Am I really a bad teacher? Or is something up?

@Noelwastaken

Sorry to hear about your bad experiences while working in Vietnam. I can tell you that they just don't wanna pay you high wages. Your problem here that's  work permit and TRC.

I feel very shame because I'm Vietnamese. My advice, when you apply for the next one don't tell them your bad experiences. I know that's not good but in order to avoid them sending you here and there to observe some idiots giving lessons and your employers dont wanna pay you high or don't wanna pay at all.

While I was living abroad, I got lots of helping from others, except from my expartner and his family.

I also like to help the others without any hope they'd help me back. I'm happy to do that.

Good luck with your new employer.

Regards

Hoang

    @Noelwastaken
Sorry to hear about your bad experiences while working in Vietnam. I can tell you that they just don't wanna pay you high wages. Your problem here that's  work permit and TRC.
I feel very shame because I'm Vietnamese. My advice, when you apply for the next one don't tell them your bad experiences. I know that's not good but in order to avoid them sending you here and there to observe some idiots giving lessons and your employers dont wanna pay you high or don't wanna pay at all.
While I was living abroad, I got lots of helping from others, except from my expartner and his family.
I also like to help the others without any hope they'd help me back. I'm happy to do that.
Good luck with your new employer.
Regards
Hoang

-@Hoanghaflow

Dear Noelwastaken.

Have you performed self evaluations, what is your passion of and for education? What are your teaching philosophies, teaching methodologies, pedological processes, student interactions, successes and failures.

I remember when I first began work as a 'teacher' I took myself also as a learner along with my students.

Some people do well right out of the box, others need more time. As a supposed teacher I learned early on it must be a passion, along with your heart and soul to interest students in hearing you, learning from you as you learn with them. You are a mentor and a coach.

My 2 ¢

mAC

Hey - couple of things:

1. Regarding your capability - when you observed the other class, was that teacher significantly better / different from you? Did you learn anything from watching them?Think about this.
2. Regarding your new employer... are you sure about the Business Visa?  I thought even as teacher, you get a Work Permit you need experience, IELTS (or something similar) and a Degree (any subject). This isn't my field of experise, so perhaps another forum member can advise about legally working as teacher. I am just worried it will be 3rd time disappointment for you

@Noelwastaken,

I am so sorry for your experience as related here.

I am a retired teacher and I worked in HCM City, Vietnam for two years 2015-2017. Previously, I had worked 3 years at an international school in India and 5 years at an international school in Shanghai, China. I have a total of 30 year's experience teaching in US public and private schools and in international schools.

Getting the paperwork assembled to work in Vietnam was more difficult than either in India or China. In Vietnam, they required all documents to be apostilled, a higher level of authentication than just a notary. My college transcript, my degrees, my criminal background checks from China and the US and many other documents were apostilled at considerable expense and time. Once that was all done, my employer in Vietnam took care of the temporary work permit that allowed me to come and go from Vietnam without the hassle of getting a visa every time I left the country.

I am amazed that your first employer could even suggest that you could obtain a work permit without a college degree in education AND, if you're going to teach English in Vietnam, without a certification as a teacher of English as a foreign language (TOEFL, or other certification).

My brother had a similar situation in which he was hired to teach English at a school in a Spanish-speaking country. He had a bachelor's degree in history and his Spanish was fluent. But he didn't have any training as a teacher! He lasted less than two months before he just quit. I think that I didn't really hit my stride as a teacher until I had taught about 5 years -- and I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in my field AND a bachelor's degree in education.  Teaching is a deep skill, an art. In my 29th and 30th years as a teacher, I taught grades 4 & 5. I loved my students and they loved me back. It was amazing -- but look! I had 28 years of experience behind me!

If there is any shame here, it is with your employers -- they had no business asking you to come to Vietnam to teach without any experience,  training, or certifications as a teacher! Again, I am so sorry you had such an experience. I would say the way you were lured in is just outright fraud because they knew they would never be able to get the gov't to sign off on your credentials without misrepresenting your qualifications. Ugh!

    Hey - couple of things:

Regarding your capability - when you observed the other class, was that teacher significantly better / different from you? Did you learn anything from watching them?Think about this.
Regarding your new employer... are you sure about the Business Visa?  I thought even as teacher, you get a Work Permit you need experience, IELTS (or something similar) and a Degree (any subject). This isn't my field of experise, so perhaps another forum member can advise about legally working as teacher. I am just worried it will be 3rd time disappointment for you

   

    -@noddi

I agree; see my post @Lennerd

Also this new company is going to sponsor a business visa when I do my next run soon, so I can at least work here legally. I just worry about being tied to a company that doesn't want to pay me again.

Thanks for reading.
   

    -@Noelwastaken

We've told you multiple times in your previous thread, but a "business visa" by itself will not allow you to work as a teacher here LEGALLY.

You need a WORK PERMIT, and it's pretty clear from everything you've posted to the forum so far that YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED FOR A WORK PERMIT.

Unfortunately, these illicit employers just need a foreign face that speeks English to justify robbing parents of Vietnamese children (getting them to pay tuition).

Everything you are saying indicates that your skills are probably so inferior that the teacher's assistants & parents have complained to the school owners.

It's a shame that you were not fully informed as to the legal requirements for employment here before you traveled so far from your home county, but that's not a mitigating factor now.

Someone needs to kindly advise you to make plans to leave the country, since you don't have any legal means of support.

That's me attempting to be kind.

🙏

I'm so sorry to here about your experience here in Vietnam. Your post doesn't clarify if you have a TOEFL or similar certification along with  a BA (any field).  Without these things you can't teach “legally” here in Vietnam.  No school should have ever asked you to come here to teach without these basic requirements.

Since you are already here, it looks to me like your only option is to go online (or find a local class) for  the TOEFL. Due to the language barrer,  I believe you will have to get the BA online but I would advise extreme caution in doing this. Make sure it is a reputable institution.

Honestly,  I'm not sure how, or if,  you can say here in Vietnam on a tourist  visa long enough to accomplish these two things. If it is at a possible, I'm pretty sure it will require a boarder run every three months, or so. The rules change frequently and I'm not up to date on the latest changes so you'll have to get this information from another reliable source.

I'm sure this is not what you wanted to here but it is what you need to here. I wish you the best of luck.  Sincerely…

Alway before traveling to teach in a

foreign country you must check out

that country requirements first,

Dont believe the employer without

the gov approvaled you can get in

troubles

Travel first then decide to stay and

work after ward will not end up well

except costing money

    Alway before traveling to teach in a
foreign country you must check out
that country requirements first,
Dont believe the employer without
the gov approvaled you can get in
troubles

Travel first then decide to stay and
work after ward will not end up well
except costing money
   

    -@BoB117842

So, after so much about the information of the employer trying to get you to 'model actual teacher practices and behavior's with students. Also lacking any information at all about your known qualifications, except for your admission of lack of experience, . As with others here, I highly recommend you become qualified to try and become an educator. IF this is a passion for you.

After listening to all the lamenting, it only reinforces my thoughts about unscrupulous employers in the field of ' language schools' here in Viet Nam also.

I have a friend who is employed here locally, has his TESOL certificate to teach at a language school,  and has told me of people who come to VN for various reasons not associated with education, and I am not saying you did this, but lends credence to the ideas that parents and potential educators be wary and address the issues of for profit alleged schools.

I speak as a qualified and well experienced teacher of English from the USA. Living here in VN for about two years now. I have worked w a local VN high school, enjoy the kids interacting w me as seemingly an alien from another planet. I am useful to the teachers here to engender the students to use their budding language skills. I have interest in competing with VN English teachers in the VN schools, but very much enjoy our interactions.

Again, my additional 2 ¢

Regards and Best Wishes,

mAC

In my eyes i never had a good teacher my whole long life. So i wouldn't sweat it too much. Get up, brush yourself off and follow your instincts.

@Scott McKnight, wow. That's a heart-breaking story. Our parents are our first teachers. Developmental psychologists say that a person's personality, outlook, understanding of "how the world works," character are to a great extent formed by the age of 5 years.

Schools are required to pick up the thread at pre-K or Kindergarten level and do the best they can with what they're given. Unlike in manufacturing, where a company can negotiate with a supplier over quality of components to be included in a product, schools can only accept students as they are (government schools) or accept or reject as they please (privately owned schools).

I was a teacher from 1982 on, teaching in schools from 1993 until 2022 -- a long time. I will assert that I didn't hit my stride until I'd been school teaching about 5 or 6 years, and my last two years, 2020 - 2022 were my best, both for me and for my students.

Children learn by playing (so says the top-rated education system in Finland) and I concur, adding that if the teacher is having fun, the students are likely having fun, too. And learning what they need and want to learn, and having fun doing it, it one of the keys to good teaching and a positive educational experience -- acquiring skills and having a good time doing it.

It's sad that you and others like you didn't ever have great teachers. Those people would inspire their students in the joys of life-long learning. My attitude is, wherever I go, I am a student, have something to learn, from anyone I meet. Of course, I might not learn what the person is wanting me to learn! Haha.

Your sympathy and the sadness for me, and “others like me” feels a bit condescending. I hope it's not your teaching style too.  Somehow I managed a Ph.d in mathematical statistics. Along with it, and my study of semantic functional grammar, I was somehow able to scrape a career together developing AI systems for the US government.

In rebuttal for my position, I leave you only with this partial quote from Lise Fontaine, a Senior Lecturer in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at the University of Cardiff talking about SFG…there could be lots of reasons why you need that kind of flexibility, adaptability and dexterity, really, with the language. ‘This is something that all kids have very early, and school takes it out of them for the vast majority of the time.' That's not for everybody, but I think, as a population, that that's the case.

It was the case for me. But as I advised the poster, I got up brushed myself off and followed my instincts.