Archive for the ‘TEFL blogs’ Category

Hi Bruce, welcome back to TEFLtastic. It’s a shame we never get anyone from TEFL International contributing to TEFL.net when it isn’t connected to teacher training. Let me know if any of your trainers are interested in writing book reviews or articles for us.

I am certain that can be arranged!

For Part Three, I’d like to do an update on what has changed in TEFL International and in the TEFL world more generally since your last comment in Interview Part Two on 28 July this year. I haven’t been following all the various stories very closely, so apologies if you have to repeat some things you’ve said many times elsewhere but I guess most people reading are in the same situation as me. I’ll ask for your comments on things I’ve heard, and then give you a chance to mention other things. 

OK

There are some reports of trouble with the immigration police connected to a TEFL International course in China- any information or comments?

I heard it all second hand but this is what I know.  In April 2008 the visa laws in China changed leading up to the Olympics.  Some people got caught in the cracks, the Course Administrator really failed (failed might be too strong of a term as it was a difficult if not impossible situation) and the police closed down the school.

I was unhappy with the way the CA handled things and I relieved him of his duties.  I immediately resolved the situation and we began offering legal courses the following month.

I have publicly posted on several websites about this situation and asked that if anyone feels they were cheated in some way that they should contact me directly or contact the BBB.

Can’t you just contact the course participants directly through their contact details and offer everyone a refund or whatever?

The accusation was not about one specific course.  It was a general accusation about our course in Beijing and even our organization in general.  Therefore we made a general offer to any participants that feel they have been cheated.

Has this made you make changes to how you recruit Course Administrators so that you get someone you don’t have to fire next time?

Unfortunately, no.  The CA was a grad and we thought he was good and professional.  Hiring is not, nor has it ever been, an exact science.

In the comments of Interview Part Two I also gave a link to someone saying that they’d paid for a course under another name in Argentina (“My program (GIC Argentina) sends its TEFL students to the TEFL International classes, but they never told me that or where to go or when”) and then were surprised (but remarkably unperturbed) when they got moved over to a TEFL International course. 

I actually have no idea.  Perhaps a local course that was unable to run with one or two trainees decided to send them over to us?

So you give individual centres a lot of freedom to decide this kind of stuff without contacting TEFL International central?

Not really.  I am a bit baffled about this “complaint”.  I would guess that this person jus became confused after looking at 10 different sites with 10 slightly different claims and became confused.  That happens a lot.

Do you not think most of the genuine complaints there have been come down to this?

No.  There have been a few instances when a trainer just does not do his/her job well or circumstances beyond our control cause a problem.

Do you think that would be acceptable if it happened?

Every case is different.  Whenever we have a complaint we deal with every person differently, depending upon how they want to proceed.

Are there any other genuine and bogus complaints since you last commented here that you’d like to mention or explain how you responded?

The only major event in the last year plus has been July Beijing.  Everything has been rather smooth.  A minor hiccup with British Council but that seems to have been resolved.

Can you/ would you like to give details on the British Council thing?

[No answer given]

I’ve also seen your own comments on Ajarn about court cases you’ve been involved in. Can you give us a brief update here?

Not a lot more has happened since my ajarn.com update.  The court cases are going very well from our side and I believe they will completely vindicate me and all the crazy accusations that were made on TEFLWatch and several other sites that used TW as a source.  It will never make all the attacks worthwhile, but there will at least be some justice.

I can’t find the original thread. Can you summarize it here?

Dumb guy who cheated me is thoroughly exposed in court.  He was one of the main posters on ajarn.com attacking me and now he has been exposed as a liar and a thief.  More charges still pending and more people will go to jail in the end.

This is not a fun situation for me.  Far from it.  But after I was blatantly cheated and then publicly humiliated with lies on TW by these guys, I cannot say I am not looking forward to getting a bit of justice.

In a Stickman interview (http://www.stickmanweekly.com/StickMarkII/BruceVeldhuisenLordOfTEFL.htm) you really lay into the people who post on Ajarn, so why would you start your own thread on it?

I posted it on the 2 main sites frequented by expats in Thailand.  One of those sites is ajarn.com.  TW was always predominantly Thai-based and ajarn.com is certainly one of the best ways to contact the Thailand teaching community.

I also read someone suggesting that Dave Hopkins has moved on from TEFL International. If that is true it must be a blow, as your comments seemed to suggest you relied on him a lot to maintain academic standards since you stopped using IATQUO.

Dave is still very much a full-time employee of TEFL International.  I appreciate his skills, dedication and efforts very much.  But he is going to retire eventually. 

Any idea how the rumour started?

LOL you must be joking.  In the two years under which I have been under attack, the rumours have either been a very serious twist of the truth or simply a complete fabrication.  There are people who will simply MAKE THINGS UP out of thin air.  And some of these people owned and controlled rather prominent websites.  I could give you dozens and dozens of examples.

Well, Dave WILL retire eventually I have no doubt.  Just a guess but I would think Dave has worked longer for me than for any other employer.  He now works PT at Asian University but he has an agreement with me to work at least through June of 2009.

The site ESL Judge, that you supported the setting up of and was supposed to offer a fairer arbitration process than blogs such as this seems to have disappeared. Any idea what happened?

None.  It’s too bad.  A worthwhile site that tried to assist people in resolving disputes.  I am tempted to try to get it reopened.

Sandy MacManus’s most recent blog has also bitten the dust (with the person who was blackmailing him with revealing his true identity trying to make him think the attacks came from you, amongst others). A cause for joy amongst TEFL course providers such as yourself, or do you think TEFL blacklisters do have a role to play?

I think bloggers have to be fair.  Sandy was not.  One prime example was when someone made a comment he interpreted to be a physical threat.  He immediately accused me and spent quite a bit of time calling me every name in the book.  When it turned out to be just an inside joke from his friend, he never retracted a thing he said or bothered to apologize.  People with that mentality, with such an inability to treat people fairly, should not have blogs. 

I see your point of course, but journalists get paid to do lots of research and have legal departments and editors to make sure they remain fair. If you haven’t got some kind of passion driving you such as a chip on your shoulder, why would you bother running such a site for no pay? The way I see it, if Sandy doesn’t do it no one will. (My own motivation for blogging is a vague hope that people will offer me paid ELT writing work, but TEFL blacklisting bores me so I don’t bother even though I think it could be a worthy cause if done properly).

So what you are saying is its ok to do a half-assed job.  It’s only the internet and we do this for free.  Sorry, that just doesn’t cut it.  The reality is that sandy has the potential to be read by millions of people.  If he is not going to do a professional job of it he should keep his opinions to himself.

Alex, remember that when you have a site like sandy’s you are potentially damaging the livelihood of hundreds of people.  He has certainly damaged my reputation.  And with what information?  Absolute lies copied from TW.  Lies easily proven to be lies.  Did he bother to spend 2 minutes emailing me for my side of the story?  Nope.

I believe in Karma.

Thanks Bruce.

Comments and questions from others welcome, but under the usual rules:

- One comment or question per post

- No posting twice in a row without anyone else posting in between

- Keep to the topics in this interview or in previous comments

- Try to be nice

Bruce will, of course, also be told to keep to those rules. I will also be nagging him to actually do something about real contributions from TI to TEFL.net…

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:

Recently stumbled upon a few blogs on this subject due to them linking to me (hint hint), and here they are:

The Pain in Spain (the earliest posts are the best for getting an overview of teaching in Madrid)

A Small Flaking White House in Lost Spain (doesn’t have quite enough stuff about teaching to make typing that name out more than once in full worthwhile, but what I’ve read I’ve liked, so try browsing a relevant category or two):

Teaching English in Spain

And, unusually for a readable blog, the Academia’s point of view: (more…)

I must be the least likely blogger of all time, being neither technically savvy nor generally interested in online content- I’d never read a blog before I started this one, and I still reckon most of the best stuff is still in books. Anything from Zoltan available on the web? I thought not.

Once in a while though, I do stumble upon some good stuff. As that gives me even more stuff I want to read, I usually don’t find time to even mention it here, so here goes while I still feel a little recharged from my summer hols:

The Linguist Blogger

Some very thought provoking stuff, and perhaps a lesson to me that blogging less frequently produces greater quality… Two recent ones that particularly took my fancy:

Building Nations with the Cunning Use of Foreign Languages

Language Learning and Weight Lifting

Back in the world of TEFL, the other Dave is going through some highlights from his articles and he has chosen well, particularly:

In Search of a Word: Can Ambition Survive in TEFL?

When is it too late to get out of TEFL?

If like me you were stimulated by the ELT World articles but irritated by having to have a Google ID to comment, feel free to leave your comments here instead:

While I’m on the subject and have to make the most of Favourites on this PC (it’s staying in Japan when I go to Korea), here is a list of TEFL, linguistics and Japan related sites I most often end up at, in approximate order:

1. Dave’s ESL Cafe international job forums (the pointless bitching makes it more memorable somehow, maybe it’s the Dynasty of TEFL sites)

2. The TESall.com TEFL news ticker (including links to the forum discussions that are actually worthwhile)

3. The TEFL tradesman (as foul-mouthed and crusading as we’d all like to be)

4. The TEFL Blacklist (does exactly what it says in the title)

5. EL Gazette digital (a real TEFL newspaper. Click on the link on the main page to subscribe for free)

6. An Englishman in Osaka (just very funny, and so beats all the much more informative Japan blogs, of which there are many, in competing for my online time…)

7. Guardian TEFL (some real journalism would be nice- see EL Gazette for that- but a good way of keeping up with TEFL press releases anyway)

8. The Life of Mike (some odd changes of direction, but some thought provoking and entertaining posts)

9. Notes from the TEFL graveyard (hits the funny yet practical, cynical yet enjoying the life balance that I struggle with on my blog)

10. Teacher in Development (would probably be around number 2 if there were more posts)

11. Metatesol (pithy, to the point and almost inactive- this one would also be higher if this little bit of prompting results in more posts)

If I was a better person the list would probably be different, and Rave’s ESL Au Lait wouldn’t even be in the list let alone at the top and Insights into TEFL , Humanising Language Teaching  and Developing Teachers would be in there, but like my irrational desire to eat cheap gyudon, that is where I really end up. End of confession- how many Hail Mario’s for absolution?

There are a suprising number of TEFL blogs that make me giggle (you can find them under “Funny TEFL blogs” on my links page), but now that Chase Me Ladies is no longer TEFLing, the TEFLtastic prize for funniest TEFL blog will probably have to go to English Teacher X.

Like all comic geniuses (or should that be genii from the Latin?) though, the writer has quite a lot of off days. For example, I found teaching Russian slappers funny for about 10 minutes, and that’s about all I can handle reading about them as well. Luckily for you, I’ve trawled through the whole site and come up with the best bits so you can snigger about them on the teachers’ room computer and then say “Nothing, just an email from my brother” when people ask you why you are giving off an evil laugh: (more…)

As is my role as the navelgazer of TEFL, having had to take a close look at the battleground that is the teflnet recently has made me wonder whether something deeper is going on. Do I hear “class war” as an explanation? I’m never one to rule that out, but my theory is that, as is often the case with these arguments that go on forever, we are actually talking two different languages.

As me and Sandy have been doing more than our fair share of trying to see the TEFL capitalists’ point of view recently, let’s see if I can’t try and explain our particular (and peculiar) culture and viewpoint to them:

 - If you are a successful businessman who heads a large company, for many people that is enough to make you the enemy. and there is nothing you can do to change their minds. For example, how many people have admitted they were wrong about Bill Gates’s evil empire just because he has turned into Mother Theresa? That’s right- none! It could be due to a philosophy of class war or other political reasons, it could be bitterness, but it’s usually a version of the tall poppy syndrome. I personally think that the tall poppy syndrome is healthy, and while it suggests an abandonment of logic it’s no worse than the ‘rich and successful = good’ culture of the rest of the world (more…)

This interview was conducted by email over the last week or so, with me submitting the main outline and then asking a few follow up questions when the main answers came back. My questions are in bold, and the follow up questions and answers are in italics.

1. A brief history of your career
This was covered in a recent interview in the BKK Post but here it is again:

I began life in a completely different field—selling industrial equipment and negotiating Joint Ventures in China.  When the company I worked for had a problem with our customer in China, I was sent to Hong Kong to resolve it. 
When the company went under, I was somewhat abandoned in Hong Kong. 

The job market back home was not that good (and my field was very specialized) so I thought I would look for a job in Hong Kong.  A friend suggested I teach English to earn some money to pay the rent.

Before long I was teaching full time and loving it!  I then started opening small schools around Hong Kong.  But after several years I was burned out.  Married by then with a small child, we decided to move to Thailand.  Soon afterwards I decided to pen up a TESOL course.  The main purpose was to find and train qualified teachers for the schools in Hong Kong!  But after some initial success I decided to expand.

2.    A brief history of TEFL International, the secret of its success and the principles behind it

Started out as a Trinity course.  After some differences of opinion with the CE of Trinity at the time, we became independent on 1 Jan 2000.  As a small, newly independent school, I decided that the only way we could credibly tell our students that our course was internationally recognized was to be truly international.  Thus, the rapid expansion.

3.    A list of some of the things that TEFL International does now
 ·         TESOL Courses
·         Volunteer Programs
·         Guaranteed Jobs programs
·         Teacher Training for local teachers (usually through the Thai Ministry of Education)
·         Teach/learn language programs
·         Teach/Intern programs
 
4. Can you give some details of TI’s charity/non-profit status and structure

First of all, we do not need to be a non-profit.  We could avoid all taxes by moving our base to some offshore tax shelter.  And it’s not like I enjoy having all of our accounts (including my salary) available to the public.  But we work with universities and universities feel better working with a non profit than a for profit.  Plus, we do a lot of things that non profits do like real volunteer work and assistance for the less fortunate. 

I do not know a lot about US tax laws (which are extremely complex).  But every year we have to hire a special accountant to do our taxes and submit them to the IRS to ensure we continue to meet US non-profit status. (more…)

With all the problems I have had with TEFL teaching dossers (especially dossing DoSes) over the years, I have to admit that their philosophical position does at least have logic going for it- if they are going to be treated like a child and paid like someone in MacDonalds, that is how they are going to do their job. Perhaps the classic example was a teacher in Spain who thought he was owed a job with us due to having been out drinking a few times, and was so incensed at the idea of being asked to write a CV, that he typed up this one line resume for us: (more…)

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…)

I’ve finally sorted out my links page which I totally messed up in my initial enthusiasm in the heady days of all of a year ago when TEFLtastic started. You can find it here:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/links/

Unfortunately, I made such a mess up of it first off that the only way I could see to deal with it was to delete every link and start again, so it’s looking a bit sparse now and I’m sure I’ve forgotten some of the ones that were once there. If anyone would like to suggest a relevant or semi-relevant link, yours or someone else’s, please leave a comment here or link to TEFLtastic and have a click on your link.

The bits that were messing it up were the links to my stuff, which have all moved to my Publications and Writing Work Full List with Links here.

The other change is that the Japan page above is here in fact but not in spirit as the content has now completely moved to my two Japan blogs JapanExplained and QuoteJapan.