TEFL as often private education- often good or often bad?
Or actually, it is perhaps better to ask “often better or often worse”, as we can only choose from the options we have available (as in my usual Dip post obs litany “Yes, you can criticise my lesson, Ms DELTA tutor, but I asked you for better ideas on how to do this before I wrote my lesson plan, and you had none!”)
One obvious answer to the problems we do see in the private ed TEFL world would be for more of TEFL to be taken under the control over various governmental and intergovernmental organisations, so let’s compare private and public TEFL in a “BT might be shit now, but it was really really shit as a nationalised company in the 70s” kinda way:
- Even the worst schools I have worked in have compared reasonably well in academic standards to my secondary school and university, and I have heard of few places worse than South Bank College, where I made the mistake of enrolling in A Level French evening classes (I’ll regale you with the whole story some time- it’s a long one). Ditto with comparing the standards of teaching in private language schools and state primary schools I have worked in
- My EU students in London who fled from private language schools had one good thing to say about the further education colleges they went to- they are cheap. In other words, they had an education subsidized by British tax payers, got a worse education, went back home with a worse (i.e. real) impression of what British education is like and didn’t put any money into the economy. All that, and apparently that is exactly what put the well-respected Swan School out of business
- I learnt very little from reading the first half of The Oxford ESOL Handbook, in fact it often seemed more like an Oxford Basics book than The Practice of English Teaching and it states in several places that ESOL has much to learn from TEFL
- Several requests for information about teaching in universities in Japan as compared to private language schools (made as the teachers in universities are apparently a different breed as they have MAs) resulted each time in a litany of “long holidays” and “job security” and the occasional “got my own office”, and not one single positive thing about teaching standards or professional development
- The tests from Cambridge ESOL and (especially) ETSmight leave a lot to be desired, but half the reason they were so successful is that the government owned tests in most countries are much much worse (e.g. JPLT in Japan, whatever the multilanguage tests all the students in Spain take before fleeing to FCE are called)
- The training organisations that seem less commercial and ambitious in terms of expansion (e.g. Trinity) don’t seem to produce any better training than some others that are more so (e.g. Cambridge)
- Ditto for publishers (Delta Publishing are heroes for publishing things that others wouldn’t, but in the books you can directly compare to OUP like business skills ones and Primary textbooks they no longer shine so bright)
Running out of ideas and time before catching up on sleep, so any comments from any others very welcome. Thatcher was bad but Hugo Chavez is no better? Any other evidence for and against? And what are the other options? Same public/ private split but more government regulation of the private sector ala attempts to cut banking bonuses? Cooperatives? Really non profit making non profit making TEFL organisations? Profit sharing? Joint teacher and management ownership? Same capitalism but unions so we can screw every penny we can out of them? Every single one of us go self-employed?
So, basically, until someone tells me exactly what we are missing out on, I’ll keep pointing out the crappy bits of our industry, whilst not complaining too much that that is what it is (an industry).
Or am I perhaps just feeling all positive about life for once for no particular reason? (Regular readers might have theories on why that should be…)
PS, if anyone is suddenly rethinking their estimate of my politics after this little rant/ musing, I am and shall remain a card carrying Confused Socialist/ Socialist in Search of Something to Believe In.
Tags: Professionalism
October 8th, 2009 at 1:11 am
OK, I’ll chime in as a teacher at a Japanese university. The holidays are great, and the pay is better. That is why most people do it. For all the talk of professionalism flying around the ELT blogosphere lately, there are huge numbers of ‘teachers’ out there who are doing it for a quick buck, for an easy life, or for a chance to travel. Some young guy comes to Japan with no qualifications to teach in a private language school, meets a girl, gets married…where does he go? Eikaiwa is a dead end, next stop MA, uni job, perhaps a business on the side doing what he is really interested in. I know you are a career teacher, Alex, and there are plenty of others here in Japan who have a commitment to teaching – but we can’t ignore the fact that (no numbers to prove it) plenty of people do it because it’s all they’ve got.
Now, the serious answer. As you are probably aware, the demographic time bomb means big changes ahead for the Japanese University Industry. There are three kinds of university, private, prefectural and national. The nationals are generally considered the best, with private universities of extremely variable quality. I work full time at one private university, and part-time at another (quite a common way of supplementing income). Both universities have regular staff development meetings (we often take turns to present something) and well-funded extensive reading programmes and self-access centres. If students don’t perform, they will fail. There are some pretty ropey places out there too, but there will be lot going to the wall in the coming years. Any specific questions, let me know (I’m no expert, but I’ll try).
October 9th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Hmmn.
Interesting topic and I lack time today to do it real justice but here are some ill considered – off the top of my (balding) head – comments.
I have worked in UK FE colleges – one full time for a year and another part time for about 3 months. Both had extremely low standards in areas that I think really impact student experience. Level testing and grouping was hopelessly compromised by a need to fill up classes. Resources and syllabi were either absent or outdated and very poorly chosen.
I’ve worked in ‘good’ private langauge schools and ‘bad’ private language schools. While the bad ones are as bad as the colleges and could be worse – the good ones are far better.
My experience of University and state school was also very poor, though I was never much good at studying so some of that is my fault. I did my Dip TESOL privately and it was a pretty good experience – the trainers knew their stuff and presentation and organisation was reasonable – could have been better but it was a fair effort. Unlike my PGCE where we seemed to learn nothing!!
I guess if people pay with their own money there is a chance that market forces will function and bad suppliers will go out of business, or at least bad teachers and managers will get fired. This is not so in the public sector, where bad practice and rotten systems rumble on for years.
Funnily enough, the best school I worked at paid the highest wages and charged the students less than some other schools in the same city – including one that charged a fortune but was full all year of (mainly Chinese) students. Soemthing fishy going on??
Anyway. Maybe more later – when I have time to think it through better.
October 9th, 2009 at 11:52 am
I also think its an interesting topic Alex (tho I struggle to keep up with the speed at which you write blog posts – how do you manage it?!). You have asked some important questions and rather than doubting your political credentials as you suggest, I applaud this level of honesty about the contradictions as is really healthy. They are really confusing and need unpacking to make it clear what is going on.
I think its good to start by asking if it is really possible to separate the public and private sector in quite the way you have above anymore? As a fellow socialist sympathiser, I was brought up to believe that state is good and private is bad – and like you, it is hard to get away from that as always being the starting point of how I think about these issues. State = controlled and owned by the people and private = controlled and owned by business interests for profits. I still believe in the former, and despite having to work in the latter, don’t like human relationships being structured by financial transaction which seems more endemic in the private sector. Private education for anyone from the UK has a ring of elitism that curdles when you talk about it (if your politics are that way inclined). Not so in Greece where private language schools are small entities that everyone frequents. The class distinctions make it hard to navigate across cultures sometimes and I totally sympathise with your musings for this reason. Some would argue class no longer exists because of this blurring – that is clearly rubbish so how can we understand that better?
I would say one of the main effects of globalisation (and the neo-liberal economic policies that underpin it) is that the lines between public and private have been rewritten. That was a fully conscious economic and political plan on the part of the capitalist class internationally. Even in countries where there still seems to be a really ancient state machinery reminiscent of another era, those mechanisms are increasingly under pressure to demonstrate their cost effectiveness and are collapsing under the pressure to conform (the Western Balkans or newly ascended EU countries are a good case in point here). To the extent that it is hard to really say that a lot of “state” education is really the same as we would have described it pre-Thatcher (or other comparible political figures in the ‘west’ who has been so eager to adapt those changes that were carried on enthusiastically by Blair and other ‘third way’ politicians and who have pressured other countries to follow suit though finance giants like the IMF). I am not sure how that works in an Asian context but certainly the global economy forces the hand of any country trying to do things differently in most contexts. Please share.
That doesn’t mean to say that there are not discernable differences between institutions – I just think it is harder to boil them down in quite the same way to ‘state’ and ‘private’ as there is a sense of uneveness and flux at every turn. The profit motive is there no matter what sector, and increasingly courses are chopped in the ‘state’ sector if there are no students, students are being charged indirectly for different ‘services’ and teaching staff are having to prove their entreprenurial ability along with the best of those who work in the private sector – and they are having their full time contracts removed. It is no longer the case that a career in a university in many countries is a safer or easier option than other sector of education. There are exceptions I am sure – but it is not (as some EFLers say) that all those in university life are sitting on their laurels with high salaries and easy working schedules. As in all sectors, there is a difference between managers and teachers.
What is clear though, and perhaps for me this is an easier starting point to avoid getting lost too much in the differing detail of individual context is the following – this is true for both private and public sector:
1. Making teachers work harder for less money has a negative effect on the quality of teaching
2. Removing full time contracts from teachers and making them work in insecure situtions where they never know from one day to the next if they will have a job has a negative effect on the quality of teaching.
3. Not giving teachers adequate support to do their jobs properly has a negative effect on quality of teaching.
All this also has an effect on the student, as you so rightly point out. Fee paying education always excludes – no ifs, no buts. It creates two layers of people – the haves and the have nots.
European (and I would argue to an extent international) educational directives are completely structured around this neo-liberal logic. That educational ‘services’ must be cost-effective, that they are there to prepare students for the world of work and help them compete, that institutions must create their own financial ‘opportunities’ and that the insecurity attached to this historical era is just “the way things are” under globalisation. Presented as a positive characteristic in many sectors as it allows people to travel and change career as well as forcing them into ‘life long learning’ to reskills themselves as the demands grow ever greater (which they in turn have to finance). How tragic.
Back to the other question – what are we going to do about it? When examined this way, we have a lot to gain from exploring our simiarities in public and private sector education.
So….I am not sure if this helps at all as I haven’t really answered your question. I feel though that tackling it systemically maybe helps resolve some of the details that may remain unanswered if we get too lost in the personal experiences.
October 9th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
To play devil’s advocate Sara, does the length of the have a detrimental effect on the quality of teaching?
The situation here in Japanese universities is that many teachers string together a number of part-time positions, quite a few have limited term contracts (usually about five years) and the very lucky are ‘tenured’ – job for life. It COULD be argued that teachers are kept on their toes and avoid going stale because they are always looking for the next job. Teachers know they have to do a great job all the time, with an eye on the next contract.
(devil’s advocate, remember!)
October 10th, 2009 at 5:24 am
Darren,
Yes I have heard this argued oft round these parts too. That the “competition” makes people produce better results. I think that is another gem of wisdom extracted from neo-liberal logic – the argument is used to justify treating people dispensably and reducing them to the sum total of their “skills” and ability to produce results that allow institutions to meet their financial targets. Don’t perform – here’s the door. The reasons for teachers losing interest and going stale (which of course some do) I think lie elsewhere and this can happen just as easily to those in tenured positions who have managed to obtain that which everyone is chasing. IMHO. The repetativness and strain of work, whether full or part-time can make teachers cut corners, keep using the same materials and grow to resent their students. Life long learning and CPD should not be based on employability alone, but on making the job more meaningful for teachers and their students. Thanks for being the devil. This is an important point that you are making.
October 10th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Sara, your argument seems to bring us back to the IH model of offering CPD in place of a stable job or a liveable wage, but I guess that is at least an alternative model to the nostalgia for 1970s Britain (!) that are a lot of left wing “ideas”. It was the unions, cushy jobs for life etc that got Thatcher elected, so any nostalgia for pre-Thatcher days is hardly going to fly, the ideas need to be new.
PS, for me the waving around of “neo…” tags strikes me a little of boogeymanism (if that’s not a word, it should be).
October 10th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Yes Alex, like Sara, I find your capacity to write this stuff very daunting. You keep thowing out so many important questions but do we really have time to take an issue and 1) give it a proper airing 2) agree on small practical steps to help improve the situation.
Let me give an example. We all agree that teachers pay needs to be improved. Yes, some people’s pay is far better than your average bucket language school but that is not to say it is adequate or that the existence of this bucket languge school is not in fact pulling down the pay at a relatively well-paid university. From this we know that unions and/or a better professional control over training qualifications and accreditation
could help resolve the problem.
But as workers at Berlitz Japan have seen, this is a hard battle and now managers there are trying to smash the union out of existence. It is not a simple case therefore of just asking people to join a union. Perhaps we could have/ could do something more to help those strike leaders who have put themelves in the front line and now face financial ruin. A simple campaign of messages of support for those courageous teachers would have been/would be a start.
Maybe, we could create a space where unions around the world who work with “TEFL” teachers can explain what they do, how much they cost, how they can support and protect those wanting to build a union in their workplace.
The issue of “professions” can be dealt with at the IalTEFL (Alternative TEFL conference alle by Marxist TEFL Group), or something similar, where we can thrash out our views on training, accredittion, methodology, the role of the nest etc, i clear defined spaces given to this discussion
This is not a call for silence, far from it. The discussions about the day to day experiences/frustrastions of TEFL teachers (largely thanks to you Alex) are amazing. This is merely a reminder that we must have in mind some small concrete steps that can be taken rather than filling the blogosphere with more unanswered questions.
October 10th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Alex and Marxistelf,
I think there is room on this “boat” for both approaches. The aim here is not to try and change each other I hope, and we are all trying to join in the search for answers to the (many and frequent) questions that Alex is asking which may (as always) lead to more questions. Noone said that this would be easy, but the opportunity is a good one for trying to move things forward – on that I think we agree. We probably all have different ideas about pace?
For me, keeping an eye on the bigger picture as well as taking the small steps is necessary and important, and people are needed who are interested in understanding and pursuing both (respect for difference). Those bigger questions need answering eventually, whether here or in the future.
So back to your points. Alex, I am the last person who will ever be nostalgic for some yesteryear of perfection pre-Thatcher. I am pointing to the fact that framing questions in this way (i.e. public/private) is influenced by a way of thinking that emerged at that time and is a feature of “our generation”. What I presented above, I believe, is actually a pretty contemporary analysis of the way I see things working. If you don’t like the term “neo-liberal” then replace it with a choice of your own or avoid it – that does not remove from the analysis. Just out of interest, what would that be? There has to be some way of naming the system as it stands at the moment because there are significant differences between capitalism then and now, though the underlying model remains the same. Please let me know what you choose to call it.
I am not calling for the IH model (whatever that may be as unlike you I have really no experience of IH as an entity so this is not self-evident to me what you mean) or CPD in place of salary. I think we should demand both as is our right – and all the combinations in between. The pace is set by the groups of teachers involved, but the goal should be clear IMHO, no matter the outcome. The clarity of the final destination aids the journey and the stops along the way. No need to water that down amongst ourselves surely, and neither to a wider audience. I assume an equal audience, and TBH if people get stuck on terminology we are not going to get very far (given the human pursuit of criticising each other’s usage, doubled amongst language teachers!!!)
Marxistelf, you are clearly very action orientated and want to start the ball rolling with, as you put it, small steps. I sense that you want to slow it all down a bit and go into more detail. Fine by me. You have not told us your thoughts on Alex’s public/private question. Please share. I would be interested to know. On my post about unions, I think I made it clear that there are many ways that people organise and are successful – this mirrors my own experience, only half of which has been done within those formal structures, and some of those successes have been very small steps indeed (tho important nonetheless). We are all trying to create space in an otherwise crowded and noisy ‘profession’ that is overdosing on commercialism. That is what we are doing here.
Thanks and respect to you both!
October 10th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Hi Sara,
Yes in outlining an approach to regulation and the status of nationalised industries with respect to Socialism we are setting out our very vision of socialism. For us the distinction between public and private has always been blurred because we largely stand in the tradition of seeing Russia as State Capitalist and rejecting the idea that nationalisation, in and of itself, is socialism. Like Marx we see socialism as the withering away of the state, not its proliferation. However, concrete struggles around the state often involve supporting “the public” over “private” because it is about defending “accountability” as opposed to the blind logic of the market. This is not to say that state schools (or the NHS) are great only that they should be smashed (transformed democratically) from the left and not the right (market imperatives). Similarly, any question of regulation must start from whether it empowers workers (in the limited way workers can be empowered under capitalism) or weakens them. Finally, Alex is spot on when he identifies the IH model as crucial to understanding fight for reform as we believe it is this model which holds us back. We are not arguing here that only the state-regulation of the industry can “save us” but rather workers and students have to recognise this “false internationlism and do-goodery” for what it truly is before we can move on. But there we go again, the need for deeper analysis and more time.
October 10th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
You’re right guys, I do keep tossing them out. No need for any amazement though, how difficult is it to keep asking “Why? Why? Why?” like a four year old who half wants to know and half just knows that it keeps the conversation going??
As you said, each question is huge and leads onto even more questions, and it is unlikely this blog is where they will be solved! In fact, I’m not even sure it is possible to find a theoretical framework to hang my wooly socialism on- certainly any reading of philosophy I have done has made me dismiss it as a waste of time. Like everything on this blog, I put it there because I think it is interesting to read and think about, and the slight chance that it might lead to ideas, actions, people changing their mind, people feeling better about their lot etc is simply a nice bonus.
So, as I doubt that it is possible to find watertight arguments for what we do (although I hold out some hope), I absolutely agree that we can carry on doing what we think is best in situations like supporting Berlitz strikers or whatever. Personally, I am famous for my fiery but quickly passing passions and uncovering crappy schools was something I was really into 12 months ago and now that has faded behind a desire to get all my worksheets up where people can use them for free and other practical help for teachers who are already in whatever situation it is (which incidentally seems to be what NNESTs, and in fact teachers more generally, are much more interested in). The big questions are partly because I think making do in our situations is not enough, but also because just posting worksheets all the time makes me go braindead and I need some intellectual stimulation.
As the questions are so huge and the answering of them getting a bit confused, I wonder if I could interview you Sara and Elf and so give you a chance to explain your positions in more detail. I know you emailed me Marxistelf, but I didn’t get a reply to my reply so I wonder if I am caught in your spam filter- don’t want to type out the whole thing if it’s going to get lost. And Sara- can I get an interview with you before Jason Renshaw remembers, as he seems to be a man of even more intense and even more quickly passing passions than me!
October 12th, 2009 at 9:50 am
OK Alex – you have my email.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Yes Alex- I think the “technical problem” of the spam filter is resolved.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Thanks guys. I should warn you that it took me 4 months to write Sandy’s interview questions…