Colleague being sacked from teaching post due to student complaints

[Putthatbookdown]

She has been there 14 years.Private Efl language school students age 16-30ish Students complaining she is boring and she is currently being subject to warnings due to the complaints She is cracking up under the strain and looks pretty ill. Management constantly observing and giving damning feed back . It appears she does not do enough speaking practice with them though the students are from cultures which do not actually speak very much. The school has a well-publicised student complaints procedure. and i gather they go largely on what they think -though many of the students have low English ability. The strange thing is she has just done a 3 month exam prep course with great results. She will be dismissed I think

Do you have an actual question you want advice on, putthatbookdown?

If you're asking hypothetically would it be fair/legal to dismiss her, then the answer is it's impossible to tell from what you've said.

''It appears she does not do enough speaking practice with them though the students are from cultures which do not actually speak very much.''

I don't think it's relevant about the student's culture of not speaking much (this sounds like an odd statement FWIW). Surely if your friend knows that this is the bit that needs work on then surely she can add more of this into her lessons? If she has been there 14 years she has probably done lots of things that have been classed as good. She just needs to improve the bits that aren't up to scratch.

Suggest she looks elsewhere, if at all possible, or she has to batten down the hatches and demonstrably jump through the hoops SMT require. If she fears she is about to be dismissed she must involve her union - am assuming she is in one, it would be foolhardy these days not to be.

If she is a language teacher, she should be able to device practice sessions. It is not that hard. Take the subject of food, you can easily do practice sessions with role play, like waiter and customer, order food, and take orders, etc. Lots can be learnt from that. My own language students were always brought to life in group sessions such as this.

If she has not been able to do this in 14 years, then I suppose she is not adequately meeting her students needs?

No Union in the school as it is private. The colleague is highly-regarded in the profession. But she has taken advice from 2 external Union reps and they are on her side . Yes, Flowery Management have not acted properly apparently. We do not want her to leave the profession but fear she may.

Can she have someone sit in on her lessons?

I am doing language classes at the moment, abroad.
One of the teacher is very sweet, and experienced, but is strikingly crap at getting us to speak - which is the purpose of the classes after all. If you asked her, she would probably not be aware of this deficiency. The other teachers use methods for 'forcing' people to speak - choosing names out of a cup etc and making us read out things - but really, all we hear from this teacher is her or the dominant ones in the class (including me!) speaking.
I think the quieter ones need to be 'forced' to speak otherwise they are wasting their time.
It does sound like she has a problem with this, so she needs to try and look at how she is teaching and whether she could modify her teaching methods. Sorry she is so stressed by this though.

She has offered to do any retraining they require but Management say it is not necessary . Management sit in on her lessons and just pan them. The Principal just takes her into her office and screams at her. The contract states she is allowed to have a Rep at these so-called meetings but none has been called. It is making her ill. This is the private sector?

Sounds like constructive dismissal. Your friend is being put under so much pressure in the hope that she will decide to quite. More and more government departments are doing this to get rid of staff and I guess the private sector is doing this in order to reduce costs.
Your friend needs to:
Go on the sick immediately, sod the cost
citizens advice immediately
no more 'meetings' until she has found a rep to be at the meetings with her
NOTE down EVERY incident of bullying
look on the internet about "constructive dismissal".
But ultimately sounds like constructive dismissal, my advice get out now
I feel so sorry for your friend

Yes She has called the Rep but looks like he is too afraid as well.The private sector and EFl is noted for lack of protection. She looks positively ill and the Rep has suggested she leaves without a fight but she wants to fight them .