OK, fair enough.
I think a number of others here would also. But it’s a matter of time and opportunity. I doubt that many here have the time to spare for a student with fairly serious demands on teacher time and effort.
[quote=“Stimpy”]I don’t agree that private tutoring is a public enterprise making those who undertake it public figures. I think the central issue here is that OP should have talked to his/her private tutor about issues concerning the classes rather than resorting to posting about it on a public forum-- and a forum made up of the tutor’s peers where the tutor is highly likely to see it, no less.
I don’t think the posts were general. A letter that was going to be sent was posted here for evaluation. There was enough specific information in her post that the tutor was able to figure out s/he was being discussed here.
Central point here is direct communication is much better than the approach taken by OP.[/quote]
The central point is that the OP didn’t know what was appropriate and came here for advice. She clearly is uncomfortable with confrontation and was seeking ways to get her message across without having to have an embarassing conversation. The guy’s peers have no way of knowing that it was him under discussion and he figured it out because the OP gave herself away.
So how is her effort any different from [url=How to comfort people? - #2 by Toasty one[/url]?
[quote]My friend who is American is now suffering the pain of losing his loving mom.
He loves his mom very much.I am very sorry to hear that bad news.He is now in his hometown and dealing with all the stuff.At this moment,what should I say to him? [/quote]
If that’s not discussing something that someone else might not want to advertise then what is? I think it’s acceptable, and you apparently did too.
[quote]I find often my liberal western upbringing clashes somewhat with my gf’s expectation of how a man should behave.[/quote] Pretty personal stuff, don’t you think? No chance of her getting upset for putting words in her mouth or talking about her behind her back?
You’re happy to discuss a school in [url=Challenge: teach two 6y.o. boys, no toys, no games, no books - #2 by Toasty thread[/url] where you say
Why is a freelance teacher any different from a school? Why is it OK for people to talk about the ‘dumb’ things their SO’s say, or how their SO’s behave and think, but not OK to ask how to deal with someone who isn’t keeping up their end of a bargain?
Pointing and saying “Teacher X is no good” would be a bit over the top, but describing a common situation and asking for advice on what you should say to him doesn’t do any harm. You could reasonably tell her off for posting his reply, which is personal correspendence, but I don’t see the harm in her asking “should I say this like this?”
So his feelings get hurt? He needs to grow up. Your feelings would get hurt? You too.
Perhaps the OP’s tutor is an in-demand person as well and won’t tolerate a student who won’t communicate concerns with him/her directly but, instead, posts them on the internet?
Discussing other people’s business. How many “owners of a very successful business training company” can there be?
Fortigurn wrote: [quote] I doubt that many here have the time to spare for a student with fairly serious demands on teacher time and effort.[/quote]
I would be happy to teach Durham if I was up in Taipei. I routinely spend my own time correcting student’s work and sometimes writing sample answers for them. I’ve always thought that spending 30-60 minutes unpaid prep and correction for every hour in the classroom was just part of being a teacher. I guess that’s why I earn about 40k a month.
[quote=“Loretta”][quote=“Stimpy”]I don’t agree that private tutoring is a public enterprise making those who undertake it public figures. I think the central issue here is that OP should have talked to his/her private tutor about issues concerning the classes rather than resorting to posting about it on a public forum-- and a forum made up of the tutor’s peers where the tutor is highly likely to see it, no less.
I don’t think the posts were general. A letter that was going to be sent was posted here for evaluation. There was enough specific information in her post that the tutor was able to figure out s/he was being discussed here.
Central point here is direct communication is much better than the approach taken by OP.[/quote]
The central point is that the OP didn’t know what was appropriate and came here for advice. She clearly is uncomfortable with confrontation and was seeking ways to get her message across without having to have an embarassing conversation. The is guys peers have no way of knowing that it was him under discussion and he figured it out because the OP gave herself away.
So how is her effort any different from [url=How to comfort people? - #2 by Toasty one[/url]?
[quote]My friend who is American is now suffering the pain of losing his loving mom.
He loves his mom very much.I am very sorry to hear that bad news.He is now in his hometown and dealing with all the stuff.At this moment,what should I say to him? [/quote]
If that’s not discussing something that someone else might not want to advertise then what is? I think it’s acceptable, and you apparently did too.
[quote]I find often my liberal western upbringing clashes somewhat with my gf’s expectation of how a man should behave.[/quote] Pretty personal stuff, don’t you think? No chance of her getting upset for putting words in her mouth or talking about her behind her back?
You’re happy to discuss a school in [url=Challenge: teach two 6y.o. boys, no toys, no games, no books - #2 by Toasty thread[/url] where you say
Why is a freelance teacher any different from a school? Why is it OK for people to talk about the ‘dumb’ things their SO’s say, or how their SO’s behave and think, but not OK to ask how to deal with someone who isn’t keeping up their end of a bargain?
Pointing and saying “Teacher X is no good” would be a bit over the top, but describing a common situation and asking for advice on what you should say to him doesn’t do any harm. You could reasonably tell her off for posting his reply, which is personal correspendence, but I don’t see the harm in her asking “should I say this like this?”
So his feelings get hurt? He needs to grow up. Your feelings would get hurt? You too.[/quote]
If you didn’t notice, I distinguish between what is appropriate online and what is appropriate in person. I said OP didn’t violate online rules by posting here, but I don’t think it’s a good way to communicate offline all the same.
OP had feedback for her teacher and the only person who should have received it was her teacher. Posting it here was counter productive. When OP’s tutor saw s/he was being discussed here, along with a few of F.com’s finest taking shots at his supposed shortcomings, it’s likely the tutor decided the student was out of order and wasn’t worth the trouble they were causing. Maybe you are happy to have your students discuss your teaching performance online without talking to you about it, but I wouldn’t be. I don’t think it was a decent thing to do.
Discussing other people’s business. How many “owners of a very successful business training company” can there be?[/quote]
More than a few, but what’s your point?
Stimpy, I don’t understand why this has your knickers in such a bunch. Seems to me a fair and routine question from a student and the process of answering has inspired some serious comments and thought. Basically all good forum stuff. What exactly is the problem?
Almas, good man. Wish you were my teacher.
HG
Yes, that’s quite possible.
I would be happy to teach Durham if I was up in Taipei. I routinely spend my own time correcting student’s work and sometimes writing sample answers for them. I’ve always thought that spending 30-60 minutes unpaid prep and correction for every hour in the classroom was just part of being a teacher. I guess that’s why I earn about 40k a month.[/quote][/quote]
I certainly agree with you. I didn’t get paid for prep time when I worked full time as an English teacher, and I didn’t have any problem with that. I still don’t get paid for prep time, working part time as an English teacher.
Totally agree.
Neither do I. But the OP is specifically trying to prepare for IELTS, and has a problem as a result of her failure to think clearly about the situation. Maybe she should try being analytical instead of just posting uninformed opinions that are harming her chances of getting to where she wants to be.
The problem she outlined originally was a general one, and the responses were from people assuming that she had a reasonable complaint. To an extent she did, and also the teacher dealt with being criticism very badly, so I’m not trying to lay all the blame at her feet.
However, she hired an inexperienced, and presumably cheap, tutor to do what she thought was necessary to get her through her test. Later she advertised seeking IELTS-specific help, asking for little more specific information than the applicant’s fee. I know of at least two qualified people who have offered to help her to be told that they were too expensive. Instead of detailed professional knowledge that is specific to her needs, instead of targetted effective help, she wants someone who will do it her way at her price.
So she’s trying to do this on the cheap and as a result she’s not getting what she wants. The situation was created because she’s not prepared to think deeply enough about the subject to recognise the market value of the expertise she wants to hire.
Everybody I know in the IELTS industry complains about their students, because the students usually have unreasonable expectations and a narrow-minded opinionated approach to study. Of course, there are exceptions (especially the older students) and some teachers have the luxury of being able to limit their efforts to people who are serious, receptive and have the necessary ability. But the OP doesn’t fall into that category, she thinks she knows how to prepare for the test, won’t even respond to the well-meaning and informed advice given here because it contradicts her own views, and doesn’t see any value in the expertise that others are prepared to pay for.
I talked to a friend from the British Council last night, who spends a lot of his time teaching IELTS preparation classes for the organisation that runs the testing. “If I needed more money I would do overtime,” he sad. “It’s NT$(not allowed to say, but more than twice the OP’s budget) per hour and I just have to teach the syllabus. For a 1-1 I would have to do a lot more work to tailor the course to her needs, and anyway, she sounds like a nightmare after reading that thread.”
The OP has an attitude problem. Until she lightens up and starts to listen to advice she’s going to come into conflict with her teachers, unless they’re content to just take her money and give her what she wants without trying to actually help her. And if her budget is limited I would be happy to recommend a very good school specialising in IELTS-prep that will work out a lot cheaper than wasting her time writing compositions and expecting other people to correct them.
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Stimpy, I don’t understand why this has your knickers in such a bunch. Seems to me a fair and routine question from a student and the process of answering has inspired some serious comments and thought. Basically all good forum stuff. What exactly is the problem?
Almas, good man. Wish you were my teacher.
HG[/quote]
No knickers in a bunch here, mate. I don’t think the OP should have come here and posted as many particulars about her foreign teacher as she did. Simple concept really: appropriate communication. No; it’s not a deadly very serious offence–and I’m not saying it is. But I can understand why the tutor-- after discovering that his/her private was posting enough particulars about their sessions here publicly without discussing these concerns with him/her-- chose to drop the student.
Maybe it’s good forum stuff, but many people don’t like forums and don’t want to see themselves discussed on them. We forum junkies need to understand that sometimes.
Loretta, some very valid comments there about IELTS, students of IELTS, and unreasonable expectations. This was a very good gesture:
Does it work both ways Stimpy? Do you think teachers should not post many particulars about their students?
[quote=“Earlier I”]So how would you feel and how would you react if your student did this?
I would be Oops! and turn up for my next class all prepared and ready, with all his compositions marked, and that would spare either of us the need to ever actually discuss the issue. And I would go read that thread about how to do 1-1s properly, and be grateful for the kick up the arse.
Or I would just make some polite excuse for not being able to teach the guy in future. No need to call him up and make a scene.[/quote]
So, I can handle criticism and recognise that students sometimes feel uncomfortable with confrontations. I would view this as an attempt to find a solution to a problem and focus on dealing with the core issue instead of any imagined slight.
You would apparently feel threatened and focus on the the threat to your reputation that comes from a discussion about someone with a different nationality in a different city, instead of rcognising that the situation wouldn’t have come about if you had kept your end of the bargain. 
OK, so we disagree and I doubt that either of us will change.
Now, next time this happens, how is an aggrieved student to know what the best approach is if he/she can’t ask online?
In essence, yes. But, on the other hand, it is much less likely that one’s student would come here. A more comparable scenario would be a foreign student of Chinese posting in a local Chinese teaching forum. But that’s beside the point.
There is such a thing as real life and treating people in your life decently. I, personally, feel that direct, appropriate communication shows the most respect to those in your life. Some things are just not the domain of the internet and are best kept out of public consumption. Again, it’s about respect.
I see the OP as having some easily correctable concerns about the way the private classes were proceeding. I think the issues could have been easily resolved with a frank discussion about what was expected from the sessions and the treatment of submitted assignments.
I understand that it was not intended for the teacher to find out that OP was posting here. But it’s my view that OP should have known that this is the #1 site for foreigners in Taiwan and, especially with the amount of detail put into the posts, that there was a good chance the teacher may stumble across the discussion here and recognize the author as his/her student. I think, especially when you include some of the negative presumptions about the unknown teacher’s supposed abilities made by some here, it’s understandable that a private individual may find a public negative discussion of their private affairs troubling, even if it is from behind the facade of internet forum handles.
OP made an error, and an unintentional one, in posting enough information about the tutor that it could be recognized. And I completely agree with what OP reported that the tutor said: to effect that the concerns should have been communicated directly as opposed to on a public forum. I’m just asserting that it is, in fact, an error and that many normal individuals would take offense to the OP’s behaviour. I further suggested an apology would be a good idea.
This is one of few topics on f.com that I’ve discussed with others at length off line. I talked to several teachers – local and foreign-- about this and all report they’d be offended if something like this happened to them.
Really, Loretta, I think it a low blow for you to suggest I need to grow up if I would be offended to find my students posting about me here, rather than talking to me directly about problems with my classes. I’m glad you’re such a superior human that such things wouldn’t bother you but, for the rest of us lesser humans, it just might.
I can’t stand teaching IELTS prep courses for pretty much the same reasons that Loretta outlined above. A good IELTS course is about strategies, and not exam strategies. It should be diagnostic in nature. Students should be led to identify their weaknesses and then receive advice and practice on what learning strategies (not exam strategies) would help them improve. In East Asia, however, most students expect the following from an IELTS prep course:
1.) Exam strategies. This is pretty silly, too, since most of them are already exam strategy masters. Actually, they think they’re looking for exam strategies, but in my experience most aren’t even looking for that. They just want to be introduced to the general format of the test. I find that frustrating. If somebody’s English isn’t good enough to understand the description of IELTS found in every practice paper book, then they’ve got no business taking the test.
2) Most students also seem to want what the OP wants, which is analysis paralysis of their written errors. They want every error corrected and explained, regardless of how well they can absorb such corrections and explanations. This is a complete waste of time. IMO, anybody who is practicing highly genre specific writing like the stuff on IELTS needs to be corrected on the most genre specific aspects of structure, sentence grammar and vocabulary. Some recurring general errors should also receive attention, but if those sorts of errors are greater in number than the sorts of mistakes that are specific to that genre of writing, then again, the student probably shouldn’t be taking IELTS. Correcting everything is strategically dumb and is a waste of time for the teacher and the student.
Don’t be silly. She didn’t discuss any identifiable individual. She took careful steps to ensure that his identity was well-hidden. Even after the more dubious posting about the conversation she had with the teacher, there really isn’t enough there to even hazard a guess about who it was. Male, American, Taipei? Oh, it must have been Tigerman.
The teacher only realized he was the subject because the OP gave herself away through her handle. So the teacher knew he was being discussed but none of the people discussing him knew who he was or could ever find out.
What is there to be annoyed about? Where’s the harm? In what way has the teacher suffered, been humiliated, lost money, or otherwise been hurt by this post? Will it change his life in any way at all? Will people treat him differently? Does anybody know anything about his life that he would prefer to keep secret? The answer is no, because he remains anonymous and unidentifiable.
Nobody is saying “Ooooh, that Tigerman chats in conversation classes and doesn’t correct compositions.” So where’s the harm?
If someone posts about you, specifically and in a way that allows others to identify you, then I wouldn’t argue about your right to get upset. But if someone discusses “a teacher” the chances of correctly identifying that person are one in several thousand and even if it happened how would anyone know that they had guessed rightly?
Suggesting that a Taiwanese person, apparently a young and inexperienced one, who is clearly uncomfortable with confrontation should tell an authority figure to their face that they have complaints about the other’s conduct demonstrates that you have absolutely no idea about even the basic cultural differences between ‘them’ and ‘us’. And have you ever seen how many foreigners react when criticised? It’s unrealistic to expect her to do things your way, and even if it was realistic how was she to know what your way was without asking someone for advice?
She came here for advice, just as other people come here to ask for advice about other issues where it is appropriate to maintain some anonymity. You can’t ask for advice without describing the situation. The fact that the teacher also reads the site is unimportant, because she didn’t directly criticise him in any identifiable way. Or is this site now limited so that you can’t post anything that might make some existing poster uncomfortable by forcing him to face up to unpleasant truths? She wasn’t making wild unsubstantiated allegations, she was expressing perfectly normal and reasonable concerns and asking for advice.
If the teacher, or if you, have trouble reading reasonable criticisms of some nameless person that could be you or any one of a thousand other people (as far as the rest of the world is concerned) then that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to post about your problems here. It would mean you need to grow a thicker skin. I would feel a bit uncomfortable readng that stuff, but I wouldn’t feel that the poster did anything wrong. It would be my own fault because I put someone in a position that caused them to post that stuff. If my teaching was beyond reproach then that stuff wouldn’t be there.
This thread illustrates one of the many reasons I refuse to be an “English Teacher” here on the island.
Such petty bickering over a students simple search for help in resolving an issue.
Stimpy…from the looks of things to an outsider you are the teacher in question.
If So…Solve your problems and be done with it.
Act like adults for Gods sake.
I’d rather work on a duck farm than teach Engrish 