Archive for the ‘Windsor TEFL’ Category

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…)