Posts Tagged ‘News’

Obviously, I’d like the usual list of 15 or 25, but only one suggestion so far- The Defenestration of Bob T Hash III.

In other language related news, the LPGA has decided the way to improve the popularity of women’s golf is to make sure they all speak English. I think they are half right, but actually what they need to do is to make sure that all the players speak English with sexy foreign accents - preferably French or Russian, and certainly not Spanish or German.

Finally, it seems Africa is suffering from a lack of unskilled labour, and TEFL teachers with no experience or qualifications are just the kind of unskilled worker they need. We can only hope that sending the “EU TEFL teacher mountain” to Africa is as good for the continent as sending the EU food mountain was.

…ETS is crap! I mean really, you’d only need to look at one TOEIC test, an exam that claims to test all skills but has no speaking component, or its history to see that ETS is a company that has turned educational incompetence linked to juicy undeserved government contracts into an art form.

The moral of the story is obviously that governments everywhere need to employ more people with TEFL experience to stop them making such elementary mistakes. It’s a big, bad world out there, and no one knows that better than a TEFL teacher!

… and it’s not because of Interactive Whiteboards- see here for details. (more…)

Or not, but boy would they like you to read that article so quickly that you don’t realise that.

i-to-i is another organisation that gets all kinds of alarm bells ringing in my head, but can’t quite work out why… Just because it all sounds too good to be true??

Bruce has replied to all the questions below, so thanks to the few people who helped me with those rather than repeating the same old “I have evidence but I’m not going to show it to you” comments. I’m going to ask quite a few back up questions, then the finished interview Part Two will go up in maybe a week. In the meantime, all comments on Bruce V, TEFL International etc will be deleted as all the recent ones have already been answered in the interview and there doesn’t seem to be much point in tackling them twice.

When the interview goes up, there will be a 24 hour period with no comments so that people can write up their detailed and evidence-rich responses on Word at home first, rather than firing off the first things that come into their heads. After that time, you will be allowed to comment only on the things said in the interview. Any other comments will be deleted, and persistent offenders will have all their comments deleted (also in previous posts) in order for it to be technically possible to block them through Wordpress. If you have any other comments or questions about TEFL International, you may of course email me.

Comments are open for this post so that you may, if you wish, comment on the policies described above. Any other comments will be deleted.

“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:

http://www.esldaily.org/

http://www.tesall.com

The full story here:

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