A guest piece by “Holden Coalfield”
“‘No thanks’, I said to the leafleter who offered me and everyone else a flyer for an English school as I walked out of Oxford Circus tube into this crowded and surprisingly tacky centre of London shopping and worldwide EFL. I was about to take the first step in finding out what these schools were really like the only way you can, by teaching in one.
A few years ago, while going through yet another bald patch in my career, I’d answered an advert that led me to a school above a mobile phone shop. I was unqualified, but with some previous EFL experience. Everyone knows that getting a qualification in this game is a very smart move if you can muster up the cash, but I could have had a CELTA, a DELTA and an Epsilon and I doubt that would have prepared me for the chaos I was to witness over the next three months.
On the day of my interview I had a sign of what was to come when the guy didn’t turn up. For some reason I went back and tried again, and was rewarded for my patience with an offer of £6 an hour (probably the same as the school cleaner) to be paid six weeks late. I’d love to say that those were the things that made me prevaricate for two weeks, but actually it was because I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure if I had the necessary mastery of phrasal verbs and the various forms of the Present Perfect. Looking back, maybe I got my priorities wrong…
Meanwhile, CVs from certified Teflers were sent in and went unanswered by the young man assigned by the ownership to run the place. He called himself the accountant and he almost made up for lack of organisation with sheer skill at flattery, but what he was REALLY good at was saying he would do something when asked but never actually following it through. That didn’t totally explain the pile of CVs though, which I later found out was because he knew from experience that anyone with a Cert would run a mile when they saw what the place was like. I, however, knew no better…
Anyway, I took the plunge one Monday morning and entered an alternative TEFL world. When people in the EFL world complain of a lack of resources in their school, they’re normally referring to outdated text books or fewer photocopiable books than they are used to. Well, this place had zero resources- not a single book. I was initially told that the company would buy me a Cutting Edge or a Face To Face, which I could then use for photocopying and distributing to students. As illegal as that is, it would’ve been better than starting work with no coursebook and having to go to the local library and take out a couple of Headways. Within three weeks these had been stolen and I owed £50 to the council.
There was, in effect, no management. A young woman would sit at her desk all day reading Hello, Mizzi and other magazines so synonymous with the word “education”, occasionally looking up and giving contemptuous glances at the teachers as they rushed to their lessons. She was the ‘manager’, and those people she scowled at were the people doing her work. On my first day I learnt that no one had been paid for three months- and they were still teaching there! And not just teaching- one of the teachers had taken it upon herself to test and place the students into levels, giving the place some semblance of normality. There was also a guy from the Czech republic working nine hours a day. Somehow he’d got caught in a work trap, the constant promises of payment of the money he was owed keeping him hanging on.
You might also be wondering why students would turn up and pay up in droves to attend these courses. Well, the person leafleting outside was obviously hitting his target market and these courses were cheap in comparison to other places. Some students learnt that you get what you pay for and accepted it. Others wanted to cancel but found that it was too late as the money had often been taken before they left their native country. For many, the plan was to attend classes for five minutes, get their name on the list, then get themselves back to work safe in the knowledge that they had theoretically kept to the terms of their student visas. Others were more committed and would turn up for every lesson and stay until the end. These students were the main reason why the teachers didn’t do a bunk- that and the chance of someday getting paid.
I really got to learn what London was like for people from the rest of the world in that job. Some of my students worked through agencies specialising in illegal labour. One woman was sending most of the money she earned back to her home in Mongolia. Another had lucked out as a house-sitter for an extremely wealthy South American.
Working at the place was not without its bizarre moments- and people. One day a rather eccentric character appeared, a Don Quixote figure sporting a Three Musketeers moustache and who introduced himself as (insert grandiose and ridiculous name of your choosing here) and said he was an actor, model and teacher. His lessons seemed to be popular with the students, despite a Teacher Talking Time of around 95% and a classroom that was fast evolving into a shrine to himself.
It started with a few photographs, and then multiplied over a couple of weeks until all four walls were plastered with images of his face. Then there were crystals, joss sticks and other new agey ceremonial tosh. Entering the room was more like witnessing a Process Church of the Final Judgement meeting than an EFL class, but apparently hypnotic / subliminal messages and a touchy-feely environment can help learning, so who knows, maybe the guy was a genius and not simply a bonkers narcissist.
One morning all the teachers were summoned. It must’ve been something that couldn’t wait, because they seemed perfectly happy for us to leave our classes to attend. What could it be? The vital task was to instantly go to a photo booth on Oxford Street and get our mug-shots taken for the website. Rushing there and back with my instant snaps, I got back to a class of students still sitting there with resigned expressions waiting to be taught. What could you say but ‘Very important business, sorry’?
So how did it end? Well for the school it ended with a bankruptcy a short while after I left, only it didn’t really. In the UK nowadays, you can liquidate your debts and dissolve the company a number of times and essentially keep the business running as before with the exact same owners under a different name. For me, it ended with finally getting some of the pay they owed me and doing the four week course that I really shouldn’t have waited so long to do. I now know methodology and all that jive, but I’m still not sure I know how to cope with an Oxford Street school.”
Any experiences of the other (i.e. main) side of teaching English in the UK? Any other amusingly eccentric bosses or colleagues? Comments below please, or email me if you’d like to make a guest piece out of it (or anything else)