TEFL scabs
Seems that there is an interesting TEFL strike story going on right on my doorstep that I hadn’t even heard about, including loads of juicy controversy. You can see the recent open letter by the leader of the Berlitz strike here, and the article in Metropolis she was replying to here.
Hat tip to the David English House newsletter for teachers, part of the ETJ (English Teachers in Japan) empire of niceness (in endless opposition to the JALT empire of evil). If you are in Japan, don’t miss the upcoming ETJ Expos in October and November.
October 6th, 2008 at 4:32 am
ETJ is an empire of niceness. I agree. I’ll be presenting at the ETJ Tokyo Expo in November.
Don’t agree that JALT is evil. I’m organising a forum at teh JALT National Conference. The forum is called English Education in Japan: Moving forward collaboratively. The panellists include representatives from JALT, JACET AJET and ETJ. The ETJ panellist is David Paul. Over the last couple of years there has been much cooperation, and collaboration between these groups and others. The conference I chjaired last July, The Nakasendo English Conference is just one example. Another is the ETJ Expos themselves. JALT will have a both at some of the Expos. ETJ will have a booth at the JALT National Conference. Most of my colleagues belong to both JALT and ELT and contribute to both.
Some members of JALT are evil. Some members of ETJ are evil. Neither organisation is evil IMHO. If you are free next Sunday, why don’t you come to a JALT Omiya meeting and meet some nice people, many of whom are also members of ETJ Saitama.
Cheers!
October 6th, 2008 at 6:16 am
You are of course right, I was just trying to introduce a bit of spice and healthy competition. Maybe the main problem about JALT is actually a lack of sense of humour…
October 9th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Power to the worker! Down with the scabs! Fight the Power! Raise the wages!
October 9th, 2008 at 11:57 am
No connection apart from also being about TEFL and in a proper newspaper, but this article about footballers as language teachers might interest some of you:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/a-new-goal-for-football-stars-to-spread-love-of-languages-954593.html
October 9th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Another interesting news story: English teachers bring drugs into Korea:
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/Story?id=5838267&page=1