Re: Yasar University - ESL school review

Very interesting... Thanks for this info! I was considering applying for a position at Yasar, but now I have second thoughts. Our contribution as EFL teacehrs shouldn't be underestimated by commercial money making universities and I encourage you to post your experience to as many EFL boards as you can.... Many teachers will be grateful.

Yasar University - ESL school review

Yasar University English prep school is your stereotypical money making scheme-- a lot of time spent luring new students and their money, very little time spent worrying about the integrity of the school or the quality of the lessons.

The students range in age from 18-24, yet act much younger and are highly unmotivated. The university is acknowledged to be the worst in the country, and most of the students are just sent there for lack of anything else to do all day, plus it delays their compulsory military service. The school never suspends any of the students, and as the year goes on new low level classes are created to service the delinquent students. I taught one of these classes for a semester and had a pen thrown at me, as well as shouted at and had one student hit me on the arm as I told him to leave the class because he was late. Most classes were complete bedlam, with students shouting at each other across the room while I tried to teach. All of the other teachers (foreign and native) had the same complaints.

There is almost zero respect for foreign teachers, and they won't listen to your lessons anyways because they know that most of the Turkish teachers coming in after you will teach them in Turkish. Also, the final exams are always curved dramatically. Last year they added forty points to the grades so enough students would pass and the parents would be kept happy, this year it was thirty points.

There is very little discussion with management, and you never receive a straight answer. They are most concerned with pleasing the rector. At one point the teachers were told that an after hours concert that had been optional was made mandatory, because not enough people were going to the concert, and the rector was worried about how it would look with all those empty seats. Despite the fact that the contract clearly stated that we finished work at six o'clock, we were told we must attend a nine o'clock concert, unpaid,and were given three hours to prepare for it. The same for holiday parties--mandatory. It's defintely a boys club, with very little professionalism. There was no hesitation to make sexist remarks ("Men are smarter and stronger than women" "Why aren't you home cooking dinner?"), and even date teachers that they managed.

The woman who ran Human Resources was extremely unhelpful, and was often not even at the school. When some foreign teachers pointed out that most important posters and emails were in Turkish, we were told just to get a Turkish speaking co-worker to translate it for us.

The monthly pay, while more than enough to live off of if you are single, is the lowest in the city for university teachers.

There are a few positives, I did have my residency permit paid for and pay was always on time (a rarity in Turkey apparently) but in my opinion the negatives far outweighed the positives.

There were eight foreign teachers hired at the start of the academic year, four left before the year was up, tired of just being talking heads. I left on the very last day of teaching, a little before my contract ended. When I left two of the remaining three were intending to leave within the next two months.

Turkey is a really fun country to travel in, and I wouldn't discourage you from going, but I would strongly suggest that you find a different school to teach at. There are plenty to find.