Gold Star TEFL Recruitment - Wall Street Institute Saudi Arabia

Oh the lovely sand dunes! Oh the boredom!

Living and working in Saudi Arabia is not for the feint of heart. One must throw expectations to the wind and prepare for a soul-trying time teaching the students English.

'But these students are motivated,' you claim after reading the job advertisement here.

Motivated or not, Saudi students are a handful. The reason being is their lack of study skills. Throughout their high school experience, they've been accustomed to a traditional classroom format. There is not much discussion in class, and there is only one answer for each question on exams. No essays where justification/ explanation is involved to highlight a student's deep understanding of the content. Students cram before tests so they can hold the information long enough to regurgitate it onto the multiple choice answer sheet. Review material is created by teachers who don't value the learning process, which means the answers to the exam are printed on the review material. So what happens when it's time for the final exam? Students regurgitate (the good ones) or the students purchase the answers from their overworked, underpaid and underappreciated teachers. This is the typical high school experience of a Saudi student.

In the classroom orientation - progressive, as opposed to the traditional one - described by Wall Street Institute's job posting, where experience and sharing is prioritized, can be quite frustrating for Saudi students because such an environment runs contradictory to their previous educational experience. Their expectations may not be met; they may not feel like they are learning. When they get frustrated, they don't come to class. Or, if they do go to class, they disrupt the other learners and make teaching damn near difficult to cover the target language appropriately. They need to learn the basics of study skills like note-taking, how to create and use study material, how to actively listen in class, and how to interact with a text efficiently and how to be respectful to the teacher, the other students and the learning process. As well, many students look upon teachers as servants who must provide them with the answers to pass. Quite a tall order for any teacher. Re-orientating students is quite a challenge and even more so for inexperienced teachers.

Why do I bring up this issue of Saudis and motivation and their learning experiences? Because the job advertised does not require teachers to have any - ANY! - teaching experience.

If you are a noob teacher, please don't jump head-on into a 2 year contract in such a difficult educational scenario as Saudi Arabia.

Do yourself a favor and apply elsewhere to get your experience. Japan, Korea, China or Taiwan are good places to start. Those countries offer government sponsored work for native English speakers.  Do a Google search for 'Gepik' (Korea) 'NET' or 'JET' programs in Japan, China and Taiwan.

You need to find out if you've got what it takes to be an effective teacher, which means you need to learn the basics of planning engaging lessons, how to pace your lessons, how to deliver them, and how to manage a classroom of students. Yes the job advert says you don't need to plan lessons, but having a solid foundation of how to do so will help you deliver the lessons more effectively. I'm an experienced teacher (a nice euphemism for being so old!) and still I need to prepare my lessons on teaching the past simple verb tense. Why? Because all classes are different, and all students don't have the same needs/ interests. Lesson preparation ensures you make yourself aware of how the lesson will go. You have a chance to predict and anticipate possible problems and curtail the information to coincide with students' interests/ learning styles.

You might find you don't like teaching in general. In an environment such as those previously mentioned countries, you can cut your teeth, so to speak, much better than in Saudi Arabia. I'm not saying all people are the same, I'm just saying you run the risk of being knee-deep in a possible worst-case scenario. Classroom management - even if it's a class of two or three students - is always an issue in the teaching context of Saudi Arabia. If you go to Saudi with zero experience, you'll face a steep learning curve.

Most people choose to teach in Saudi for the money. If you're Muslim, then it's for the experience of living in the birth place of Islam. Attending the mosques is always a spiritual experience, even for me who is not a Muslim. Yet, I could not be bothered to teach for Wall Street Institute in Saudi Arabia for such low pay.

My advice if you've got zero experience: learn the art of teaching before going to Saudi. Even for teachers that have many years of experience, Saudi learners can be quite difficult to manage.

If you've got at least two years of teaching experience, apply to Saudi universities because they offer a much better employment package than the one offered by Wall Street.

There's no mention of contact hours. Are you teaching 30 hours per week? If your contact hours drop because not many students are enrolled, does that mean your salary drops as well?

2000 Riyals is not enough to rent a furnished hotel-apartment. The going rates in Riyadh were around 2,500 -3,500 per month. Maybe you will be working out in the boonies where rates are lower. But ask yourself, can you handle the boredom?

Also: the visa fees are paid by the teacher! Extraordinary. No teacher should pay for the visa, which is required for them to work in that country. I can't believe Wall Street would be so petty.

Remember: before applying to any job, ask yourself a few important questions.

What are my expectations for the culture and/ or work?

What is my personality like? Will I be bored without having many social activities? Or do I like to spend my time doing solitary activities?

What if I don't like the culture and/ or work? Do I have a contingency plan? (like finding another job in the country, or fleeing in the middle of the night? Fleeing in Saudi is nearly impossible, especially if your employer keeps your passport. As well, if you flee, you are blacklisted in Saudi at least for one calendar year).

Do your homework, research, and ask lots of questions if you are interviewed. In short, leave no stone unturned.

GOLDSTAR TEFL Recruitment/ Wall Street English

Here's a job posting found here

Analysis

Anything over 24 hours for the less experienced teacher is a sure fire route to teacher burnout. You don't want to be overwhelmed, get stressed, and contemplate fleeing the country in the middle of the night. It's a terrible way to begin your career. Even with the lesser number of contact hour option B, it's still going to take a teacher some time to get the gist of the lesson. Although, the posting says all lesson plans are prepared for you, more than 5 hours is necessary for teachers, even experienced ones, to get the flow of the lesson plan, i.e. how to transition from one activity to the next.

Finding a new apartment in 30 days is stressful enough, especially in a new country. One of my past employers provided the first 30 days free stay in a hotel, another 5 days. For both I needed to find an apartment. It was impossible for me to find an apartment in 5 days, extended my stay an extra 25, paid the extra amount out of my own pocket because I didn't want to settle with an apartment. In truth, in that short of time, you will settle for any crummy condition. But forewarned, you'll be spending the duration of the lease in such conditions. Choose wisely!

That's correct! No costs for the recruitment. But what about visa costs? Are flights to China reimbursed? Are flights provided at the end of the contract, or at least the money to buy them?

Posting omits days of working week - you could have one day off, or dare I speculate, work every day as language institutes schedule classes around when students are available. 

Omits if these hours are guaranteed teaching hours - with a small amount of students enrolled for ESL courses, your 30 teaching hours could shorten, and with that, your pay.

Omits duration of the contract - assuming it's a year, but still worth asking about. 

Here's what this person said about this recruiter and company: 

(from:  http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=2134070) 

Kereru makes a good point about the split shifts. Most language institutes will require teachers to work when the students have free time. This means in the morning and at night. 

The final verdict would render this job suitable for teachers to send his or her resume. The job does require a teacher to have a TEFL certificate, so teachers without any experience yet should not waste his time.
With that in mind, he or she must take adequate stock about what their work and personal expectations/ limitations are. She must answer questions about adjusting to a (possibly) new country and culture, energy level to sustain over 30 contact hours, working months worth of possible split shifts and the limited vacation days. However, the company does allow an incentive bonus for teachers, except how managers determine who gets the bonus can be quite political at times. This posting provides good information that outlines standard working conditions for language institutes in China, with this one seemingly better than average. Submit your resume, and during the interview, make sure you ask pertinent questions. Especially about who foots the visa costs, flights and raise questions about the omissions brought up in the analysis.