Is your school really a school or is it really a business posing as a school? There's a big difference. Countless supposed 'schools' I've heard about through the months since I got into TEFL are run by people who don't know how to teach students. What they DO know is how to delegate that job to minons they can then abuse.

And of course these characters also know how take tuition money from those students and their parents, and they know how to follow the model for a typical 'global economy' business--exploit the exploitable, be extreme fiscal tightwads when it comes to managing and resupplying, use business laws, and farangs' ignorance of those laws, to steal from their farang employees, and use sad-sap excuses on payday. Yeap, been there/done that already.

At my college, a private (for profit) international outfit, I have to buy my own whiteboard markers, pay for my own (contaminated) non-potable water, pay for every meal, pay for electricity at inflated rates, have taxes taken out when I'm not supposed to be paying taxes (in Thailand, farang teachers get the first two tax years free), pay for my own visas and work permits (along with the transport required to do either/both), pay for tapes I use in class, pay for my own materials to use in class, and on and on and on.

You read right--If I must use pedagogy of any kind in my classes, I have to head to the local shopping center (via a bus/van I have to pay for) and fork over my own money for it. I have gotten one bottle of refill ink for my whiteboard markers for free, along with a ream of copy paper....that's it for an entire semester teaching eighteen hours a week in five classes.

I have to do this on top of the fact that I was a colossal id..... when I got into TEFL--I actually bought my own plane ticket to come to an overpriced TESOL program (run by a BUSINESSman who knows very little about teaching/education), a program I paid for using what?

My very own money, of course.

Luckily, at my first teaching job, I never got ripped off and I always got anything and everything I ever needed pedagogy-wise for teaching. The director at that Thai government high school was honest and I always got paid on time. That's because it was a real school, not a business posing as a school. Unfortunately, the students wanted to learn English less than fenceposts want to learn English, so I 'lost' in that sense.

No, one doesn't grow much as a teacher if he ends up being nothing but a babysitter for students who don't care about ESL. All he'll become is bitter that he was duped into dropping all the money necessary to become that babysitter.

Again, been there, done that. If my students at that government school would have only cared about English, that probably would have been a pretty good job. I got free housing, free water, free electricity, free meals (3x per day), and free whatever-I-needed-for-my-classes. I seethe with anger here when I have to buy my own whiteboard markers or anything/everything else I need after getting it for free for so long back at the much-poorer high school. I also get pissed when I hear about the farang who've left this school recently who are now finding themselves being ripped off on their final checks in the form of inflated electricity bills, water bills, apartment damage, whatever.

Thai government high schools have students who don't care. However, you'll get paid and you'll probably never have to pull your wallet out for anything--they will provide most of what you need for free.

The businesses-posing-as-schools/money-laundering-fronts pay higher salaries, but you'll be pulling your wallet out for everything from water and electricity to your own class materials. And there may be many times when you'll get excuses instead of a paycheck come payday.

We have to choose which of these options we dislike the least and go with it.

Of course, there is a third option--chucking it and heading for the airport, and a fourth--don't get into TESOL in the first place.

As I look back over the past 18 months of my own personal ESL teaching experience and reading others' testimony, I think I'd go with option four if I could go back in time to March '04 to do it all over again.

I'm finally realizing that ESL/TESOL is just another s.... job for the college-educated 'non-preferred' employees of the west. Thank you, Reagan and all your id..... followers for ruining America and its designated losers' prospects for getting good jobs. I'd be working for IBM making 40K a year like I should be doing.

Author
Rheno747
http://www.eslteachersboard.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=12