English teaching in Saigon : The Jungle

The thirst of young people in Vietnam for the universal language that is English has inevitably created a market for schools. Big schools, little schools. Good schools, bad schools. Schools with accreditation, schools without accreditation. The debates go on and on. For the wandering but honest ESL teacher, it can be a real jungle.

Breaking down the kinds of school in Saigon is probably unwise, but not impossible, so I'm going to try it.

First we have two different sectors. We have students who attend International Schools and preparatory schools (much the same thing). Secondly, we have Language Centers, whose classes are based outside of school hours (in other words, evenings and weekends). I will start with the latter.

The language center is where you will find journeymen ESL teachers and also younger non-career teachers (by that I mean those who are TEFL certified but are only teaching as a means of living abroad for a few years). There are two kinds of language center. The 'heavyweights' have been established for a long time and have a good reputation, essential in attracting good quality teachers. ILA is the biggest of them all, with international recruitment campaigns for teachers. Every Saturday and Sunday the school causes chaos at kicking out time, with hundreds of kids needing to be picked up from this narrow entrance on busy Nguyen Thi Minh Khai.

VUS is another monster with a number of campuses across the city.

Then there are other schools with good reputations like my old employer CleverLearn or long established Apollo set up and managed by my fellow Saigon Raider Khalid Mahmood. For students, these places offer 90 or 120 hour courses in General English and exam preparation courses like TOEIC, TOEFL and IELTS.

With the hugely increasing number of Vietnamese studying overseas, their scores in standard tests become insanely important, as a particular mark is required for university courses in western countries, and of course for the C.V as well. The trouble is that these tests neglect to examine real fluency in a language - take a look at some of the questions as a native speaker and you'll be reaching for the answer book saying 'WTF' as well. Hence, they require training. Hence, exam prep is now big business for language centers. ACET is another good school that does massive business with exam prep courses.

For teachers, each school has its own rep. ILA is known to be cliquey. You can work without meeting many other teachers at VUS. Smaller schools tend to be more personal, possibly a nicer environment to work in. Pay ranges from $13-$15 per hour at most of these language centers. In the heavyweights, you really have to do some hard time before getting a good schedule and good classes. You will be started in the kiddies Saturday/Sunday morning, where wee and poo line the floor, and your whole concept of self respect is called into question (I turned down a job at ILA when I arrived in Nam because that is what they offered me). Respect to those who are qualified to and love to teach the early learners. My limit is Grade 3.....

After the heavyweights, you have the minnows. These schools are about as subtle as a brick falling on your head. They may be chains across the outlying city districts or just a one off school that has to change the name on its front three times in a month. If your school is called 'Outerspace Language Center' or 'Phuc and Vu's excellent English Language Adventures' (ok I made the last one up) then you're in trouble.

These schools can't afford to pay native speakers the wage that qualified teachers work for, so they employ almost anyone. I met a retired police officer from Texas who just walked into one such crap hole without a minutes worth of experience and started working almost immediately....'I don't know what I'm doing, they just wanna talk to me' he said in his southern drawl. Undeniably, and as spoken about before, there are some troubled characters on the teaching circuit, and it's not hard for them to eek out a weeks beer money from some language center somewhere or other. Salary from $8-$13, and mostly NOT reliable when it comes to payday.

The website Saigon ESL lists language centers by district (here) and also gives them a rating based on experience of previous teachers. I take it all with a pinch of salt having met my fair share of potential 'contributors' The only thing some of these people should be contributing is a piece of nonsensical graffiti to the inside of their padded cells. Generally however, if you see a school marked TOTAL HELL HOLE STAY AWAY on the site, then it's a good indicator to,errr, stay away.

The language centers recent focus on exam prep is either a lucky coincidence for them, or some good predictions about the market. They have a cash cow they can rely on, but their old banker, the kids programs, may be set to suffer. Affluent families can now also afford to send their kids to an International School (IS) or a prep school. First there are the fully accredited IB International Schools.

Currently we have IS (International School of HCMC), BIS (British International School), SSIS (Saigon South International School), AIS (Australian International School) and ABC, with two more coming this September, AIS (American International School, going through accreditation process) and RIS (Renaissance International School). There's also the Singapore International School. These schools are full of expat kids, including an awful lot of Koreans.

Tuition fees range from $7-$15,000 a year, depending on school and Grade level. Most average ESL TEFL certified teachers don't even look into opportunities at these schools, and they do prefer MA TEFL teachers that's for sure, but if you don't ask, you don't get.....Expect much better pay and conditions in these schools, and normal working hours.

Along with the IS Schools are the prep schools - that is high schools with lessons probably in English and Vietnamese, preparing students for study abroad. APU is one such school, as is Asian High School.

For ESL teachers, there are plenty of other options out there such as Vietnamese universities, corporate teaching and horrific kindergartens, but for now that is the end of my definitely non-exhaustive list and summary of teaching English in Saigon. For me, it's a case of finding the right environment to work in, and also the right conditions to let me enjoy my life, in other words, no evenings and weekends. I haven't worked at a language center for nearly two years, and I'd like to keep it that way. The opportunities are only set to increase in the coming years, with most if not all the above IS schools having plans for expansion. Parents are pulling kids out of public schools, and don't forget the 1000 odd students at the Korean School, half of whom are probably on the waiting lists..... all good news for teachers of English!

Teaching English in Asia

Once again the already fragile reputation of foreigners teaching English abroad is called into question and this time it is making international news headlines, as seen for example in this BBC article.

Whether the man is guilty of the murder of JonBenet is irrelevant, this case is now highlighting the issues at large in the ESL (English as a Second Language) industry. Unqualified teachers, in other words, people who aren't teachers at all, can gain employment in all manner of schools around Asia.

In Japan and Korea it is probably more difficult - I had to provide my original diploma to get an E2 visa which allowed me to stay in Korea for one year - there was however no criminal record check or background check. People ask me "How did you get a job in Korea?" and I answer "On the Internet". I used a website such as this one. Here you can see the global demand for teachers of English. My recruiter who was based in London found me a job and arranged a phone interview which took about 5 minutes and was basically to establish that I was breathing. Within 8 weeks I had gone from surfing for a job to having my visa and flight tickets in hand and boarding the plane. All I needed was my University degree. It really is that easy. Of course everybody leaves for different reasons; mine were the same as many at my age - a real desire to see the world and a total frustration with my lack of options at home; however you can imagine that with the process being so easy, many other kinds of characters successfully apply and gain employment in Korea. What kind of characters I hear you asking......well, I've met them all. People who wouldn't fit in back home, social rejects, people with a bad smell, a drinking problem, bad social skills, people with undiagnosed mental problems like ADD or OCD. Indeed, inside the expat teaching community these kind of teachers are notorious. I suggest you read this 'thread' (note: waygook means foreigner in Korean) on the popular expat teachers disscussion forum: a brief example:

A 40 something year old guy. INSISTED he was 28. Really short and scrawny. We kind of felt sorry for him. 10 days in he was short of money and said he needed food. Lent him 100, 000 won. Later found out he borrowed 100,000 from another foriegn teacher and 100, 000 from a Korean teacher. We went out that night and he kept trying to pick up girls by staring at them and disgustingly and leacherously licking potato chips. It was so gross! I left. Next day he pulled the old midnight run.

The midnight run is where the teacher packs up and leaves the country, in the process not telling anyone, breaking contract and adding to the bad rep of foreign teachers. It's a vicious circle and it ends up impacting all the people here who are sane and don't smell like cabbage. Teacher comes to Korea. Teacher is imbalanced. Teacher hates job and crappy apartment. Teacher hates disgusting old man Korean boss. Teacher leaves Korea in the middle of the night. Old disgusting boss has foreignerless classes at his school. Boss hates lousy foreigner. Boss will never again trust forgieners. Boss will now treat all foreign staff like badly behaved children no matter what. As usual, its the majority that suffer thanks to the actions of the few; I for one however don't hold anything against some people who do runner to escape their miserable contracts and jobs which they walked into blindly expecting much better than what they actually got. It works both ways; the profession has a rep for odd characters, but school bosses are well known for lying, providing the absolute bare minimum by way of accomodation, overworking staff, penny pinching to the extreme etc etc. So that's teaching in Korea for you.

Teaching English in South East Asia has the same problems. Thailand and Cambodia, and to a lesser extent Vietnam, are well known for their 'sex tourists'. As the BBC article says :

But there is little doubt that Thailand, and South East Asia as a whole, has an unenviable reputation for attracting paedophiles - a problem brought into the spotlight in recent months by the conviction of British pop star Gary Glitter in Vietnam.

The dodgy teachers in this part of the world fall into a different catagory than those in East Asia (China, Japan and Korea). I think those in SE Aisa were wondering through the region already doing their thing. They meet people of a similiar persuasion in bars of an evening, and they think 'Here's my ticket to live this lifestyle on a permanent basis'. It's easy to get a job because of the nature of the industry....so many language schools, so many people desperate to learn English, so many people desperate to cash in on all those desperate people desperate to learn English.......means that teachers will be hired almost immediatly without any consideration to background or experience.....sometimes its a case of 'a warm body in the classroom is good enough'. Read the expat teachers in Thailand discussing the effects of the JonBenet case here. The industry needs more regulation to vet potential teachers.

The Vietnamese government recently tried to make all foreigners get a work permit. I went through all the steps, including getting a criminal record check from Britan. However, I think it depends on how 'friendly' the language school is with the Ministry of Education as to how stringent they are on the staff. There were stories of one school being 'raided' and unqualified/work permitless teachers being deported, buts thats the only one I've heard. Maybe the 6 month tourist visas shouldn't be so easy to get. How can I be in Vietnam on a tourist visa yet work and pay 10% income tax to the Vietnamese government. Whilst the authorities are having their cake and eating it, there is no answer.

There are a million different people in this industry and they all have a million different reasons but the profession is seriously stigmatised. When I go back to the UK next year and tell people 'I've been teaching English in Asia for the last 3 years' I wonder what kind of reaction I'll get. I still have friends who say things like 'When are you coming back?' and 'I can't believe your still out there' - as if I am still wondering around with my backpack on 5 years after I started, so I know they think of me as a 'traveller' and not a 'teacher'; they may be surprised to find that I actually am a teacher and I try to do my job professionally, and I am interested in professional development and linguistics and child pyscology, just the same as many young teachers in the field. As for all this other bad stuff I read, the stuff I've talked about here, and it's stuff that I know is shaping people's minds and opinions towards English teachers, I have to curl my mouth down, open my palms skyward, and in my best New Jersey accent say this:

"Waddya gonna do?".