adjacency pairs- the strange connection between students being sat beside each other in the first lesson and forming couples
back channelling- TEFL euphemism for shirt lifting
boundary marker-use of textbooks to stake out territory on a desk
caretaker talk- (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.
45. ”Our incompetent teachers will make you feel better about yourself”
46. ”Certificate of achievement for all students who are actually still around at the end of the course”
47. ”Guaranteed students who are a much higher level in each class to explain anything the teacher can’t”
48. ”To guarantee an English-only class, we only employ teachers who have been here for years without learning a word of the language”
49. ”Guaranteed smaller class sizes by the end of term 1″ (more…)
1. “Officially the blondest teachers of any school in Japan/ China/ Taiwan etc”
2. “We’ve never changed because we are perfect”
3. “Come and see the new batch of teachers, fresh off the plane”
4. “The youth of our teachers makes up for the age of our building/ methodology/ technology/ wallpaper/ receptionists etc” (more…)
1. Put a metal plate by the side of your sofa
2. Hold a spoon in your left hand
3. Lie on your sofa with your left hand draped over the plate (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:
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?
TEFL International is not only often quoted as one of the largest TEFL training organisations (see the stats below), it is also almost certainly the one most likely to set off a firestorm by mentioning it on the internet- hence its interest, and the need for these somewhat strict rules on comments: (more…)
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…)
My first surprise was introducing students to the piece of ELT jargon “speech acts”, something I only vaguely remembered from my reading for my DELTA myself, but more about that when I get round to reviewing The Cambridge Grammar of English…
Some of the above were some I had never thought about, some are ones I still doubt, and the rest are just vaguely interesting (something that is worth celebrating when you are reading your way through a grammar book!) Any comments after testing these against your “native speaker intuitions” (also known as “TEFL teacher prejudices”) gratefully received:
“You must” and “you’ll have to” are often used to give non-specific invitations
“And you must come down to Barr at some stage or another”
“You’ll have to come round for a coffee”
What if…? is used for How about…? in “standard British and Irish English”
“What if I set the table?”
“What if we had it here?”
How’s about…? for How about…? in informal contexts in standard British and Irish English
Informal lexis softens a speech act:
“pop in” instead of “visit”/ “wee” in “a wee favour”
“Please” is usually used at the end of a question, but children often put it first:
“Please can I have some more bread?”
“so” and “then” are common in declarative clauses functioning as questions
“So you had a good day at work then?”
“Didn’t it just!” is part of a general pattern of interrogative structures used as explanations, like “Was I exhausted!” and “Hasn’t she grown!”
“Would you mind if one of our representatives comes and gives you a free demonstration?” Would you mind + present
“You want to sound-proof your room with egg boxes”- “want to” for advice in “standard British and Irish English”
“We wanted to get into the way of life here,” said 24-year-old Natan Doyon, who moved from Britain last year with his girlfriend to teach English to Chinese children. He says his pupils were so upset when he told them he couldn’t renew his visa that they begged, “Don’t go. We’ll help you hide.”
He and his girlfriend now plan to try Vietnam.
So many English teachers are being forced to leave that many of the private language schools, the rage lately for children of the upwardly mobile, are closing down for the summer. With only three native English speakers left on its staff, Shane is cutting its summer camp in half and might curtail its fall program. Shane, which is owned by a British chain, advertises that it provides native English speakers.
“If we can’t fulfill that promise, we have nothing to sell,” Wan said. “We’re losing a lot of money.”
See the full story here.
And if TEFL news is your thing (how could it not be?), may I suggest you check out: