Archive for the ‘TEFL villains- Paul Lowe’ Category

Candidate number one

Involves me, and Paul Lowe’s threats to sue me for never mentioning him on my blog (!?) or something, still can’t quite work it out. “Bizarro!” as TESall.com put it. I thought, what the hell if I’m going down might as well go down with a fight and show some people power and so started an I Am Spartacus campaign to tell everyone in TEFL what had happened. Messes the story up a bit that it was all bluster and he never did sue me, and that every blog he wrote to saying I shouldn’t be allowed to comment on there because I was guilty of a “hate campaign” (along with UsingEnglish.com, whose apparent crime was publishing my grammar game worksheets) just ignored him. So, not sure this one wins, although it did all take a break after online rumours (still unconfirmed) of a suicide attempt…

Candidate number two

-involves Bruce Veldhuisen’s TEFL International and their one time guarantee of academic standards IATQUO. Or not, as some kind of feud goes on to this day with them each accusing the other of being unprofessional and worse, which kind of makes you wonder about the judgement of the other side for choosing to ever doing business with them, doesn’t it? It’s got the usual recipe of anonymous blogs set up by people who slag others off for doing just that and bringing people’s family into it, but still not sure it quite takes the championship.

Candidate number three

This is more like it. TEFL Watch turns into an anti-TEFL International slag fest, with needless to say Brucey’s side not keeping out of it. Then, in a twist worthy of Dallas (or at least Neighbours), an ex-forum moderator becomes the accuser in chief of the management of the site because he suddenly decides that Bruce V and his crew and being treated unfairly, eventually driving the owner of TEFL Watch to give the whole thing up and start writing about healthy grilling with George Foreman. Nice and juicy, that one, and haven’t even mentioned the allegations of having to flee the country for their personal safety. Could still be the greatest TEFL soap opera of all time, but let’s see how the last candidate plays out-

Candidate number four

Can the anonymous blogger throwing accusations about Sandy MacManus uncover Sandy’s real identity and so stop him being an anonymous blogger throwing accusations about? And how does threatening to make him lose his job in the Middle East help with that? Or has Sandy already uncovered “Michael Flynn“? And what script writer is being paid for melodramatic twists like death threats? And why would Paul Lowe, the chief suspect, go from repeatedly claiming to the police that he has never commented on any blog let alone started one of his own to suddenly tell the police where that blog with the death threat and many of his bizarre comments is?

Votes for one of the four or other candidates below please:

I’d love to believe that the collective efforts of TEFL bloggers and website owners were working towards building a tefl internet where a word or two on Google will be worth more than asking people you know for recommendations for TEFL qualifications, schools and countries to work in, and teaching techniques and materials to use. Unfortunately, I think the present and near future reality is not so ideal.

Starting with a simple and practical example, would you be better off spending 20 minutes searching on the Internet for suitable worksheets, or should you spend that time trawling through the teachers’ room bookshelves and asking other teachers? If my own experience and the people who arrive on my blogs looking for something that isn’t there are anything to go by, I’d leave that keyboard alone.

And now to the more complex question of trying to find out something about, for example, training with and/or working with TEFL International in Thailand. What are the chances that an Internet search will give you the information you need? The answer is clear… (more…)

Noticing that two of my three nominations for TEFL bad boy of the century have been involved in selling 4 week TEFL courses of limited career worth has made me wonder whether the whole non-CELTA non-Trinity lot of them have been nothing but another nail in the coffin of TEFL being taken seriously. I have motivations for wanting to think otherwise as I did send 100 or so people out into the world to end up cursing themselves, me or the course provider when some of them were inevitably told “We don’t care what your training consisted of, we only accept Cambridge Certs.”

The other disadvantages of the plethora of “equivalent” courses individually are well known, and can probably best be understood as the TEFL equivalent of knock off DVDs-usually cheaper, usually inferior quality to some extent, sometimes nothing like what you thought you were getting. Like pirate DVDs, though, collectively their effect on the whole industry is mainly to stop the “legitimate” providers getting up themselves and charging what they like.

Here some examples of the ways I have seen the changes in the market as a positive response to a bit of law of the jungle capitalist competition:

-More CELTA and Trinity courses available in cheaper countries,something that was lead by other course providers-and in fact quite a few of the ones which are Trinity now started off as such

-More additional services like airport pickup, lifetime job seeking help, accommodation etc

-Advertising in more unconvential places, ie not just the Guardian

- A healthy scepticism about 4 week courses in general-mainly prompted by the seedier, but also keeping C and T on their toes and always having to justify the quality of their courses

-Cambridge has been forced to keep the CELTA as a stand alone practical teaching qualification, whereas their own professional and commercial logic might have allowed them to jump on every trendy methodology or convert the CELTA into an intro to the DELTA

- The fact that the majority of course providers have settled on 4 weeks as the standard (hugely better than two weeks, at which point trainees have usually improved their standard of lessons little if at all, and not much worse than even 8 weeks, at which point trainees have long passed saturation point ). This has provided the idea of a month practical teaching course as an alternative to an (often impractical) 1 year MA with a legitimacy it wouldn’t have had if it was C and T

- The fact that C and T can point at being better than certain dodgy operators takes away the emphasis on being worse than a PGCE

It occurs to me that I’m having it both ways a bit here, but what are blogs for if not thinking aloud… Any other answers to the original question to help me sort my logic out anyone?

You can’t do much reading about TEFL on the Net without coming across stories of dodgy geezers and their nasty little business schemes, and then you can’t read much more without coming across the nasty little TEFL teachers with their dodgy feuds- and then all kinds of mental confusion breaks out. Who can you believe in the TEFL world? The answer is simple- me!

Joking aside, I’ve been trawling through hundreds of posts about TEFL ripoffs and DoSs with personality problems over the last 12 months and although I remain sceptical about most of the claims made on such forums, there are three people/ organisations that I get a particularly bad vibe about. As what I’m doing is trying to judge someone’s personality through the internet, it is obviously subjective- and if you don’t trust my opinion on most things, then of course please ignore me here too. Still, here is my opinion for what it is worth. If it was me, I would avoid these three:

Paul Lowe’s Windsor TEFL/ Windsor Schools

Mark Smith’s Smith Schools of English Japan

Bruce Veldhuisen’s TEFL International

My criteria for inclusion is simple and beyond reproach, I think you will find. The evidence I have on their business dealings is limited but they strike me as three examples of the less pleasant kinds of people that TEFL occassionally attracts. I’ve met a few unpleasant characters, and the usual pattern is that if you catch them on a good day and they need something from you, you might be charmed. If you have no dealings with them and a good person who has got trapped in their web is the person you deal with you might have a good experience. Get on the wrong side of them, though, and you will find yourself a victim of every vindicitve and manipulative tactic known to man, with the idea that there is a line they shouldn’t step over in order to get their way not popping into their heads. Paul has shown on this site that he is exactly like that. People who have had direct communications with Mark Smith that I trust have told me that he is even worse. I don’t know how involved Bruce is in the day to day running of TEFL International, but someone’s ambition is making them step over the line of what I would call gentlemanly business practices.

Which leads me onto my philosophy of TEFL life. The system to have a good time in TEFL and not give more influence to the bad guys is simple- find nice people, avoid nasty ones. It’s worked for me- made me choose Spain, Italy, and Japan rather than Austria and Switzerland (though my nicest students ever were from Columbia, where I haven’t been yet), made me get out of DoSing and teacher training and back into the classroom, etc etc. So far, it’s worked- or not worked, depending on whether not being bitter is turning into a TEFL blogger handicap or not…

As I said, take several large salt mines when reading about any TEFL dodgy dealings, especially as many people have been known to place false information (both good and, for some strange reason, bad) about themselves on such sites, but here are some links anyway:

The TEFLtradesman on TEFL International

The TEFL Blacklist on Smith’s School of English

Usingenglish on Smith’s School of English

TEFLtastic on Paul Lowe

I hope my lack of posts on the whole Paul Lowe saga hasn’t made anyone think I have either been silenced or am ungrateful for all the help I get. In fact, I am overwhelmed by the response my I Am Spartacus campaign appeal got, which has totally restored my faith in humanity and the TEFL world. Now that the rumours of Paul’s personal circumstances have cleared up and the continuation of his attacks have cleared away the sympathy those rumours stirred in me, it is time for me to give a big gushing thank you to all those who aided me in my quest to show that attempts to silence TEFL teachers have the opposite effect, a quest that I would say has been 66% successful so far: (more…)

Now that “Paul Lowe” and “Windsor TEFL” are so many places on the web he can hardly have time to write threatening emails to them all let alone sue them, I can strike up my pipe, put on my tweed jacket with the leather elbow patches, gaze at my navel and get back to considering “What is the meaning of TEFL?”

In todays episode, Uncle Alex will consider “Why don’t my students (especially the adults) pull their socks up and do their homework?” It could be because they are trying to drive me to such fits of disbeliving fury that I keel over from a heart attack and they get a teacher who isn’t so keen. It could be because they are M* and hoping I will introduce corporal punishment. Alternatively, it could be because:

 1. It’s boring
2. They don’t understand the instructions/ what to do
3. It’s too difficult
4. It’s too easy
5. They could understand the language, but couldn’t think of any ideas (e.g. arguments for and against or a storyline)
6. It’s not their priority, e.g. because it doesn’t involve speaking
7. They just forgot/ forgot exactly what they had to do
8. They don’t find time/ have bad time management
9. It’s a minor rebellion
10. They don’t see the point/ don’t think it will improve their English
11. Doing homework seems childish
12. They lack a place where they can do it in peace and quiet
13. They lack equipment (e.g. a CD player)
14. They have their own self-study materials or habits which they prefer
And here’s what you can do about it/ do about some of those points:

(more…)

With my recent troubles with Mr Paul Lowe (see below), there were moments when I wondered who I or other troubled TEFLers could turn to for help. The UK government aren’t interested unless it touches on immigration, and the TEFL celebs seem to think a new warmer is more important than job security. It seems our only hope is investigative journalism. And it is being done, and being done well- by the EL Gazette. I don’t know how a trade journal became our last line of defense (I can’t imagine Double Glazing Monthly does many exposes), but I am very glad they have at least partly taken on that role.

Meanwhile, what has everyone’s favourite you-couldn’t-be-as-radical-as-us-if-you-tried left wing “quality paper” The Guardian been up to? (more…)

I would be grateful if you could help me and TEFLers everywhere by sparing ten minutes to read this and do one of the actions suggested below

Some background: 2 weeks ago a certain Paul Lowe of Windsor Schools/Windsor TEFL came out of nowhere and into my life by threatening to sue me and the owner of the site my blog,TEFLtastic, is on. Obviously boosted by the success this effortless method had in shutting down Sandy McManus’s TEFLtrade blog and Wally Windsor’s site, he didn’t even think it was worth spending a few minutes checking what TEFLtastic had to say about him before firing off a threatening email. I can say that with full confidence because before I reprinted his email mentioning legal action there was not one reference to Paul Lowe or Windsor Schools on my blog.

So, why should you care? (more…)

Thanks to all the people who have supported me in my fight (and the losing fights of Sandy McManus at TEFLtrade and Wally Windsor) against the vague threats and other bullying tactics of Mr Paul Lowe of Windsor Schools/ Windsor TEFL. The best way to tackle this man until he learns some basic manners seems to be to make sure that threatening legal action for no reason is the surest way to ensure that all the top Google searches for “Paul Lowe” and “Windsor Schools/Windsor TEFL” continue to be from victims of his unpleasant manner and worse. It will also make sure that the voices that are heard are those of his teachers, trainees and students rather than himself.

To achieve that I humbly ask anyone who has a blog- TEFL related or otherwise, even just your Facebook page, a specially started blog,or MSN profile- to give Paul Lowe and his school a mention. If you don’t have time to write an entry explaining your feelings about this person, copying and pasting this message will do the job just fine. Just pasting this into an email and sending it to everyone you know in TEFL would also be a great help.

If you know as little about his business as I do, a few words about him threatening to sue before there was any mention of him on TEFLtastic blog should suffice, and quoting his own words should show his personality better than our comments ever could (see Letter from a Reader post below for some prime examples). When he offers a full apology for his threats etc I will be more than happy to let him have his say on TEFLtastic.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer

Alex

“Hello Alex,
 
I am writing to find out who owns your balanced “forum” of ideas. You will know that the web is a place for all-comers to denigrate others without the need for any material explanation or proof- some it seems make this a sick life’s work.
 
As I say please let me know the owner or CEO as soon as possible so that my lawyers can write to him/her/them and initiate some dialogue or potentially some action.
 
If I do not hear I will advise my Law firm to use all methods to seek this information out.
 
You may also need to be called to give evidence in the matter I refer to, since you are clearly a “voice” in this sector.
 
You cam reach me on 01753-858995 or on the mail address.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Paul S Lowe
Windsor Schools

paul@windsorschools.eclipse.co.uk” (more…)