Another TEFL conspiracy theory proved
When people claim that there is a direct link between advertising and censorship on Rave Spelling’s ESL Au Lait, I’d always assumed that they were exaggerating and things were at least a little more subtle than that. Apparently not:
“I am initially interested in advertising and your rates are certainly attractive. However, one thing which I am concerned with is the amount of ‘hit jobs’ on your forum site from other schools.recently [EDITED] decided to comment on our courses, and I find this very unprofessional.
Could you please let me know how you decide something should be published online on your forum pages. I am not against freedom of speech and opinion but I definitely cannot agree with such ‘hit jobs’ and before we would agree to advertising we would need some assurance that there is a filter for such posts.
Thank you for your understanding and looking forward to hearing back from you soon.”
to which the person in charge replied
“Dear [EDITED],
We strive to allow free speech and maintain a neutral point of view in forums, meaning that any school or other entity is free to respond to comments by others. It appears that you have indeed responded… In extreme cases we are prepared to place a response directly in the body of the original post. If an offended entity can demonstrate precisely which words are untrue, we may expunge them.
Advertising and editorial are totally separate on TEFL.net and we never guarantee an advertiser anything concerning editorial content. Any decision to advertise is entirely the advertiser’s.
I do appreciate that certain posts may appear unprofessional, but we are not the arbiters of professionalism and believe that readers can judge for themselves. Otherwise put, an unprofessional post may actually do harm rather than good to its poster, which is obviously not the intention.
I hope this clarifies the position to your satisfaction.”
to which he or she replied
“Fair enough, here’s the cash for a main page banner”
Only joshing! In fact we got the old favourite:
“I’m afraid that in that case we will currently need to decline the offer of paid advertising as I just can’t see the value of a forum where a company can be blatantly disreputed and you should be aware of recent cases where companies have complained in a legal capacity and won damages as a result of cyber bullying (in the case of personal attacks), or libel (in the case of cyber attacks on a company).
Just placing a disclaimer on your site doesn’t mean that you can shirk responsibility and you might be the subject of court action.
I just want to let you know because it seems that inevitably the way your forum page direction is headed that this might be the case for you along the road at some point.”
and there it was left to lie. Oh, no, that’s just me being naive again. Apparently after that it “got messy” and I probably wouldn’t even want to see the emails from that point on. Will I perhaps be receiving some similiarly “messy” emails from Bad TEFL Dave (as opposed to Good TEFL Dave) for suggesting that he deals with these situations in a slightly different way to the middle email above?
For more on TEFL conspiracies:
Six rumours and conspiracies in ELT
TEFL conspiracy theory of the day
February 11th, 2010 at 2:22 am
I’m always surprised by this interscholastic sniping. I don’t think one school should denigrate another school, unless they are an out-and-out fraud; in which case the authorities should be notified, not the blog sites. However, I also feel strongly that web sites should be free to offer whatever they will; I think the Law of Attrition will take care of those sites that indiscriminately publish innuendo and unsupported accusations — people may initially go there for the titillation of scandal, but will soon tire of such fluff and look for more mature, responsible web sites.
I personally am soliciting and blogging graduate stories from a prominent TEFL teacher training school based in Thailand; it is surprising, and gratifying, to read how many of these graduates have gone on to positive ESL careers and are quite satisfied w/the training they received from us.
My firm belief is that the only true measure of a TEFL school’s quality and worth comes from the comments of its own graduated students — I wish more web sites would feature that kind of opinion more prominently.
February 11th, 2010 at 5:45 am
Who would the authorities be? The British Council Secret Service Hit Squad??
If graduate reviews are so important, why bother having accreditation? As you suggest, the best people to trust on the academic standards of a TEFL course are people who know nothing about TEFL apart from what they have been told on such a course, I reckon
February 11th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Nice work, Alex. As you already know, I’m all in favour of whistle blowing, especially regarding EFL schools that are blatantly lying, taking people for a ride, and otherwise attempting to muddy the crystal pure waters of the Tefl Trade. I guess the truth is that more than 90% of private EFL outfits are broadly bona fide, which leaves another 10% who are either just on the wrong side of the law, or blatantly breaking it.
I’m always surprised that , when exposed, some of these slimy Tefl criminals get straight back on the site/forumconcerned and start denying any wrong-doing in a vociferous way, and then dish out all manner of threats, direct and indirect (and often badly-spelt). Threats of libel prosecution, broken legs, even death – I’ve had them all! It’s just the same as an admission of guilt, in my mind.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
I don’t understand why people who would sit down with you over a nice cuppa chai and tell you all about how wonderful it is in Western societies to live in democracy, get their knickers in a twist over the potentiality of bad publicity.
Surely if they are a school of worth and good standing then they should know that they can take a few mumbles and grumbles – sometimes by people with sincere problems, sometimes by people who mumble and grumble because that’s what they do.
Democracy.
Ya, ya, ya.
February 15th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Ooh, that Dave Sperling is a bugger. To think, he had such a unique opportunity to do something great for our profession with his website, before he was seduced by the dark side.
March 12th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Another one:
“We would like to request that this post be removed as the original comment is a complete deviation from the facts. Upon reaching a diplomatic resolution to the issue, we’d like to finally move forward and recommend your forum to our tutors as well as entering into commercial sponsorships with EC.”
to which the answer was:
“Having removed the post we will be unable to accept sponsorship from you as we maintain a strict separation between sponsorship and editorial content. Thank you nevertheless for your interest.”