Thursday, April 05, 2007

Is "Money talks" a golden word?

I have been unable to update this blog site as often as I used to do because I started out working at a language school. However, I kind of lost interest in working at the school. Why? I have been thinking about whether or not I should tell you this. But, I made up my mind. I'm going to write.
To tell the truth, I am fed up with the school that doesn't have any teaching phylosophy and that always thinking of ripping off students!

I have three reasons I do not like to work at this school. Let me tell you each of them in a point form.
Sometimes I always wonder what is being "international." The concept of "international" may be as fishy as "national," isn't it?

1) Students aren't much motivated.

Most of the students at our school is international students. They entered our school because they want to go to the universities and they would like to keep the status of their student visas while working. Even if they want to learn at the school, they want to learn Japanese. But, I don't know why they have got to learn English. And then I am an English teacher. It is really really really weird.

Although there are some conditions to enable a learners to learn their new language well (e.g. innate ability, personality, when to start), motivation is also an important element. However, do you think Asian student who came to Japan to learn Japanese want to learn English? I doubt it. I can easily imagine. Say, what if you went to the states to learn English and you would have to learn Spanish? I can't say anything more about it.

2) The school isn't sure what kind of teaching methodology is being used.

I know that there are many language teaching methods in this world. Audio Lingual Method, Grammar Translation Method, Total Physical Response, Suggestpedia, etc. It's hard to tell which one is the best. However, I can tell you one thing. Teachers at the schol should be sure what kind of method they are using and they are trusting the method. But, at our school, I always wonder whether or not the schoo has such a thing. Maybe there used to be, but now absolutely no. That kind of sad.

3) Safe learning (or/and teaching) environment isn't available.

The school do not trust the teachers. And the teachers are always freaked out. And teachers' anxiety are shifting to their students. Definitely worst schenario seems to be coming.

I'm trying to avoid giving you details, but I hope you can understand how frustrated I am now. To tell the truth, I would like to quit immediately. But, some of the cirsumstances around me do not allow me to do so. Life is hard....

All I could do is to pray. I wish things will be better in the future no matter what kind of choise I would make then.

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