LongJohnny
02-10-07, 11:29 AM
A few weeks ago I was invited to attend a workshop for teachers in Adelaide who were trained overseas and came to oz as migrants.
It was quite an eye opening experience listening to people from across the world relating their experiences in the south Australian education system.
I was the only South African there. It seems as if in general South Africans slot in quite well into the South Australian Education system, but not without individual ups and downs of course.
Other teachers from places like Japan and Eastern Europe seems to have much more challenges regarding their settling into the system. It does happen that if you are in the “odd one out” category, e.g. strange accent, Asian appearance etc., then a certain type of kid (a minority, thank God), will target you.
These talks also emphasized the mettle and ability of many immigrant teachers to “hang in there” as well as developing quite thick skins.
Also, the South Australian system does not put too much store on IELTS aspects it seems, as at the seminar there were a range of accents and all the English spoken there was not quite “Queen’s English”, so one gets the impression that as long as one can do one’s job in the classroom effectively, both DECS and the Teacher’s Registration Board does nor care more than a flying fig if you sound like Greta Garbo or Arnold Swarzenegger when you speak, as long as you understand the language effectively and of course your written skills must be very good. (Oh ja, you have to be a good teacher as well of course…)
The leaders of the seminar were academics from the University of West Sydney and they are researching the worldwide trends of teachers moving abroad to practice their profession in countries other than their birth.
I gave them the URL for Great Trek as well as some links here on the forums that I believe that they may find useful in their research, and I believe they will log in here sometime.
Hope it’s OK, OneTime?
Cheers,
LJ
It was quite an eye opening experience listening to people from across the world relating their experiences in the south Australian education system.
I was the only South African there. It seems as if in general South Africans slot in quite well into the South Australian Education system, but not without individual ups and downs of course.
Other teachers from places like Japan and Eastern Europe seems to have much more challenges regarding their settling into the system. It does happen that if you are in the “odd one out” category, e.g. strange accent, Asian appearance etc., then a certain type of kid (a minority, thank God), will target you.
These talks also emphasized the mettle and ability of many immigrant teachers to “hang in there” as well as developing quite thick skins.
Also, the South Australian system does not put too much store on IELTS aspects it seems, as at the seminar there were a range of accents and all the English spoken there was not quite “Queen’s English”, so one gets the impression that as long as one can do one’s job in the classroom effectively, both DECS and the Teacher’s Registration Board does nor care more than a flying fig if you sound like Greta Garbo or Arnold Swarzenegger when you speak, as long as you understand the language effectively and of course your written skills must be very good. (Oh ja, you have to be a good teacher as well of course…)
The leaders of the seminar were academics from the University of West Sydney and they are researching the worldwide trends of teachers moving abroad to practice their profession in countries other than their birth.
I gave them the URL for Great Trek as well as some links here on the forums that I believe that they may find useful in their research, and I believe they will log in here sometime.
Hope it’s OK, OneTime?
Cheers,
LJ