You're a funny guy, I've got to hand it to you. Good luck with your endeavor.Loz wrote:whats wrong with that?,
It is grammatically correct!
And im not a Nigerian either. Maybe your just a cock who needs a/c in your hovel, On the tenth floor of your peasant accomodation to cool you rage!
Starting up a small English language school
- vladimir
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There is no way you will be allowed to start a small school.
At least not until you can spell Grolsch properly.
A Ben Franklin dictionary will obviate this problem.
At least not until you can spell Grolsch properly.
A Ben Franklin dictionary will obviate this problem.
ירי ילדים והפצצת אזרחים דורש אומץ, כמו גם הטרדה מינית של עובדי ההוראה.
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Learn?! You want Khmer kids to learn? They paid for the course, they must pass. Learn? LOL!oxbowlarry wrote:How about a school with no curriculum. Just with a computer with a big monitor. Then just ask the kids. Hey, what do you want to learn about today ? Then search and print handout then discuss.
ירי ילדים והפצצת אזרחים דורש אומץ, כמו גם הטרדה מינית של עובדי ההוראה.
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When I had to fail students in Cambo, I used to wonder why it was always the nicest students in the class who you hoped and prayed would just scrape through that always seemed to fail. And we were talking serious repeat offenders too. I had one lad who had balding hair swept to one side - ala Bobby Charlton - and glasses so thick they looked like the bottom of milk bottles, and who would (always late and apologetic) rush into class with pants heralding the death of his cat, white socks which were trying, but failing, to grasp the bottom of his strides, and a briefcase which contained his much thumbed dictionary.vladimir wrote:
They paid for the course, they must pass. Learn? LOL!
After a week or so of looking at (decoding) his writing I sat down for a chat with him about his writing process and asked him how he would come to write phrases like "my work make me go to much obstreperous station. I has to go but I metamorphosise tire easy." As I suspected, he was using a dictionary almost word for word and choosing the most difficult synonyms he could find. I had quite a high success rate for these classes but, although Bobby improved, I just couldn't pass him. It was utter bollox. I still think about him to this day, as his pate has probably almost completely metamorphosised by now.
Despite this, I once passed a lovely student whose grammar and range was extremely limited but who possessed just enough vocabulary to tell me the story/soap opera about her next door neighbours: the drunken father beats the wife and brings other women home, while the son was out each night causing mayhem and stealing from other families on the street. I think at one point she even got into talking about the noise the father made when he was fucking his mistresses and she could hear him as she was coming home from the shops, ready to defend herself with an array of tropical fruit and vegetables as she interrupted him just before he got to the vinegar strokes.
Some great oneliners about her chasing him down the street with a frying pan while the son was stoned out of his tree on the floor. The clincher for me was when I was wondering why she didn't call the police: the father was a policeman.
Task Achievement: 5/5
Sorry for running off topic, Loz, but with stories like these to look forward to, who could deny you the opportunity to share in the fun too- if you've got the dough knocking about. It will be worth it for the stories you have to tell your friends, and the crushing day when your Khmer business partner changes the locks and you have yet more stories for the boys back home. Never a dull day in Cambo.
Last edited by erictheking on Sat Jun 23, 2012 4:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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eric, I could tell you stories, but I signed an agreement...LOL
A beer, sometime
I'm sure there's a very entertaining TV series in here, somewhere.
A beer, sometime
I'm sure there's a very entertaining TV series in here, somewhere.
ירי ילדים והפצצת אזרחים דורש אומץ, כמו גם הטרדה מינית של עובדי ההוראה.
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Apart from improving people's lives, there's the rapport or comedy element with the students which makes the job so fucking great. I really do miss being in the classroom.vladimir wrote:eric, I could tell you stories, but I signed an agreement...LOL
A beer, sometime
I'm sure there's a very entertaining TV series in here, somewhere.
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erictheking wrote:Apart from improving people's lives, there's the rapport or comedy element with the students which makes the job so fucking great. I really do miss being in the classroom.vladimir wrote:eric, I could tell you stories, but I signed an agreement...LOL
A beer, sometime
I'm sure there's a very entertaining TV series in here, somewhere.
k440, something to do when you're pissed.
Alex wrote:You're a funny guy, I've got to hand it to you. Good luck with your endeavor.Loz wrote:whats wrong with that?,
It is grammatically correct!
And im not a Nigerian either. Maybe your just a cock who needs a/c in your hovel, On the tenth floor of your peasant accomodation to cool you rage!
Cheers Alex, Sorry about the silly name calling
Thanks Hemingway, The questions you asked within your 2nd paragraph are the same ones i have been mulling over in my head. Maybe i should just opt for a teaching position somewhere in PP, And if i am still functional mentally/financially/spiritually in a year or two then have a think about it then.Hemingway wrote:You should think twice about it. You could be the teaching equivalent of those barangs who come here to 'start up a small bar/restaurant' despite no previous experience of doing so and fold after a few months with nothing to show for it except lingering debts.
How would you afford to keep it running? Which curriculum would you follow? Which qualifications would a Khmer student have by the end? How would it contrast/differ/ be better than the hundreds of 'small English language schools' that pepper the PP landscape? Which teaching material would you use? How high would the fees have to be in order to afford the rent (not to mention paying for your salaries)? If the fees are high, how will most Khmer student be able to afford them? And that's just the first few very basic questions.
I have the same background as you: BA+PGCE+ years of experience teaching in the UK and overseas and I would never ever consider opening a school. I was offered a director job in a small school in Nha Trang but I turned it down. If you are the director AND the owner then it's a recipe for disaster. There is a reason why schools are usually opened by established businesses. They have the know how and the capital. If you have neither of those, or even just one of those, then just keep on tutoring. It's a lot less stress and in the end it will be more profitable for you.
Many thanks to you and everyone else who has commented on my pipe dream.
Whatever happened to Eric's post? I didn't necessarily agree with it but there was nothing in it that deserved censoring. I really don't get the rules around here.
A tree born crooked will never grow straight.
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Oh, I deleted it myself. Just thought it was off topic having read it once more. Maybe it's worth a new thread on its own? I'm certainly interested in answers to lots of the points I made.Hemingway wrote:Whatever happened to Eric's post? I didn't necessarily agree with it but there was nothing in it that deserved censoring. I really don't get the rules around here.
Not calling u a liar, but i have trouble believing ur story. Wall Street Institute is a damn good school and is a multimillion dollar company with schools all over the globe. To think a director in Thailand didn't know what a CELTA was is really hard to believe.erictheking wrote:Sounds like Wall Street in Thailand. I was once between jobs after a slight disagreement with my DOS, and I went there for an interview ro see me through until something better turned up. No classrooms. No whiteboards. No textbooks. Oasis' latest album playing as you walk through the place. Glass cubicles with white minions writing on the panes with markers as 2 or 3 young Thais sat in admiration of the farang in a tie.oxbowlarry wrote:How about a school with no curriculum. Just with a computer with a big monitor.
The Thai interviewer sat me down and looked at my qualifications, before furrowing her brow: "what is a CELTA?", so I explained.
Next question: "do you miss your family?" to which I replied that I had lived in Asia for quite a while and we speak on the phone quite often. Things were really getting low now and she was most perturbed to hear that I could eat spicey food, and was apoplectic when I asksed how the students were able to learn grammar/reading etc without any source of input from the teacher; "they study for one hour with the headphones on and read magazines and then are ready for class. Your job is to talk to them."
Without doubt the weirdest interview I've ever had. I don't think we even shook hands as I left her office. Thailand: truly the shitpit of EFL.
If this story is true, i would think they asked u that just to see how u would describe ur experience with it.
Or we are talking about COMPLETELY different schools.
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She had no idea what a CELTA was or who the company I'd just worked for were (a much better school than Wall Sa-teet). And while you may think of it as a good school, you're the first person I've heard say this. The usual things I hear are long hours, shit holidays and overbearing management. They are quite trendy though, so I can see the appeal to Thais.cambod wrote:Not calling u a liar, but i have trouble believing ur story. Wall Street Institute is a damn good school and is a multimillion dollar company with schools all over the globe. To think a director in Thailand didn't know what a CELTA was is really hard to believe.erictheking wrote:Sounds like Wall Street in Thailand. I was once between jobs after a slight disagreement with my DOS, and I went there for an interview ro see me through until something better turned up. No classrooms. No whiteboards. No textbooks. Oasis' latest album playing as you walk through the place. Glass cubicles with white minions writing on the panes with markers as 2 or 3 young Thais sat in admiration of the farang in a tie.oxbowlarry wrote:How about a school with no curriculum. Just with a computer with a big monitor.
The Thai interviewer sat me down and looked at my qualifications, before furrowing her brow: "what is a CELTA?", so I explained.
Next question: "do you miss your family?" to which I replied that I had lived in Asia for quite a while and we speak on the phone quite often. Things were really getting low now and she was most perturbed to hear that I could eat spicey food, and was apoplectic when I asksed how the students were able to learn grammar/reading etc without any source of input from the teacher; "they study for one hour with the headphones on and read magazines and then are ready for class. Your job is to talk to them."
Without doubt the weirdest interview I've ever had. I don't think we even shook hands as I left her office. Thailand: truly the shitpit of EFL.
If this story is true, i would think they asked u that just to see how u would describe ur experience with it.
Or we are talking about COMPLETELY different schools.
I think it had just opened this new branch in a shopping centre in Pinklao, so maybe there were reasons for the shocking interview. It was that bad, and this lady was certainly no director; her English gave me the impression that she was a trainee who'd been asked to stand in, and perhaps that might explain her failure to communicate that she wished me to expand on the demands of the CELTA. There wasn't one academic question during the whole interview.
It was ridiculous and, if I recall correctly, I was asked to attend an interview 3 times and it was only on the 3rd time that they had someone around who had remembered that I was due. On a fucking Saturday morning too.
I'm truly shocked. (No sarcasm)erictheking wrote:She had no idea what a CELTA was or who the company I'd just worked for were (a much better school than Wall Sa-teet). And while you may think of it as a good school, you're the first person I've heard say this. The usual things I hear are long hours, shit holidays and overbearing management. They are quite trendy though, so I can see the appeal to Thais.cambod wrote:Not calling u a liar, but i have trouble believing ur story. Wall Street Institute is a damn good school and is a multimillion dollar company with schools all over the globe. To think a director in Thailand didn't know what a CELTA was is really hard to believe.erictheking wrote:Sounds like Wall Street in Thailand. I was once between jobs after a slight disagreement with my DOS, and I went there for an interview ro see me through until something better turned up. No classrooms. No whiteboards. No textbooks. Oasis' latest album playing as you walk through the place. Glass cubicles with white minions writing on the panes with markers as 2 or 3 young Thais sat in admiration of the farang in a tie.oxbowlarry wrote:How about a school with no curriculum. Just with a computer with a big monitor.
The Thai interviewer sat me down and looked at my qualifications, before furrowing her brow: "what is a CELTA?", so I explained.
Next question: "do you miss your family?" to which I replied that I had lived in Asia for quite a while and we speak on the phone quite often. Things were really getting low now and she was most perturbed to hear that I could eat spicey food, and was apoplectic when I asksed how the students were able to learn grammar/reading etc without any source of input from the teacher; "they study for one hour with the headphones on and read magazines and then are ready for class. Your job is to talk to them."
Without doubt the weirdest interview I've ever had. I don't think we even shook hands as I left her office. Thailand: truly the shitpit of EFL.
If this story is true, i would think they asked u that just to see how u would describe ur experience with it.
Or we are talking about COMPLETELY different schools.
I think it had just opened this new branch in a shopping centre in Pinklao, so maybe there were reasons for the shocking interview. It was that bad, and this lady was certainly no director; her English gave me the impression that she was a trainee who'd been asked to stand in, and perhaps that might explain her failure to communicate that she wished me to expand on the demands of the CELTA. There wasn't one academic question during the whole interview.
It was ridiculous and, if I recall correctly, I was asked to attend an interview 3 times and it was only on the 3rd time that they had someone around who had remembered that I was due. On a fucking Saturday morning too.
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