Job Discussion Forums

[cabbagehead]

Gordon,

just to set the record straight, Lajzar isn't confused. He saw the original thread I got the original question from which did in fact involve someone trying to get Swiss nationality despite not knowing Switzerland was not in the EU.

And speaking of that and now that we've got a good four pages out of the original question, how about this?....

The personal who will continue to remain nameless changed their question in a later reply into a much more interesting one, namely

Why is it that so many people attracted to jobs in TESOL know little about the world outside their own cabbage patch ?"

[Steiner]

So, cabbagehead--you're also shmooj?

[cabbagehead]

Yeah Steiner. Long story can be summarised thus:

1. Getting tons of junk email on by web based account so...
2. Changed my email on my profile here
3. Set up new email account ten seconds later
4. Realise my Shmooj profile is locked

Should have done 2 and 3 in reverse order. I didn't know the forum would auto mail me a confirmation for changing my email. Shmooj is locked cos that confirmation email must have bounced before I set up the new email. Dave let me in as Cabbagehead but seemed to ignore my please to unlock my Shmooj account!!!!

So, yeah I'm Cabbagehead for now but would like to go back to my previous incarnation if possible DAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE

[Gordon]

Thanks cabbagehead/shmooj,
I was wondering what Switzerland had to do with anything.

[Wolf]

[cabbagehead]

I think TEFL teaching has suited me so well because I grew up as an ex-pat kid anyway. When I went back to the UK for secondary/high school ed, I was confronted by horrendous reverse culture shock. When I told people where my parents were they had no idea these places (Gambia, Liberia, Jordan) existed at all. I felt very out of it.

But as I grew up I realised that I wanted to, as Wolf said, keep learning about the world outside. TEFL enables me to do that... or does it

Am I in fact moving around the world now in a sort of TEFL bubble? That worries me a bit. I'm working at a very small, low key school now but I guess if I worked for someone like the British Council or a bigger school I'd perhaps only be fooling myself into thinking I was living in and learning from the world outside.

I've often wondered if working your way around the world with someone like the British Council would be akin to taking a coach tour to a foreign land and not getting off

[Roger]

I am sure that being on the TEFL planet is being removed from humanity. You are insulated from the outside by this bubble.
I experienced China very differently when I backpacked around the country at a time when getting a teaching position was almost unheard of.
The occasional white teacher you met was a kind of magic man or woman, an insider who couldn't see China the way we outsiders saw it.
Now I am an "insider" myself! Good that I got hold of a ticket for Shanghai this weekend - so I can experience China in the old way again.

[Steiner]

In reply to the original topic...

I just had to come and post after watching the Shanghai English news. The anchorgirl reported that there was a meeting of Central Asian leaders in "Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan."

Almaty has not been the capital of Kazakhstan for five years! The capital was moved north to Astana (formerly Akmola, but changed because Akmola means "white tomb" in Kazak) in 1998. Is it really too much to expect a national news program to be able to correctly identify the capital city of its neighbor to the west? Is it? Is it? I know, I'm anal about stupid stuff like this, but COME ON!

[cabbagehead]

Let's club together and buy them an atlas

[scot47]

The harsh reality isthat our noble profesion attracts a large number of deadbeats, drongoes,f@@kallsters, dropouts and plain cretins. By the law of averages some of them must be USAnians.

The guy who wanted the "EU passport" because his grandad was born in the Swiss Confederation just happens to be one of them. And he happens to be a USAnian.

(I refuse to call him "American" - that means anyone from North , Central or South America.)

[Capergirl]

[scot47]

USAnian is hard to say ? Okay how about "Usanal" ?

[Capergirl]

[Seth]

Scot has a tender place in his heart for Americans so he gives us special names (most I can't say on a public forum) like USAnians. Some have adopted this practice but not many. The strange thing is, the same people also use the term 'North American Accent' instead of 'American accent' or 'Canadian accent' or use the term 'North American' to refer to a Canadian or American. But Mexicans and Central Americans and Carribeans are also North Americans. It's very insensitive to the poor souls who have to suffer with Yanks stealing their continental identity.

The only larger crime is calling someone from Glasgow British.

[dduck]