Comments on: An interview with Bruce Veldhuisen of TEFL International

By: Bored

Bored — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:13:57 +0000

Lets make this a “winner take all” question. If Bruce can successfully answer the franchise question, and he seems to be in a difficult position, he “wins” and we all agree vekter and his group are just a couple of sad sacks with an axe to grind.

If Bruce cannot answer, then Ti and he are permanently in the Hall of Shame!

Everyone agree?

By: Bruce

Bruce — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:30:07 +0000

[EDITED]

Regarding the person who I believe cheated me–that issue will be resolved in court. Several criminal cases remain in the hands of the police. People who are inaccurately claiming that my police reports were ignored by the police will find that they are very much mistaken.

Vekter, If you have any evidence I strongly suggest you keep it handy. The wheels of justice move slowly in Thailand but the are moving.

And for the 5,000th time, I continue to offer Happy the following:

1. Full payment of all money he believes he is owed
2. Payment of all legal fees for binding arbitration

He gains everything. He loses nothing. All he needs to is publicly admit the findings and apologize if he was wrong.

[EDITED- along with all the other posts below that were basically about TEFLWatch. All comments that include proof for and against what Bruce said in the interview will stay, if in edited form. All other comments will be deleted at my discretion. I think we can all agree that we don't want TEFLtastic to turn into another TEFLWatch, or at least that we don't want it to have its final fate, so this is my attempt to ensure that]

By: vekter

vekter — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:00:15 +0000

Bruce,did you say that TI had never sold Franchises

http://www.sebi.gov.in/dp/everonn.pdf

pages 85/86/87 of the document not the pdf numbers

Now I know Bruce will have time to think of some very good reasons why he never mentioned these and may even say they were set up as a charity or maybe he forgot them, well he could, but I also have the franchise agreement he used which makes no mention of a charity!I was reliably informed that he opened 60 of these, maybe more

Bruce has lived his life telling lies and I think now is the time I let the truth come out……this is the start!

By: Larry Ryan

Larry Ryan — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:24:58 +0000

I was on the course with Vince, but don’t know if we were in the same group (there were 2). I had a room in the back side and had no problems with noise, but remember there were a couple of people facing the front that had problems with niose, but only a few nights if I remember. I only remember 2 computers for internet access, but there may have been 4, it wasn’t a big deal at the time. If there was any pot smoking “on site” then it was kept very low key and I never got wind of it (sorry for the pun), but there were a couple of people there that looked like they partied somewhere. Booze wasn’t allowed, but there was a place 100 meters down the road on the beach that was opened late and it was a regular meeting place at night. Bruce’s wife never did an observation on my group nor did any office girls. We did do the video and had to do a self evaluation. If you’ve never done a self evaluation I highly recommend it. I used a copy of mine to get my first job. I have 3 or 4 vcds of me teaching in Taiwan and will make a new one this year. There was one guy who was getting his advanced TEFL cert and was attending our classes and was receiving training in observing trainees. This was explained to us and I thought everyone was cool with it at the time. If there was a serious “physical” fights I don’t remember, but anytime you put a lot of strangers together in a new situation there are bound to be some spats. I’m not the most social person in the worlds, but I made some really good friends their and have stayed in touch with a couple. I made some really good friends there. What I found more valuable than the teaching practice (5 observed plus the taped one) was that we were in groups of 4 or so and got to observe others in our group. I was really impressed with the people I watched (Maybe Vince was one) and I learned something from everyone I watched. I don’t remember the trucks being in a paticularly bad state of repair and never had to push one, but there were different groups in different trucks. There were things I liked and things I didn’t, but on the whole I got what I was told I would get and have been able to compete favorably for good jobs. I never used the employment help, but haven’t had any problems getting good paying work. At the time of the course, I felt that there were only 2 courses that would prepare me for work and would allow me to compete for the better jobs. The first was CELTA and the second was with TEFL International and both were in the same price range. There were others that were cheaper, but I didn’t consider them as serious courses. Everything boils down to perceptions. 2 people can share an experience and have very different memories and each is true to that person.

By: Tdol

Tdol — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:11:18 +0000

Bruce,
The ESLJudge.com site has been up for several months now, yet the ‘Who Are We’ page is still blank. Here you say that you helped finance it in some way, though to what degree we don’t know. This does make the site look a bit grubby to me, especially when you did not mention your financial connection in the interview when talking about its credibility.

By: TW

TW — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:39:16 +0000

Bruce, I see that you are still carrying on. Are you not able to heed the words of your very own prophet?

You have privately asked for forgiveness and I have forgiven you. I do not know why you insisted on bringing the issues up time and time again. I am sorry, but you are not able to take back apology or is that what you are asking for?

I have never said that I am certain that you got me fired. But I do know the threats you made publicly on TW against me and others. I do know that you obtained information on my real name and where I worked. Within mere days of your obtaining this information, I felt compelled to leave my job.

I accepted you at your word that it didn’t happen and I accepted your apologies for making me think it did.

My point on these comments is why you felt the need to rehash things against me and TW several months on. I think everyone here knows that this was put all to rest last December. Why did you feel the need to bring this all up again?

You do what you want to do in the way of sworn affidavits. The truth(and the Caravan) marches on and isn’t stopped just because you throw a lot of paper at it.

Contention is of the devil. You are contending with everyone, but you seem to be unwilling to take up the sword and shield of the truth…and put your faith in it.

I guess it is for you to keep contending. Maybe you think this is something that you can win because you know how to carry on and on and can bloviate with the best of them.

I love you, Bro. Veldhuisen and I ask that you learn from your mistakes and move forward.

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:50:25 +0000

Because, as I mentioned I am planning to ask those questions myself to Bruce in interview part two. If you would feel better emailing me the questions directly, then please do so. Some irrelevant comments in support of Bruce have also not yet been approved.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:55:20 +0000

I wanted a special reply just for TW.

First of all, thank you for forgiving me. I am certain that I have done things in the past that have offended you and possibly harmed you. I am a human being and I make mistakes. However, I simply cannot accept your forgiveness for contacting your school and having you fired. Nor can I accept your forgiveness for trying to throw you in jail. These things never happened and so they are things that i cannot be forgiven for.

I would be happy to go to NST tomorrow and get sworn statements from your former school administrators and Geordie. Is that really what it would take to get you to drop the wild accusations?

I am happy to admit, publicly, that TEFL International is an organization run by people and that people do make mistakes, myself included. We are not perfect, nor will we ever be perfect. We do our best, we keep the vast majority of our customers satisfied, some are unhappy. Luckily that is a very small number (percentage wise).

Now, on to Happy. I forgive the guy. And he needs my forgiveness. He has continually accused me of something that I never did. Looking back, I should have just paid the guy, even though I did not owe him a dime. But that doesn’t mean that I was wrong IN THAT CASE. I don’t believe I was, but I am happy to allow courts and lawyers decide. Unfortunately, Happy refuses to participate.

So, TW, I have no idea what you expect of me. I cannot change the truth. I did not get you fired. I did not attempt to get you arrested. I did not (and do not) owe Happy any money. I cannot change that any more than I can go back in time and make the karaoke bars be quiet and the songtaew to make less smoke for Vince.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:32:30 +0000

Re Alex and Vince vs Mike, I have to agree with Vince, at least 60 percent and 90 percent with Alex.

The course in question was troublesome. Most of it was due to those stupid karaoke bars that opened next to us. One thing likethat can raise the stress level of people participating to a point where things that might otherwise seem inconsequential suddenly become really important–everything starts to bug them.

On that particular course I believe we did have the trainees observe the video themselves and, for whatever reason, it did not seem to help them much, so we abandoned it.

Our SongTaew company got fired because they kept sending us crappy old vehicles.

Vince, some of what you say is just wrong, like the Nike internship. It was an INTERNSHIP and the pay was not great. Why you would claim otherwise is beyond me. But I have no idea why you were ignored. I can tell you we do continue to correspond. Try it out today–email admin and ask for help getting a job in…. China, Costa Rica, etc.

And, lets face it, you made your time in Ban Phe seem as terrible as possible. Other than one TP that was only on video, and the 50-minute classes (a very standard practice around the world) what else was wrong with your COURSE? I am in constant contact with some people on your course today and, despite the fact that there were a few imperfections they enjoyed their experience very much.

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:44:36 +0000

I can see theoretically how interviewing many people would help, and I would certainly do that if I was going to write a real article for the EL Gazette, but

- I have already put too much time and effort into this subject, and it is beginning to bore me (I’m sure you of all people understand my feelings on this)

- As the one thing people seem to agree on is that you can’t learn the truth from what info is out there, a new approach is obviously needed.

- As blogging is an unpaid hobby (if there is any income from the Google ads, it goes to the owner of TEFL.net), if I don’t follow my own ideas and interests, it doesn’t get done…

So, that is the way it is going to be. I will put the questions to Bruce, he will answer, and then you can post any proof you have that his answers are wrong afterwards.

Two more days, if anyone else wants to send me questions to ask him.