Rheno747
- 2006-06-10
Your school is a business first and foremost. Keep that in mind. This is the reality of TESOL. Sure, those slacker native speakers get drunk every night, but they are demanded our by our students' parents. Most of these losers don't really teach anything, but they've learned how to milk the system and play the TESOL game. That game is "fool the students into thinking they're getting something for their money." Usually these so-called "teachers" grade "easily", give ultra-easy exams, and act like clowns in their classrooms. And, of course, their students love them. Do their students learn enough to pass the TEOFL test later? Who cares in the here and now? The students don't. When their students finally realize they've been ripped off on their educations, their loser native-speaking teachers will be long gone, just like those students' tuition money.
Why shouldn't the drunks play the game? Serious guys like me, you, and your wife will be shown the door way before the drunks will. We actually FORCE our students to do the one thing they really DON'T want to do in our classrooms--LEARN English.
So. Where the hell am I going with this?
If you and your wife actually do the job you were hired to do, you may encounter problems later. Yeah, mark my word. Your school will turn on you sometime down the road if you aren't keeping smiles on your kids' faces, and they'll start making an issue of the fact your wife isn't a native speaker. Right now, you're in the "honeymoon" stage at your digs. We all see it. Our schools treat us like gold the first month or so. As the months drag on, though, we serious teachers get the "icy" treatment because our students don't want to work.
Unless you and your wife are "popular" in your classroom, you'll start having trouble at your new school in a month or so. They'll start making an issue of your wife's pay in hopes you'll quit and go elsewhere. TESOL schools want clowns, not teachers.
My girlfriend and I chose to teach at our school because of one reason and that reason was the school was willing to pay us equally even though she is not a native speaker. I would first apply to a school and they would happily offer me a position. I then submit my girlfriend's resume and the school would reply saying "we will accept your girlfriend but will pay her less." I would turn down any offer where the school would not pay us equally. One woman of the foreign affairs (from a certain school which I will not mention) had the audacity to say over the phone "oh, that is what we are willing to pay for non-native speakers." She also stated that we were on top of the list but not willing to negotiate to make us choose her school. When we applied to our current school I said to the foreign affairs "are you willing to pay us equally?" She replied "yes of course, why wouldn't I?" So I also offered to help the school look for more teachers as we are the only teachers here and the school told us they only need a few and first preference are Americans and British teachers. But would consider non-native speakers due to their experience and we know so many non-native speakers that we gave their resumes to the school to keep on file. It is a generic preference when schools ask for Americans and British but doesn't mean no non-native teachers.
But now some angry non-native speakers are shooting at me because my school stated native speakers in the ad. Despite the main reason for us to teach here was because how they treated my girlfriend as an equal. So I am pleading to other teachers that if you really want to take down discriminative schools fight those who use words in their ads such as "colour of skin" and "non-native speakers need not to apply." I have worked with non-native teachers for quite awhile and I reguard them as effective teachers especially compared to the lazy native speakers who come to China to get drunk every night. Not all schools are as discriminative as some especially the private schools are notorious for their treatment to non-native and non-white teachers. So please attack those who are the real discriminating bastards not those who are on your side.