Beatrix
- 2004-11-27
Legal processes are put in place to protect people from the unfortunate game playing that I have witnessed while working ESL:
1 Devising the demise of a newly contracted, committed and qualified teacher, after the childbirth of the previous teacher. Methods employed were defamation: she's a fat messy pig, you should see her bedroom! Also physical punches were thrown, and emotional and psychological abuse."Look at that big fat ars*!"
2 Ganging up on dedicated teachers by lazy dope smoking teachers who turned up to work stoned and late.
3 Being told by a Filipino, how dare you make the curriculum too hard for my DJ Friend. She had to quit the job.
4 Racist terms being shouted out by the above.
5 Listening to ?teachers? converations about dealing in drugs and recruiting teachers at the same time.
6 Suggestions of going to nude beaches by the boss.
Children rubbing your private places in class, and getting away with it. OOHH thy're just curious!!! Says the director.
7 Being fired for going to church once with a friend for her child's drama class.
8 Money transactions not going into your bank account, or having to work hard so that they do.
I remember having a meeting that was rescheduled 6 times one night in order to get 1/3 of my salary.
Plus one more time, two part amounts were put into my account, perhaps they were hoping I couldn't add up.
9 Being imprisoned in a school desparately wanting to leave, and not being able to. No release letter came.
10 Staff being fired for being sick 3 days. I mean that is so easy if you get food poisioning for 2 days and a cold for 1 day. It's not realistic.
11 Insufficient breaks. I remember having to work 6 hours a day with no breaks like a robot, plus turning up early to write tons of writing on the whiteboard, as no books were supplied. I was even asked to buy the school crayons and DVDs.
12 Witholding refreshments for female teachers totally, while the male teacher was allowed to drink beer between classes plus was treated to pizza too.
13 Witholding paper for the E2 visa teacher, yet the paper was provided to the illegal teacher who wasn't paid as much.
14 At another school, all preparation by the support staff was done for the male teacher, yet nothing was done for the female teachers.
So what do you have to say now?
News of the World
- 2004-11-26
all very admirable and that, but you have to face the fact that there are really no official licencing requirements controlling the recruitment of prospective employees for these positions in china anyway, so i fail to see that you would even have any moral grounds for your venture, let alone any in an ethical or legal sense.
depending on how things have eventuated for the individual here, this lack of regulation can be either the marvellous or the horrendous thing about the esl job market here.
it's a simple fact that you can come over at your own expense and score a comparatively good position here just by walking into a place and asking, and it appears also to be a simple fact that you can set yourself up for a nightmare courtesy of an offshore recruitment.
i'm not making any claims big or small with regard to my own skill or success as an esl teacher, but i have certainly never done a bunk at midnight with the laptop provided to me by the institution i was studying at (i have - in fact - never done a bunk at all), have never used my position primarily as a platform from which to expound my religious beliefs or my cultural subjectivity, have never let any addictions such as drinking, smoking or text messaging interfere in any way with my contracted duties, and have the background at least to be able to recognise the standard of English to which any keen student here would be aspiring. this is more than i can say for about 40% of my colleagues from previous positions here.
how exactly would you protect your own interests given that in at least some cases you would find yourself acting as advocate for those who are in the wrong, and even more often would find that your professional actions were causing even greater acrimony over problems that had arisen more due to the cultural insensitivities of the parties involved rather than any malevolance on the part of either?
i suggest arbitration as a more lucrative line of work. you could get fees from both the employer and the employee, and might even be able to sort out a handy little sideline in private investigation into the bargain.