This Kind of Post Brings Up Questions

http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/forum/index.pl?noframes;read=3681

Here you find a teacher asking whether Yes Youngdo is a good place to work. Then there are other prospective teachers comments, and then a post from a then YY teacher who writes about only good things.

Does it occur to anyone that YY is very likely asking teachers to respond to these posts with good info about working there? And since the prospective teacher is asking about one branch in a certain city, and the current teacher who responded is one who knows about that branch, doesn't it seem likely that management asked this person specifically to post here?

In other posts I found on other sites I saw that teachers said the best way to find out about Yes was to talk to teachers currently working there and that the institute would provide their contact info.

I can't help but wonder while reading these posts why the teachers don't seem to realize that YY would obviously only give out the contact info of teachers who will definitely say positive things -probably those who are close to management or considered the best teachers.

More on My Experience

I managed to work at Yes Youngdo for some time without ever hearing that I was supposedly not up to standard. In a period of less than two weeks, I was told that I was basically not doing a good job, had several talks with a manager, told him I was thinking of quittinq, told him that I didn't like Yes Youngdo's teaching program, told him that things there weren't the same as what I had been used to at previous hagwon, was told by him "I think it will be ok" meaning I'd be ok continuing to work there, and finally after a break of a few days or so I was told to leave. Question: Would this happen at a regular school in the US/Canada or another English speaking country?

When talking about the teaching program I said to the manager that the kids didn't like any of the books we had read. He said that you need to jazz it up. That's fine, but until that point he had never given me any advice on how to do that. Also at my former hagwon there were so many different activities that it was very easy to make them enjoyable. How do you make storybooks or textbooks enjoyable when the kids don't like them? I guess there's a way, but at that point I didn't have much experience with this.

As I recall there were eventually meetings where the manager taught us a method he wanted us to use when teaching, but this didn't start until a few weeks before I left. It must've been great for the teachers who started later.

The management seemed to look at 'experienced' teachers differently than new ones. However the teachers I worked with who were experienced had only up to a few years experience. Something Yes Youngdo should recognize is that teachers who get accustomed to teaching one way at one school/hagwon may need to be retrained. I think even qualified, experienced school teachers in the US/Canada would find the Yes Youngdo style of teaching to be totally different, and would need some training. They'd need to learn how to teach in a hagwon, particularly what the management expects at the one they work at. They would though be far ahead of those with no experience.