"It's a fucking nuthouse."
"Toxic."
"Shambles."
"Amateur hour"
These comments greeted me to a new job in a place with a postcode containing the number 666. Working the evening shift could be spooky.
Academically, any student will tell you that listening and speaking are the surest ways to learn a language, which is why native speakers are employed.
This simple fact was completely lost on this wannabe university which regarded endless multiple-choice testing as the way forward to a worthless certificate costing $5000. Student numbers were high and classes could be huge.
Over and over and over, testing, testing, testing, again and again and again .... Screw teaching! We're testing! A, B, C or D?
Dazed and confused by this relentless stream of multiple-choice questions with distractors (never found out what that meant), lights on full wattage like a KGB interrorgation cell, the majority do pass these tests mainly because cheating is a standard student's area of expertise. More time and effort goes into getting out of work than doing the work itself.
Technology has greatly enhanced this dishonesty via inventive tricks such as photographing the test with a wristwatch, emailing it to a clever guy outside who relays the answers back through an ear pod. Or, using intense classroom lighting to reflect the answer sheet off a shiny i-pad screen to a mate across the aisle.
Most of the dunderheads in my class of security guards, electricians, soldiers and camel herders were beginners at best, barely able to string a simple sentence together, so textbook lessons such as The Social Psychology of Colour (I kid you not) went straight over their heads. They would be tested on this.
There were sometimes quizzes, in between other quizzes and tests and pop quizzes and mid-terms and TOEFL tests and inappropriately named 'oral presentations' and tests I've forgotten about or never knew about ... And all these tests, down to 0.25 of a percent needed to be recorded on the hallowed gradefreakinshitsheet.
An explanation of all this testing and gradesheet shit was zero. It would only take 15 minutes to go over but the big potato was famous for hiding in the parking lot when the going got tough and the supervisor was far too busy venting rage at the world to do any pesky explaining.
When we thought the tests were done with, there was another one and another, ad infinitum, and it turned out that teachers also had to write the freakin tests.
Computer based testing (now standard all over the world) hadn't been heard of here. We were typing and printing and stapling and photocopying on knackered old machines that were forever breaking down while the top floor raked in students' cash.
If lucky and with the correct Excel form a stapler might get delivered to your office along with a cup of tea courtesy of Bashar the Indian teaboy from Gujarat.
"Toxic."
"Shambles."
"Amateur hour"
These comments greeted me to a new job in a place with a postcode containing the number 666. Working the evening shift could be spooky.
Academically, any student will tell you that listening and speaking are the surest ways to learn a language, which is why native speakers are employed.
This simple fact was completely lost on this wannabe university which regarded endless multiple-choice testing as the way forward to a worthless certificate costing $5000. Student numbers were high and classes could be huge.
Over and over and over, testing, testing, testing, again and again and again .... Screw teaching! We're testing! A, B, C or D?
Dazed and confused by this relentless stream of multiple-choice questions with distractors (never found out what that meant), lights on full wattage like a KGB interrorgation cell, the majority do pass these tests mainly because cheating is a standard student's area of expertise. More time and effort goes into getting out of work than doing the work itself.
Technology has greatly enhanced this dishonesty via inventive tricks such as photographing the test with a wristwatch, emailing it to a clever guy outside who relays the answers back through an ear pod. Or, using intense classroom lighting to reflect the answer sheet off a shiny i-pad screen to a mate across the aisle.
Most of the dunderheads in my class of security guards, electricians, soldiers and camel herders were beginners at best, barely able to string a simple sentence together, so textbook lessons such as The Social Psychology of Colour (I kid you not) went straight over their heads. They would be tested on this.
There were sometimes quizzes, in between other quizzes and tests and pop quizzes and mid-terms and TOEFL tests and inappropriately named 'oral presentations' and tests I've forgotten about or never knew about ... And all these tests, down to 0.25 of a percent needed to be recorded on the hallowed gradefreakinshitsheet.
An explanation of all this testing and gradesheet shit was zero. It would only take 15 minutes to go over but the big potato was famous for hiding in the parking lot when the going got tough and the supervisor was far too busy venting rage at the world to do any pesky explaining.
When we thought the tests were done with, there was another one and another, ad infinitum, and it turned out that teachers also had to write the freakin tests.
Computer based testing (now standard all over the world) hadn't been heard of here. We were typing and printing and stapling and photocopying on knackered old machines that were forever breaking down while the top floor raked in students' cash.
If lucky and with the correct Excel form a stapler might get delivered to your office along with a cup of tea courtesy of Bashar the Indian teaboy from Gujarat.
On a hunch I discovered a dusty storage room, filled to the brim with old test papers going back years, covering exactly the same material we were rewriting on a weekly basis .... with distractors. The logic of pulling one paper from the bottom of the pile was lost on these people. Write us another multiple-guess test! Chop down another tree. And do not forget the distractors!
Painstaking meetings were held on a weekly basis to discuss which multiple-guess questions to ask this week: A B C and D, or shall we really push the boat out and add an E? Which distractors to use, the difference between pond and pool, I don't agree/I do, who's doing TOEFL?
At weekends I was waking up to 33+ messages on the very same subjects. Pond or pool? I'm not sure .... I didn't dare open emails.
Testing was all we did. Barely time to teach the Social Psychology of Colours. Too busy wringing answers out onto OMB sheets (pencil works best - most students forget) and uploaded onto Evalbee ... whatever any of this means. Week after week, month after month and one sure-fire way to wind up Saudi students is to give them a test, one after the freakin other.
Completely deranged by testing, the drill sargeant managed to squeeze in a final review test (with scaffolding ....?) before the final test that had already seen three weekly tests on the very same subjects.
A final image to sum up this entire shit show was made while invigilating a test. Invigilating means stopping students cheating, which is much the same as trying to stop the sun from shining. My classroom looked out over an atrium and through a big window into other classrooms also engaged in testing/cheating. A door burst open and a wild-haired, purple-faced, sweating white man flew through it, heading straight for one particuliar student who was wrestled with for a while before his phone was finally seized. I was witnessing the cutting edge of Test Crime in action.
Painstaking meetings were held on a weekly basis to discuss which multiple-guess questions to ask this week: A B C and D, or shall we really push the boat out and add an E? Which distractors to use, the difference between pond and pool, I don't agree/I do, who's doing TOEFL?
At weekends I was waking up to 33+ messages on the very same subjects. Pond or pool? I'm not sure .... I didn't dare open emails.
Testing was all we did. Barely time to teach the Social Psychology of Colours. Too busy wringing answers out onto OMB sheets (pencil works best - most students forget) and uploaded onto Evalbee ... whatever any of this means. Week after week, month after month and one sure-fire way to wind up Saudi students is to give them a test, one after the freakin other.
Completely deranged by testing, the drill sargeant managed to squeeze in a final review test (with scaffolding ....?) before the final test that had already seen three weekly tests on the very same subjects.
A final image to sum up this entire shit show was made while invigilating a test. Invigilating means stopping students cheating, which is much the same as trying to stop the sun from shining. My classroom looked out over an atrium and through a big window into other classrooms also engaged in testing/cheating. A door burst open and a wild-haired, purple-faced, sweating white man flew through it, heading straight for one particuliar student who was wrestled with for a while before his phone was finally seized. I was witnessing the cutting edge of Test Crime in action.
Plenty of shit had already showed in this job .... Before I'd even got here the HR dept had twice screwed up the entry visa so I'd arrived 3 months late and given a few days in a hotel before being told to fuck off and find my own place ,,, and buy the furniture too. This wasn't mentioned at the interview with a man rather too keen to get me to sign on the dotted line, desperately short of test re-writers, invigilators and wrestlers.
Even the worst of the worst contractors will have the decency to sort out staff housing. Not this private 'university', rolling in cash. With no time or assistence in finding accommodation I ended up in a hovel with rats scampering through the roofspace and rummaging through trash cans while screaming guests played cards all night and after my exit I heard a large family of cockroaches had moved in.
Even the worst of the worst contractors will have the decency to sort out staff housing. Not this private 'university', rolling in cash. With no time or assistence in finding accommodation I ended up in a hovel with rats scampering through the roofspace and rummaging through trash cans while screaming guests played cards all night and after my exit I heard a large family of cockroaches had moved in.
The weather was very pleasant and weekend drives with Rashid were cool as was meeting up with my new buddy Mr al Spliffi outside the Golen Imam mosque. But after 3 months probation I'd had enough of the shitshow and was off. The director found out and fired me. I'll take that as a badge of honour.