Entries Tagged 'Jobs' ↓

I am seeing an increasing trend of schools to fight back when a teacher makes a complaint. They send out a troop of so-called happy current or even former teachers. They might engage someone to do mudslinging against the person making the complaint and even the site making the complaint.

Here is a comment that I have gotten here making a post talking about a particular entity.

Avoid Teachers in Latin America, it is the organization that is owned by the poster, Guy Courchesne. There are two girls in Playa del Carmin who attest to the poor treatment they received from his organization. And, now he is on the internet trashing every competitive organization out there. Avoid and dont believe anything Guy Courchesne has to say. He has taken his assault to far, he is too personal in his attacks and frankly everyone is getting tired of it. He doesnt add anything to the discourse. He just says bad things about everyone except his company. Hmmm thats funny. How is that only his organization is the best. TEFL Institute is doing a fine job there is nothing bad on the company by any legitimate organization. They do a great job over there. The course is great, its offered at a fair price, and even better you won’t ever find the people of TEFL Institute on the web saying bad things about other people. I am tired of seeing what Guy Courchesne has to say about everyone else. Go away Guy, grow up and find a real job!

Don’t worry, I already shared this with Guy and a simple trace led it back to a certain entity in Chicago. We all know Guy and know this is all a bunch of trash talk, but it just shows the lengths that schools will go to in order to kill a messenger.

Take a look at what Alex Case is going through as well. Bad schools.

It’s a good thing to think about when a teacher is wrong, but even more important is when a school is wrong. In fact, if a teacher is wrong, the worse that can happen is that a good teacher chooses to teach elsewhere and goes for a different job. If a school is wrong, a teacher can not only get stuck in a bad job, but might also have their name slurried in such a way as to never be able to work again in their chosen field.

It looks like the TEFLWatch Forums have changed to a different location. Now, you can find the TEFLWatch Forums in at their very own domain, www.teflwatch.com. This means that you can stil find all of the great discussions that are important for EVERY TEFL teacher without being compromised by advertising dollars.

I think this is a positive change for TEFLWatch and reflects a growth in the right direction, especially now that the forums are separated from the main pages. It means that there should be even more freedom to speak out and give information on schools.

After making a couple of posts about teaching, I can’t help but think back to my time teaching. I have some really fond memories of my students and even some of my co-teachers, but I can never forget the endless grind of rules and regulations. It seems like the rules and regulations were always making things more difficult for teachers.

You can read it an earlier post of mine on teaching regulations in Thailand. It’s that feeling of being a rubber band stretch to the limit. Now, that feeling is gone because I am in a fulfilling job here in the states. Unfortunately, all it takes is thinking back to get those old feelings again.

It looks like TEFLWatch is changing places now. The main page and articles will continue to be available at TEFLWatch.Org, but the TEFLWatch forum has changed to TEFLWatch.com. You can get instant communication about issues on TEFLWatch Forum and get all of your TEFL Blacklist, Rantings and Ratings on TEFLWatch.org.

This is a good change and should make things a bit more separate. It’s my understanding that will be eventually having separate ownership and separate hosting. That can only be a good thing for teachers who want to report bad schools.

I guess restructuring is a good idea after two years of growth, threats and expansion.

I am really glad that my husband and I left Thailand last year. We had been following the news and found that there were several plans to institute anti-foreigner laws in Thailand. It was going to make teaching more difficult or just down right impossible.

The biggie is the new rule that my friends are fretting over right now. Teachers are required to take a class on Thai culture and then pass a test before they can get a teacher’s license. They have to pay for it out of their own pockets. The class and test wouldn’t be so bad, but they require you to show proper respect to a Buddha in order to pass the class.

What does showing proper respect mean? It means bowing down to it. As a Christian, I find it impossible for me to bow down to other idols.

I have been looking at different TEFL institutes out there, but lately it seems like some courses have been doing bad things. The TEFL Institute Chicago seems to be one such institute. Unfortunately, it has been getting some negative feedback from both TEFLWatch. It seems like The TEFL Institute might not be a good course to attend according to the information that can be found on The TEFL Institute and TEFLWatch.

One of the scourges of working in the TEFL industry is the bad schools. They sure make it hard to be a good teacher. These schools put draconian work provisions on teachers. They pay their salary late. They make things tough for teachers. They put stupid educational requirements in place. They are lead by people who are interested in money and not education.

The only way to deal with these type of schools is with a blacklist. TEFLWatch TEFL Blacklist is just one site that deals with all of the BS surrounding these schools. I don’t know if these kind of sites are enough to do justice for teachers, but it’s a start. We need to start highlighting the bad schools and start putting them in a TEFL blacklist on sites like TEFLWatch in order to warn teachers off of bad schools, language institutes and recruiters.