EF think so. The way they do it with young learner teachers in China is explained here:
Kids performance management system
What do you think of the concept?
You can also see all their videos here if you are thinking of working for EF and/ or in China.
TEFLtastic 
Naturally I’m suspicious that performance related pay will be abused by management to further exploit teachers. There won’t be any ‘extra’ money for the good teachers, just less for those who the ‘system’ decides are less effective. Further driving down wages overall.
I can’t get the site to open so cannot comment on the EF system specifially.
If it’s a popularity contest then good looking or funny teachers will get more money than possibly more effective teachers who don’t fit the students perception of ‘good’. Non-white teachers will probably suffer in most countries as might women or younger teachers – or indeed oldies!
It’s a minefiled and adds very little or nothing to the quality of education – so I hope it doesn’t become normal.
I have at times resented getting the same pay for doing a good job that colleagues got for just showing up (often hungover). But performance related pay won’t fix that.
LikeLike
What he/she just said! Seems remarkably similar to what GEOS and a whole bunch of other Eikaiwa used to do in Japan (and probably do for all I know). What was SUPPOSED to happen was that each teacher would be individually assessed every 6 months using some categories very similar to the ones shown in the video, and better-performing teachers would recieve a pay bump.
What I witnessed happening was that the Regional Manager would see how many higher-level teachers had left recently (and therefore how much spare money they had in the budget), decide who they liked and disliked (and who had an annual contract renewal coming up that they wanted to encourage to stay), dole out the money as they saw fit and then fix the performance reviews accordingly.
So yes, I’m a bit suspicious of performance-related pay. But I’m also a bit suspicious of EF generally.
LikeLike
The link is still working for me too. To summarise: none of it is based on student progress or student evaluations (despite the name of the system), it’s based on the teacher’s self-assessement, observations and other contributions to the school (doing your admin and generally mucking in, sounds like), and then there’s a component that is actually for having qualifications such as Dip/ MA/ CELTA or Trinity Cert/ other 100 hour TEFL with face to face component (in that order).
There is a chance to appeal decisions, but I would take the fact that no teachers have ever appealed as proof that that part of the system doesn’t work rather than proof the whole system does as the man speaking says. Evaluations are also checked for “inconsistencies” by someone higher up the chain, but unless they are using some advanced statistical analysis I don’t see how this can be much help.
LikeLike
I did finally get to listen to yer man there…..though I did get bored after a few minutes and came back to comment.
Well OK. Sounds very plausible. But it depends who executes it and how well.
I remember some bit of research done about being a successful company in the modern world – and it weren’t rocket science. Summary of the research was…
1) hire capable motivated staff
2) ensure they have adequate resources
3) don’t piss them off
EFL in general fails on all 3 of these. If by some chance they do hire a motivated and capable teacher, odds are he/she won’t get the necessary resources and will be jerked around so much that they’ll be looking to jump ship at the first chance.
Maybe EF are serious about this and we really should give them a chance – will be interesting to see how it pans out.
LikeLike
Looks like a good system although this post title is a misnomer. Performance based pay would seem to indicate something akin to merit pay being implemented in some places in the US. In that system, you can actually lose pay. Here you can’t.
Many schools in ELT don’t bother to give raises, so the fact that EF actually recognizes teachers who stay is great. Also, it’s really important to recognize teachers who are really contributing over and against those who plop in hungover and wing it half the time. I think it’s not only fair, but motivating.
Tieing performance based pay to student performance would be a terrible idea. This would encourage teachers to fudge results and lower academic standards. In sociology, gaming the system for rewards is referred to as Campbell’s Law, so attempting to keep it objective is key.
All in all, looks like a good system. I can’t speak for what EF actually does, but the non-franchise branches have a pretty good reputation here and I’m sure managers assess people fairly.
LikeLike
It sounds like a fairly good attempt in theory, but here is the main problem I see with it: It is impossible to create a lesson observation form that is fair and uncontroversial enough to actually base pay on. Here are the issues:
– Some individual boxes will be controversial, e.g. using technology is generally a good thing but won’t a box that says “used technology” lead to unthinking use of it?
– It’s really difficult to give weighting by importance. The fact that students actually learnt something should really count for at least 70% of the final score, but that makes other things you want to encourage like learner training so insignificant they can “pass” the lesson while completely ignoring them.
– If the observer has a choice of between 1 for not at all and 5 for great for each of the criteria, two observers would generally vary by at least one number in most of the things they mark them on. In this system theoretically just one point difference in your total could affect your pay but all observations are by one person who already has opinions about the standard of your teaching. This is why on the CELTA you have two different observers and on the Delta you have an outside observer for your last lesson.
– Some lessons and approaches do not fit into a tick the boxes system
These things are of course true in all evaluative observations and are I guess already true about the ones they use during the probationary period, but basing pay on them suddenly makes them much more of an issue. At the very least they need to start videoing observed classes so there is evidence should a dispute arise.
LikeLike
I see your points, but I disagree with your concerns as a reason to not implement such a policy. If as a teacher, you’re not evaluated on your teaching, than exactly what are you supposed to be evaluated on? Sure obs will always be subjective, but that’s inherent in any performance review. If managers are trained in feedback, coaching, and performance management, there should be very few issues related to the results delivered.
Obs feedback templates and performance eval templates are simply tools that managers can use to frame feedback conversations. They are not designed to be a catch-all, which is why weighting or including every single item possible is of negligable significance.
Any good feedback/performance eval is a dialogue and involves constant negotiation, which is another reason why specific items or different ways of doing things should not be an issue.
Ultimately, the benefits of recognizing those who perform well is far greater than the negative fallout you’ll get from people who underperform but want to contest their scores. In my experience, the people that contest their scores the most, are the ones that are farthest from the mark anyway.
LikeLike
I agree with better pay for people who put more effort in, but I think it should be based on a willingness to improve and basic stuff like doing your paperwork on time. The other pay implements should be for qualifications and experience inside and outside the company, just like in all good schools. If you’ve been improving every year and have plenty of experience, that’s a better guarantee of and estimate of the quality of your lessons than a single observation. Making observations even more critical to pass and fail also interferes with their teacher development purposes (although you can, as I did when I was a manager a long time ago, divide observations into two kinds).
I’m somewhat thinking aloud here, but I’m doing a pretty good job in convincing myself so far…
The other thing is that you seem to be admitting that it relies a lot on the managers, and we are talking about TEFL middle management here…
LikeLike
Exactly. If we have faith in the management of the schools/businesses to make rational decisions in the best interest of the students, teachers and business.
However – I worry they will make their decisions irrationally based on a combination of spite, petty jealousy, meanness or just plain stupidity.
Classroom performance would have to be part of any pay increase, but is hard to measure objectively and is not the only thing. Keeping paperwork up to date, being available to cover/helpful to other staff etc is also a factor.
Any half decent managers would know who is pulling their weight and being effective and who is coasting and or faking it in the classroom. But they are also faced with hiring teachers when the budget it tight and conditions of work often poor.
If they’d paid a decent wage and had workable schedules it would be easy to hire good, motivated staff and easy to retain them. They wouldn’t need to mess around with performance related pay – just renew the contracts of those who are worth keeping and let the coasters move on.
LikeLike
Hi Alex and Andy,
Attitude goes a long way in ELT, but I seriously can’t think of many teachers that tried really hard, but continued to perform poorly in the class, so I don’t see it as much of a concern.
Basing pay on one obs would be harsh, but I would doubt that’s the case. I missed that if it was part of that really long, boring presentation. Usually many more are expected at decent schools.
I agree with the fact that there should be pay differentiation for experience and qualifications as well, but that should be a separate item from performance based pay raises. I think both are necessary to find and retain top talent.
The concerns with a lot of middle management in TEFL is duly noted. But trying to create a performance eval that is idiot proof is like trying to create a curriculum that is. As Andy notes, hiring good people is really the key. That means originally hiring and training good managers to help hire the good teachers :)
Also, surprisingly, high pay does not lead to better quality hires I’ve found out. I’ve worked for some of the highest paying PLIs in two countries and it attracts as many people simply attracted to the hope of getting paid more to do the same (or less) of a job than another school. You do attract some great people, bu the need to find teachers, sometimes in a pinch, leads to unattractive hires more often than we’d hope for.
Regarldess, pay is always around 4th on the list of reasons people are happy in their jobs. The biggest keys are great co-workers, an inspiring job, and a sense of development.
LikeLike