Just when you thought Eikaiwa couldn’t get any worse…
…this happens:
No, I’m not talking about my inability to put a photo into my blog, which pales into insignificance compared to some of the incompetence of this industry of ours. The thing above was supposed to be a photo of the latest Gaba advertising campaign, which will be the topic of my latest rant
Gaba is a rapidly expanding group of schools with a big marketing budget (sound familiar to anyone who has been following TEFL in Japan in newspapers all round the world recently?) that only does one to one classes with the aid of computer technology. Sounds alright I reckon, lots of motivated business men polishing up their presentations with the help of PowerPoint.
Or not…
In fact, the latest Gaba poster campaign in the trains of Tokyo goes something along the lines of “If no one else will listen to you talk about your personal problems, your Gaba teacher will”. Great marketing for the lonely female market (the largest), terrible teaching experience (if you can call it teaching at all), crossed off my list of schools to have a look at forever.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 12:01 pmand is filed under Gaba, Japanese education, Nova, TEFL, TESOL, Teaching, Teaching English Abroad, Teaching English in Asia, Teaching English in Japan.
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November 28th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Yeah I’m definitely not interested in that either.
Why not set up a flickr or photobucket account for your image hosting. Easy to do and linking is just a matter of copying and pasting.
November 28th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Thanks for the tip, will put that on my list of things to do at the weekend.
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Now done, thanks a lot Geek (if that is an acceptable affectionate form of EFL Geek…)
December 4th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
ha ha yeah Flickr is good for blog use, there’s also a great plugin for WP called Slickr which will let you add any of your flickr photos (or photos from flickr) with a simple click of a button from the posting page. I can sned you the links if you’re interested or just google slickr plugin.
As for Gabba, when someone told me how they taught and that it was all one to one i had a slight shock. then saw an advert and realised there is definitely worse out there.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Btw, not the best of keitai photos so probably difficult to read. It says “Ima, watashi no hanashi o isshun kiite kureru no wa gaba no sensei kamoshirenai”, which can be less than directly translated as “Only my Gaba teacher will take a moment to listen to what I have to say/ what has happened to me”
Thanks for the Slickr tip, will look into it (or at least get someone technical to look into it for me). Great name, “slickr”!
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
Unbelievable!
Obviously GABA have no brainwaves in advertising.
How demoralising for the staff (and students).
Sounds more like an ad for a 1-800-HELP line.
Stupid tossers!
Don’t be surprised though if some gaijin nitwit thought this up though!