confused between Gandhi International / Singapore international School/ STB - Acs sch

[ReveurGAM]

1) KW: Noneya, so stop hijacking this thread.

2) TC: For the record, my training at SIS was by Dr. Anula Samuels (as in PhD), who was, as I recall, in possession of that title after studying in Singapore about educational matters. She was, as I recall, the executive principal of SIS corporate. Although I didn't personally care for her, she was a VERY smart lady, and I owe some of what I know to her. I expect a web search will turn up news about her.

3) My credentials are not at issue here - SIS is the question. None of what I said is false, nor are my abilities as a teacher relevant to my ability to evaluate what was good and bad about SIS at the time I was there, so let's get BACK to the topic at hand. Does anyone have anything else relevant to say about the three schools?

Further posts that are not on topic will be reported as such.

Glenn

[kverz]

First and foremost, Kverz, I'd like to apologize for offending you. I was NOT trying to be racist. I made it VERY clear that my opinion was based on my experience with the Philippinos I have worked with. I thought you got that, but I guess you overlooked thatl

Secondly, I'd like to say thank you for taking the time to set me straight on your culture (or at least the culture that YOU personally come from). How many ethnicities are there in the Philippines?


Thirdly, I'm very happy to hear that you have higher standards than those Philippinos I worked with (some were angels and some were demons). It's nice to know that my experience with Philippinos isn't true of all of you - that has been a concern of mine since I saw little evidence to the contrary.





Fourthly, I'll repeat myself: MY STATEMENTS ARE BASED ON MY OWN EXPERIENCES WITH PHILIPPINOS. I hope you understand that now. They are not meant to be generalizations indicative of Philippinos as a whole, merely those with whom I worked and/or fraternized.

Finally, I have no idea how good your English is but if you want me to give you my assessment, I wouldn't mind if you think it'll help you. PM me if you're interested. I've already stated my English isn't perfect, but I've never met a Philippino with better understanding and usage of it than mine.



Again, thank you and sorry.

I don't know why you feel a need to bring up Mondial as you weren't there when I worked there, and I doubt that they informed you of the truth of the circumstances (such as being forced to perform tasks that were outside of my contractual agreement), so you really should stick with what you know - your culture and profession. You may feel you know something about me from the people who worked there with me, but I assure you that there are two sides to the story.

Of course a degree can be good. I never said that degrees are worthless - please reread my message. Nor did I say (or imply) that Philippinos are not good teachers. I only commented on the fact that they tend to have a lesser understanding of English.

The "filipino" bit was to show that not everything KW says is wrong. Try this: http://www.google.co.id/search?hl=en...lipino&spell=1 - Apparently filipino is a variant spelling (used in Indonesia, as well), that KW knew about but you and I didn't.

I don't go to night clubs, if that's what you're implying. I met them all at work. One of the flirtatious ones happened to be my principal. She repeatedly flirted with me in teachers' meetings. Some teachers also flirted with me, both in Semarang and during training.

"coz there is no way a decent filipina will flirt with someone like you ( excuse my language)... "

That's uncalled for. You know nothing of my morality and ethics, clearly, or you wouldn't say that.

Once again, I"m sorry that you misunderstood me. I am NOT racist and I have nothing against Philippinos (oddly, the spelling checker on here doesn't like the spelling - it insists on Filipinos). If you need any more of a public apology, I will be more than happy to start a new thread just to apologize.

Glenn

We have many ETHNICITY in the Philippines and so is Indonesia but the choice of adult music and crimes are seen everywhere, please don't be naive about this . If I can see dangdut dancers and Indonesian, Canadian, American and whomsoever teachers flirting around, I don't point that as part of their culture. It's obviously their personal norms.

If I have to speak according to my experiences with Americans I encountered, I may have the right to say that most Americans are very ignorant and look highly of themselves? You see, an American visited Philippines and was invited to a party in my house said "I didn't know that in the Philippines people also own nice, big houses, cars and they also have nice toilets" or say " you know in the US, you can't shower as much as you shower here coz the laundry detergent there is so expensive and even offended my German friend by saying that " American whiskey is the best whiskey in the world" (hahahah)...If I have to count down how many times I encountered those sort of Americans, I always have a good laugh. But you see, that didn't give me the right to say that Americans are ignorant blah blah.....

I met loads of Filipinos here, elsewhere and even in my own country who annoys me and fit exactly as you had stated but that is not Filipino. You will also find those kind of people from all the other Nationalities.Most filipinos who are working abroad have loads of reasons why they are here ( and they are the one you met). Some are here because of good job opportunities, they cant get a proper teaching job back home since teacher qualifications there is of high standards ( I say this because I met many filipino teachers here who are not even qualified to teach in my country) or like me, I am here coz my husband's job is based here and many other reasons I can point out. In my own opinion, SIS pays so low that it also affects the quality of teachers that they are hiring coz even I wont accept such offer.

Yes Glen, no decent filipina women will flirt with you knowing that you are already married. In my country we respect marriage coz divorce is not even allowed and Philippinos is not the right spelling...it is Filipinos.. google is not always right. I learn that from my filipino teacher since preschool to university. We are Filipino- it is not just a mere spelling Indonesian used. The word Philippino doesn't exist. Pilipino is rather acceptable but the Philippine Islands had debated that long time ago to change that spelling to Filipino since that is the "tagalog version" and Philippines is not only Luzon province...FILIPINO are what we are called... It is the people, the language and the subject we are learning from school..FYI... Ok your English is not perfect but also I would like to let you know, I am not major in English. My major is Science and I did not have any formal education for English language perse.

I am sorry also if I say something that offended you...Your apology is accepted...

[kverz]

No need to start a new thread, just stop typing after the first eleven words.

No need to include justifications, explanations, and counter accusations, they dilute your initial apology.

Whatever they said about you KW. You always have my thumbs up! hahahah

[Leslynchan]

I'm not sure if it is appropriate for me to share my experiences regarding SIS here but I guess every parent should use their own discretion on any information provided.

My two young kids are studying in SIS for two months now. I am seriously considering to pull them out of the school. My major concern is basically the teachers' command of languages.

The teachers' command of English is really not up to standard, for example, some teachers say, "he don't want", "the students have go back to class" .... The same goes for the Chinese teacher with wrong usage of Chinese words at times.

One of the teachers love to use short form in class. Instead of saying schedule, she says sked. Instead of writing weekly updates, she wrote wkly updates. My children have since picked up this habit and do not know how to spell many words in full.

I have since feedback to the teachers and the short form is now "under control" but the command of English....:-(

The above are some of the examples and from teachers who are teaching my children only. I am now left with two choices- to have them complete till year end so as not to disrupt their education and put them into another school from 2013 onwards, or to have them complete till year end and pray that they get better teachers next year in SIS.

after reading the post by ReuverGAM, I have another concern now. When we visited the school before we enrolled our children, the principal mentioned that the school only accepts certified teachers and not just anyone who has a degree....

This is just my experience for these few months in SIS. There may be better teachers whom my children are not lucky enough to have them as teachers yet?

[bad_azz]

teach them at home- then you are sure they get your standards.

[waarmstrong]

I am not familiar with the school, but if it has more than one section per grade, perhaps you could request a transfer to another section -- after checking to confirm that the change would be an improvement. Otherwise, do as you are doing; monitor the teaching and continue to demand of the principal, correction of the deficiencies you discover. As for next year, check out the teachers of the classes you children will move up to. I would consider changing schools only if you find them very subpar. Good luck.

[ReveurGAM]

The following should be true - unless things have changed, of course.

Keep in mind that teachers at SIS are generally contracted to work for 2 years at a time. While your children will have some new teachers, it is likely that some of the teachers they had last year (and especially language teachers) will still be subject teachers for them this year. Teachers who don't run away during the first semester tend to stay at SIS for a while, so those teachers may be with your kids for years.

SIS tends to look for less expensive teachers to handle the main workload. People from places where salaries and expenses are relatively low - such as China and the Philippines - tend to become prime choices. This is not a reflection on their ability but, rather, on the lower salary they are willing to accept as compared to the average native English teacher trained to handle primary, for example. I'm surprised that the Chinese teacher is making mistakes like that - is the person a Chinese person from China, born, raised and trained there, or a local who spent a few years there? The latter may be the reason for the problem. I'm afraid that, while Filipinos tend to be pleasant and fun people to work with (I am generalizing, so please those who have horror stories don't get upset), and you can generally expect that they are trained teachers, you cannot expect their English to be as good as you want it to be, and you may find that some teachers are not qualified to teach what they're teaching - or the grade(s) they're teaching.

There are better schools out there. If you cannot accept the ...mid-grade standards of SIS... and its other flaws, you might as well start looking at them. Moving school mid-semester can be stressful, so you might want to at least wait until the end of the semester.

I apologize in advance if anything I've said appears to be rude, racist, inflammatory or otherwise nasty - it is not my intent.

Namaste, peace & love,
Glenn

[gopadas]

I actually have a querry.My daughters are in grade 8 myp and grade 5 pyp in Gandhi Memorial International School. I hope I have madethe right selection of school for them. In which way is it good,bador similar compared to JIS! Should I shift them to JIS next year?