Archive for the ‘TEFL humour’ Category

Re-reading my little story on weeping housewives (or not) who hadn’t done their homework, I must admit that it does really cut it as an anecdote- never been a talent of mine, as I find my own life incredibly dull and so hardly worth telling anyone about. To make up for it, here’s the one anecdote from other teachers I have heard over the last 13 years that has made me laugh more than any other. 

Our hero starts with a fairly typical set of difficult TEFLing circumstances, he’s got the Headway textbook and teacher’s book but no tape. Not worried so far, he is slightly put off by the fact that the lesson that is coming up is the part of Headway with the song “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton. Luckily, he finds a solution. (more…)

… you can’t explain anything that happened in your lesson to a non-TEFLer in less than two attempts

 … none of your teaching stories are funny to anyone outside the profession

I had a classic example of this recently when I told my new wife that one of my two students in a home lesson cried for 45 minutes because I nagged her about her homework and then was smiling and laughing by the end of the class. The slight misunderstanding was that she thought I was talking about an adult class. The mental picture gave me a laugh, but I still told her that she would have to try to be a bit more understanding with the neurotic teaching stories (just think of us as lovey actors) or I’d have to send her back under the Japanese two week purchase cooling off period.

You can see the original You Know You’ve Been in TEFL Too Long post here, EFL Geek’s take on it here and the original You Know You’ve Been in Japan Too Long When here.

Having found out from the book “English for Specific Purposes” by Keith Harding that ESP has spawned a whole raft of lovely acronyms such as EAP, EBP, EMP, EOP, EPP, EST, EVP* and also the disparaging one for General English of ENOP (English for No Obvious Purpose), I thought it was time to brush the dust off the Alternative ELT Jargon Dictionary and set off in defence of General English.

Although I have a fair number of ENOP students in both my Business and General English classes, lots of my non-Business students have very specific purposes indeed. Here are a few acronyms to make those purposes look a bit more important and so get them the respect they deserve:

EKTRP- English for Killing Time after Retirement Purposes

EACRP- English for Avoiding Cultural Restrictions Purposes- like Japanese women who can only debate in English because the feminine forms of their own language are so weak it is impossible to compete with men

ESAP- English for Smart Arse Purposes- such as showing off the latest useless idiom they have learnt

EEP -English for Extramarital Purposes

EGSP- English for Gaijin Stalking Purposes/English for Giri Stalking Purposes- this one works for women whose list of needs in a relationship are topped by “blond hair” in both Spain and Japan

ENP- English for Nationalistic Purposes- such as explaining to foreigners why they should never criticise your country

EBP- English for Babysitting Purposes

ETP- English for Therapeutic Purposes- because your GABA teacher is the only person who will listen to your problems

ECP- English for Chaperone Purposes- for Turkish university students who are only allowed to stay out past the curfew of their halls and meet people of the other sex by signing on for English classes

And a couple which give a more realistic idea of what Business English and ESP classes turn out to be:

EAWP- English for Avoiding Work Purposes- coming to class might be the only chance they have for a one hour lunch break

EBP- English for Budgetary Purposes- for companies where the only way to give staff training on the cheap is to choose English lessons rather than the IT training they really need (more…)

1. You laminate your shopping lists (more…)

See if you can guess which one it is:

“For teachers who understandably rely on this skill of communication, it may be worth their while to consider the use of the varied styles that are available to them. To many, it will quite obvious that the monotonous tone does not achieve much success and leads to impatience, boredom, and irritability, both on the giving and receiving end. Such a tone is not result oriented. Rather, a more varied, creative and skilful approach to this art is recommended. This can be achieved through the use of interesting and atypical vocabulary, tone, and gestures. Analogies, similies, metaphors, rhyme, and rhytmn are also useful ways of (more…)

Try googling “UN to ban unnecessary languages” for a good laugh, and don’t skip the comments…