Archive for the ‘links’ Category

Seems that there is an interesting TEFL strike story going on right on my doorstep that I hadn’t even heard about, including loads of juicy controversy. You can see the recent open letter by the leader of the Berlitz strike here, and the article in Metropolis she was replying to here.

Hat tip to the David English House newsletter for teachers, part of the ETJ (English Teachers in Japan) empire of niceness (in endless opposition to the JALT empire of evil). If you are in Japan, don’t miss the upcoming ETJ Expos in October and November.

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:

As this batch is nowhere near the size of September Part One, let’s start by padding out a little with a link to an interesting newspaper article on speed dating adapted for language learning, shall we?

Right, as that was the only article of interest I could find that was even vaguely connected to TEFL, down to business with links to the more serious stuff I’ve been writing elsewhere when not distracted by attempts at humour on this blog:

15 variations on TEFL boardgames

15 ways of simplifying your classroom language

15 more ways of simplifying your classroom language

Yet another 15 ways to make sure your students understand you

Almost certainly the final 15 ways of avoiding classroom misunderstandings

15 ways to adapt a textbook with too much stuff in it

15 more ways to cope with an overloaded textbook

Yet another 15 ways of dealing with a textbook that is packed full of material

15 ways of coping with a textbook that is too easy

15 more ways of using a textbook that is too low level for your class

That’s all for September, which seems a bit slack I know when everyone else is just getting down to business. If you want more of the same, or even better stuff I was writing before I became obsessed with adapting textbooks, have a look at:

All my stuff on UsingEnglish.com

TEFL.net TEFL articles (that enough TEFL for yer?)

TEFL.net Idea Thinktank

Or if you are a glutton for punishment:

My full list of publications with links

“CELTA is a faraway planet populated by descendants of space travelers. Paranormal ‘gifts’ are called Flair here and vary by… type and strength. A caste system based on those strengths has come about over the centuries…” (more…)

Doesn’t last of course, especially the initial thrill of being in the chaos of a third world city or in the chaos left for you by the last person who had that DoS job, but if having some kind of career plan gets you out of the bed in the morning with more motivation than I had six months ago, wth- got to be a good thing!

Whether your next plan is/ will be how to become a teacher trainer, an ELT author, a better teacher or just someone who is making an active effort to fight the boredom, we at TEFLtastic have the article for you on our totally updated page right here.

15 fun ways of using pre-school storybooks

15 ways of preparing for ELT management

15 variations on a grammar auction

15 common complaints about TEFL workshops (and how to respond to them)

15 things to find out about a TEFL certificate course

15 criteria of a good needs analysis

How’s that for a minimalist blog post! To make up for the lack of text, here are even more links:

157 articles and worksheets of mine on UsingEnglish.com

onestopenglish.com (the Macmillan website, where you usually have to pay to see most of my stuff but which has some kind of special offer on at the moment)

New stuff in August, for those who have recently joined us (welcome!)

And brand new worksheets etc actually on TEFLtastic:

Business English rotating revision board game

Complaints sentence expansion game

Dealing with complaints guess the situation

Dealing with complaints pairwork- Amusing and odd excuses

Email and internet abbreviations

Email language definitions game

Email rules business meeting

Formal and informal email errors

Telephone and email spot the difference pairwork

“Punishment“- Passive voice and tense review

Table manners Present Simple and Continuous mimes

Describing people workshop

English for Telephoning/ Negotiating double book review

Updated, expanded and with many more links here:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets/telephoning/

Have done a bit more tedious reorganisation so that you don’t need to do so much tedious searching, and you can now find all the links to my stuff on said topics elsewhere on the internet as well as my exclusive TEFLtastic stuff here:

Teaching exam classes-articles and tips for teachers

and here:

EFL exam worksheets, lesson plans and tips for students

Comments or tips for other good sources welcome here:

Look for lines like this:

“I got a real buzz working with some of the teenagers who didn’t really want to be there”

Newspapers are full of PR releases repackaged as “journalism” nowadays, and I don’t just mean rags like the Mirror (source of the article the quote comes from), and TEFL has more than its fair share. Here’s hoping that some people try Google before deciding that working as a TEFL teacher is something you should pay for the privilege of.

If you don’t believe me, before you buy one of language courses for just 100 dollars* have a free trial of one of our other “…in just three months” ® courses, for example:
- Anyone can learn to run 100 metres in 10 seconds in just three months
- Anyone can learn good taste in just three months
- Anyone can learn to speak in a squeaky or ridiculously gruff voice without being embarrassed in just three months
- Anyone can learn to accept a language that assumes different gender roles in just three months
- Anyone can gain a Meryl Streep- like ability to mimic accents in just three months
- Anyone can learn to settle down for self-study every evening rather than turning on the TV in just three months
- Anyone can train themselves to learn something just because they are told to in just three months
- Anyone can become charismatic in just three months
- Anyone can overcome memory loss in just three months
- Anyone can expand their vocabulary in their own language by 5000 words in just three months
- Anyone can learn perfect pitch in just three months
- Anyone can become interested in inane chatter at house parties in just three months
- Anyone can train themselves to prefer books and films they don’t understand in just three months
- Anyone can learn to abandon Hollywood films and news from back home in favour of knowledge of the local obscure culture in just three months
- Anyone can stop preferring a good book to pointless small talk with strangers in just three months
- Anyone can learn delayed gratification in just three months
- Anyone can lose the desire to express complex thoughts in just three months
- Anyone can overcome their natural human weaknesses in just three months
- Anyone can learn to relate to people who they have nothing in common with in just three months
- Anyone can drop all their cultural baggage in just three months
- Anyone can learn to be word perfect in reciting a 5000 word book in just three months
- Anyone can reverse their ideas of what it means to be polite and impolite in just three months
- Anyone can learn to prefer vocabulary lists to ice cream or sex in just three months
- Anyone can learn how to never give up on something once they have started it in just three months
- Anyone can learn never to doubt the usefulness of what you are being taught in just three months
- Anyone can learn to sustain an interest in something they chose on a whim in just three months
- Anyone can learn to reverse all their normal body language in just three months
- Anyone can learn to never be distracted in just three months
- Anyone can learn to resist all temptations that could get in the way of studying in just three months
- Anyone can learn to never think of excuses for procrastination in just three months
- Anyone can learn enough Physics to enter an undergraduate course in just three months
- Anyone can learn to be a saint in just three months
- Anyone can find a meaning to life in just three months
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- Anyone can learn to enjoy studying in just three months
- Anyone can learn to stop asking for colour, decent illustrations, lack of typos and other reasonable production standards in their self-study materials in just three months
- Anyone can learn how to spot an outrageously ambitions claim for self-study materials in just three minutes
- Anyone can learn to stop trusting a newspaper that has advertorials for this kind of crap in just three seconds

* Price of monthly payment when paying for the course in the usual 360 monthly instalments