Binsar is a Batak Indonesian. Part of the culture is to be very up-front, but even still he is incredibly up front even for a Batak. I think he just says whatever he thinks so he doesn’t control what he says. That’s partly why he’s told me things about Ted’s lack of documents, the other Native Speaker teachers’ lack of qualification and experience etc. He’s pretty indiscreet. He’s also very paranoid and thinks everyones out to get him, so he easily gets defensive if you challenge him. So, the whole process of reporting him to TBI Head Office and Depnaker has been quite stressful. As well as locking away the paper and not allowing teachers to use the photocopier he also locks away the coloring pencils, colored paper etc and even the sugar!

He’s generally very negative in his comments. If a student makes a bad comment about your class, he will call you into his office and complain at you. I think it’s fairly usual for some students particuarly teens to say they want to ‘play games and watch videos’, those were some comments I got from one class which had made a complaint. Overall, luckily I’ve only been called into his office a few times. Most of those times were for Kirby class.

Because his son spies in the class and tells Binsar if you play any ‘unnecessary games’ the class atmosphere is very passive and tense. All the teachers dislike teaching that class. So I did have some problems with that class and to be fair I discussed it with Binsar and we did a peer-teaching session where I taught one half of the class and he taught the other. Since then I’ve had no problems from that class, which I think is less to do with my teaching style and more to do with that they knew I’d been complaining about them with Binsar so it works both ways.

Binsar never gives you any positive feedback or praise, it’s always no news is good news which can be very demotivating. Generally his manner is very unfriendly (rarely says hello or wishes you well), if he is friendly it feels very forced and only in particular situations like at the Depnaker and at company classes when he introduces you.