The only remaining bits of the English Droid

English Droid is not only the most missed and funniest TEFL blog ever, it is also connected to one of the biggest mysteries in our game. The author, Simon Barne, not only deleted his blog without any notice, but concurrently disappeared from forums and also seems to have gone around getting rid of archived versions and his more serious TEFL articles too. The blog was admittedly cynical beyond belief and so unlikely to get you far in getting a job in Pilgrims, but he was already a DoS in Indonesia when he wrote it and anyway that wouldn’t explain the proper articles etc. A Business English website once tried to get me to write for them with “It’ll be good for you as you can put it on your CV, whereas our present writer doesn’t want it ever to be known to anyone that he touched the world of TEFL”, so maybe it’s being a TEFL teacher that he wants to hide.

Good luck to him wherever he is, and maybe when he retires he can put the site back up again. In the meantime, here is everything that remains, pieced together from people who copied it while it was still around. The much talked about CELTA Without Tears is about halfway down:

TOEFL  Bizarre American exam, in which candidates listen to robots intoning things such as, ‘Wow, I sure hope my meticulously assembled entomology collection has not gotten misplaced by the faculty janitors.’ A deep-voiced robot then asks, ‘What does the woman mean?’

…Childishly crude ‘distracters’ (red herrings) enable you to answer most of the test without even listening to the tape. There are some tricky ones, eg ‘It is not impossible that the team will be less than successful in the final.’ – ‘What does the man mean?’ (Answer: Fuck knows.)

From http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001952.html

IELTS

The questions in IELTS are so full
Of tricky conundrums, the woeful
Student who’s stuck
Cries: Oh, what the fuck -
I’ll chuck all this in and do TOEFL.

From http://polyglotconspiracy.net/2005/03/03/the-ways-and-woes-of-tefltesltesol-the-english-language-broadly-speaking-with-a-dash-of-hero-worship/

ESL Jargon

Teflese is the jargon spoken by all DOSes, DELTA-holders, TEFL trainers and even ordinary teachers.

This is a simple glossary. I have not included terms like inductive learning or procedural syllabus, as it would be far too boring and also I have no idea what they mean.

authentic materials
An article or poem that the teacher raves on about and the students can’t understand.

CELTA
Basic four-week TEFL qualification. Impossible to fail unless you’re really thick.

communicative approach
Prevalent EFL orthodoxy, in which students chat, play games, have fun and produce lamentable English.

contract
Satirical composition that the school owner rewrites whenever the fancy takes him.

Cuisenaire rods
Little ludicrous bits of wood which your more demented colleagues may use for a range of pointless demonstrations in class. Worth borrowing if your lesson is being observed.

DELTA
Advanced qualification for misguided sad gits who want to make a “career” out of teaching English.

DOS
Director Of Studies. Pronounced “doss”, an informal British word that means: “an easy task giving the opportunity for idling”.

drill
Useful tool for humiliating uppity students.

eliciting
This is the difficult art of using suitable cues, pictures and increasingly desperate gestures in order to allow students to contribute language they don’t actually know and thus feel included and motivated. This indispensable teaching technique is particularly effective with beginners. See also explaining.

explaining
This is not a TEFL term and its use will, quite rightly, get you thrown off Diploma courses. See also eliciting.

feedback
By the teacher: telling the students that their pathetic mangling of the English language was brilliant, excellent, a great improvement, etc., but there are one or two teensy-weensy little areas that might need extra practice.
By students: reporting back from a Find Someone Who with enthralling revelations such as “We found that Ari and Ria have never been water skiing; Wawan, Dani and Sri think Titanic is a good film; and all the class want to go home.”

filler
Something meant to fill an unavoidable gap in the planned part of the lesson. Typically a filler lasts 90 minutes.

fluency
The ability to produce gibberish at speed. Far more important than accuracy.

functions
Things like agreeing, suggesting, offering and insulting. DOSes like them and they’re a lot easier to teach than grammar. For example,”Do you like hospital food?” is the second person interrogative form of the present simple of the transitive verb “like” with the uncountable noun “food” as an object. In functional terms, it is either asking someone their opinion or warning them to shut their gob.

grammar
The G word. Once taught only by unimaginative fascists, but now possibly coming back into vogue.

hot correction
Pointing out a mistake immediately, instead of meaning to do so later and forgetting all about it.

jigsaw activities
Activities where students have differing and incomplete information, which they need to pool. For example, one has a map that shows only a garage, a hospital and a post office, while the other has a map that shows only a library, a school and a restaurant. This information gap is meant to reflect a real-life reason for communication. As in real life, students efficiently bridge the gap by showing each other their maps.

lesson plan
An over-ambitious document that you give your DOS before an observed lesson.

mingling
Pointless activity that uses up loads of time and keeps DOSes happy.

noticing
Vogue word in EFL theory. In EFL practice, what teachers can’t help doing when (say) Irma comes into class wearing an extremely tight school uniform.

overteaching

Very dangerous thing to do. Point this out to your DOS when he asks why you did not cover some crucial point in an observed lesson.

pairwork
Activities where students gossip animatedly in their native language and the teacher can’t work out what anyone is saying.

peer correction
Getting mouthy South American students with abysmal pronunciation to “correct” the errors of their grammatically perfect Japanese partners, giving you the welcome opportunity of putting your feet up for a few minutes. An invaluable tool.

pron
Pronunciation, a seemingly inherited ability unaffected by years of English lessons and/or residence in an English-speaking country.

realia
Things you can lug into the classroom to impress your DOS. For instance, if you are teaching the names of parts of a bicycle, you wheel in your old bike. Only done by teachers fresh off the CELTA.

recent research suggests
Key phrase used in English teaching journals to justify the writer’s latest barmy idea. (The research is never cited.)

role play
Good time-consuming skive.

senior teacher
The lance-corporal of the TEFL platoon. Earns fractionally more money in return for numerous thankless tasks like doing placement interviews, relabelling cassettes, laminating games, attending extra meetings and nodding sympathetically while teachers whine about the timetable.

Silent Way
Barmy methodology, where the teacher rarely opens his mouth. Potentially useful ploy if you haven’t a clue what to say.

STT
Student Talking Time. Allowing your students to rabbit on interminably in excruciating pidgin English is a very good thing and should be encouraged.

student-centred learning
Good phrase to use when you’re trying to explain why you were out of your classroom having a fag, chatting up the front desk staff, etc.

study centre
Ill-lit cupboard with a few ancient books that nobody borrows, some dog-eared magazines with the pictures missing, and possibly a computer used by the school caretakers to look at pornography.

Suggestopaedia
Barmy methodology, where students lounge about listening to baroque music. Possibly worth trying, if you happen to like baroque music.

task-based learning
Brilliant skive. You and the students just piss about, writing a brochure or drawing pictures or building a website, and you never have to teach them grammar or anything. They just magically absorb English. Highly recommended, if you can get away with it.

teacher-induced error
This is when, in ignorance or drunkenness, you tell the class something like, “Use will for plans and be going to for spontaneous decisions.” It instantly becomes the one grammatical commandment they will never ever forget.

translation
Despicable practice abhorred by keen teachers and craved by all students.

TTT
Teacher Talking Time. What the students think they’ve paid for, but DOSes don’t like. This is very naughty and is to be avoided at all costs, except, of course, when giving instructions in a very slow, patronizing way with unnatural rising intonation and vigorous hand movements.

Vulcan mind meld
As practised by Mr Spock on Star Trek. Not actually part of current EFL methodology, but probably the only way you’ll ever get your students to learn English.

workshops
Ordeals arranged by sadistic DOSes to sabotage the teachers’ mornings off.

zero conditional
A structure taught for no very good reason at a low level. Useful if you want to say conversation-stopping things like, “If you heat water to 100°, it boils.”

From http://www.talkingcommunities.com/wm/users/rs1e08e57d37d9/esljargon.doc/

Celta without tears

Any fool can pass the Celta. However, one or two trainees are so thick, pig-headed or lazy, they do not. Of course, Celta trainers like to implant the possibility of failure firmly in their charges’ minds, to keep them pliant, while schools fail a few trainees now and then, so they can boast about their rigorous standards. (And they do not have to give you your money back.)

The course normally lasts four weeks. It is fairly intensive, which means the typical bone-idle wasters who want to go into English language teaching find it a bit of a shock. Often they panic, weep down the phone, stay up all night writing and tearing up lesson plans, and so on. This is all quite unnecessary. Passing the Celta is a simple matter of following the tips on this page.

On arrival at the training institution of your choice—perhaps the hallowed halls of International House in London, where you imagine bumping into Liz and John Soars (who are in fact flying to Tahiti on their private jet), or perhaps somewhere less prestigious, like the McDonald’s of language schools, English First—you are shepherded into a room where three people of breathtaking ugliness await you. These are the trainers. Sensitive trainees have been known to bolt at this point. Averting your gaze, you sit down. The ugliest of the trainers (the course leader) then gives you a pep talk.

The talk makes English teachers sound like a tough, dedicated, close-knit squad of highly skilled professionals, instead of the squabbling bunch of drunken layabouts they really are. The more naive trainees sit there wide-eyed, imagining themselves transforming some Third World language school into a pedagogical paradise. The course leader, who models herself on a Marine sergeant, says it will not be a picnic. No way. Wimps, cissies or milksops should leave right now. The other trainers smile lopsidedly in feeble attempts to look like Humphrey Bogart.

You glance around the room. There are keen students fresh from university, writing everything down. There are a few people like you: discontented bank clerks, bankrupt businessmen, discharged soldiers, bored librarians, resting actors, failed lawyers, disillusioned double-glazing salesmen, and so on, between the ages of 25 and 45. There is one old, inflexible, eccentric character, at the moment scrutinising the ceiling tiles, who will fail the course.

The course has two main parts: input, in which you learn all about the Communicative Approach and how much better it is than the atrocious language teaching you experienced at school, and practice, in which you are let loose on some real students.

In the input part, the trainers demonstrate the sort of annoying activities you will be expected to use with your own students. For example, to help you remember the other trainees’ names, a ball is tossed around the group. You have to call out the name of the person who throws the ball to you or to whom you throw the ball. Needless to say, this is an extremely stressful activity. You can remember the names of only the trainees you would not mind shagging. You resolve never to do this activity with your students.

In the practice part, you have to teach some lessons… As the students are being taught by trainees (ie teachers even crappier than usual), they get cut-price classes. Their expectations are low. They have seen so many awful trainees, they will not be in the least surprised by anything you do.

---

Top Ten Tips

1. Do not argue with the trainers. They are irreparably sad gits with Deltas who have been teaching English since before you were born. You are an inconsequential pipsqueak who knows nothing. They are not remotely interested in your point of view. What they are interested in is asserting their dominance over the trainees and buttressing their enormous fragile egos, so they will not take kindly to challenges.
   Instead, suck up to them shamelessly. They like to think they are doing something terribly important. Take advantage of this. Nod a lot, write down everything they say and make little gasps of astonishment every five to ten minutes.
   Of course, the trainers are in fierce competition with each other to be the shrewdest/most sensitive/least ugly. Exploit this by subtly slagging them off to each other.
   You could try flirting with them, but be warned this is a high-risk tactic. You might be taken up on it.
2. Pretend to be fascinated by the students. They may be the usual collection of spoilt brats and dim-witted yobs, but try anyway. Even though your practice lessons will be crap, you can score points by appearing to take an interest in students’ individual needs.
3. Treat the students as if they were retarded four-year-olds. This is the correct ELT approach. Speak slowly in a bright, singsong voice, with exaggerated intonation and lots of hand gestures. For instance, whenever you use a past tense, point over your shoulder. The students will not have a clue why you are doing this, but the trainer will approve. Say things like, “Well done, Julio!” and “Goo-oo-ood, Irwan!” to your denser students.
4. Say as little as possible. Elicit, rather than explain. Check your instructions.

Eliciting: asking the students for information that they will not have, then dropping increasingly unsubtle hints until the nerdiest student finally gets the answer. Example: “What is this tense called? Begins with P. Present, yes, well done, Julio. But Present what? Begins with C. C-O. C-O-N. No, not condom, Irwan, yes, very funny, good, OK class, that’s enough, you can all stop laughing now. Ends with O-U-S. Yes, brilliant, Julio, Continuous. The Present Continuous. Now how do we form the Present Continuous?” (etc etc)

1. Do not slag off the other trainees’ crap lessons. Praise them extravagantly, with one or two telling caveats. “Great lesson, Judy, I loved it and I learned a lot myself. Just one little query: in that absolutely brilliant exercise they did—weren’t all the examples you gave them conjunctions, not prepositions?”
2. Draw a line down the whiteboard a foot from the right edge. Write new vocab in this column and do not rub it out until the end of the lesson. Some teachers elicit the date and write that up too, but as students invariably make a pig’s ear of dates, this could take a lot of time. (Useful in real lessons, of course, but not in your practice slots.)
3. Write extremely long and detailed lesson plans. The lesson itself may be a stinking pile of incompetent ordure, but the plan has to be brilliant. Omit no detail, however trifling. If you need to fart during a lesson, put it in the plan. (Remember the focus (T to Ss) and the aims: minimising discomfort that could reduce T’s concentration.) Do not worry about sticking to the plan: it is a sacred document unsullied by vulgar practice.
4. Bring in loads of stuff. Flashcards, realia, pictures from magazines, games that took you ages to cut up beforehand… you will never do it again after passing the course, but it is expected of you now.
5. Do not try to be a smarty-pants. Some trainees show off by using ELT jargon or boasting about their previous teaching experiences. Remember your role is to abase yourself humbly before the trainers, who may, if you are sufficiently obsequious, grant you a Celta. Any hint that you think you know as much as they do will bring down reprisals.

10.  And finally, try not to touch the students, say “fuck” more than once a lesson, or stroll in drunk.

http://saresha.vox.com/library/posts/tags/tesol/

Crystals in the Classroom

You may have been told on a CELTA course or teacher development workshop that your students all have their own preferred ways of receiving and processing information: kinaesthetic learners like running around the classroom with phrasal verbs stuck to their foreheads, visual students respond to pretty pictures and diagrams, auditory ones need to hear things, etc. Now, I’m sure there’s a fair amount of truth in this. People, after all, are complex beings and often respond very differently to identical stimuli—for example, I’m told some people actually think Lenny Henry is funny…

Note to teachers just off CELTA courses: some students actually learn better sitting down.)
…why not try some of Rosie’s suggested activities? Number 3 is particularly useful: “Using your linguistic and interpersonal intelligences, discuss with someone how you believe your intelligences influence you as a teacher.” Or, for an entirely different perspective, try number 4: “Using your intrapersonal and linguistic intelligences, write down how you believe your intelligences influence you as a teacher.” Fascinating. Might I suggest using your bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence to chuck this sub-Cosmo garbage into the nearest bin?
…Haven’t our multiple intelligences been insulted enough? Isn’t it time the silent sceptics and the advocates of common sense started to fight back?

http://tefltradesman.blogspot.com/2009/09/crystals-in-classroom.html

Tags: History, Humour

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