X! For kids: Hangman. Except I make the kids be the teacher & I'm the student. I pretend not to know the answer and yell out the wrong letters. It takes up alot of time & the kids wet their pants with excitement at being more intelligent than the teacher. What's scary is that maybe they are.
I find it harder to kill time with adults. With teenagers, a good hard-core rap
song by Eminem or Lil'
Kim should do the trick.
Where do you come down on the "shagging students" issue?
Most contracts state that you can't have a relationship
with students or any of the staff. In
China it was one big incestuous orgy. I really don't care who teachers fuck. And
if anyone says that we're
taking advantage of our students, they're totally wrong. It's usually the
students who do it.
Although one teacher in Jakarta had a 16 year old prostitute living in the
teachers house. He was about
37. That was wrong but I was planning to run away at the time & didn't care.
What would you like to happen in the future?
I hope I have the strength to get the fuck outta Asia.
Yeah. . . So did I . . . once. . .
I have the 'just one more country' mentality. I really
don't wanna do this forever. This is a learning
experience & I have grown-up quite a bit (I was 21 when I left New Zealand). But
for the most part I'm
just avoiding the harsh realities of the 'real world', whatever that is. Paying
bills, working 40+hours a
week, cooking at home, cleaning the house etc. In Asia you don't have to any of
this. It's kinda like being a
washed-up pop star. People stare at you but don't want your autograph.
Any particularly harrowing stories you'd like to tell?
Harrowing? No. Funny? Yes. In Jakarta one of the popular
teachers was fired (he refused to sign a new
contract) so all the other teachers had a meeting with the recruitment guy. We
yelled at him, stormed out of
school & went on strike. Very unprofessional & confrontational (remember, must
maintain face at all
times in Indo).
The house maids were hired through the school & were threatened with their jobs if they didn't spy on us. When teachers were sent to Singapore to get their work visas, the school manager would call our house & get the maid to check our rooms to see if all our belongings were still there & that we hadn't taken off. The driver that took us to the airport was also hired & the manager would call him to check how much luggage we had on us. The visa run was only a daytrip, therefore any big suitcases set alarm bells ringing.
One teacher wanted to do a runner so he got another teacher to follow him to the airport in a taxi with all his luggage. The boss was pissed. After that incident one teacher quit, 2 ran away at xmas (including me!) & the new AC quit after only working for 2 months. We chose to run away over quitting cos we had to pay the school one months' salary if we wanted to break our contracts.
It was the worst situation I'd ever seen where $$$ was clearly above everything else. Fuck the teachers, they're replaceable. It's so easy to hire young teachers who are desperate to see the world. & Dave's bullshit ESL removed all bad posts about EF Jakarta and all this crap in only 3 months! Outstanding!
See EngLISH TEECHUR Z's SUBMISHUNS! A KARTOON ABouT A JoB INtERVIeW!