Job Discussion Forums

[sharter]

In what way is the OP sexist or discriminatory? If the woman was fat, she was fat. Aren't we allowed to say it as it is anymore?

Sexist? I thought the 'hen' simile was quite evocative.

Mistakes? We all make them when we're blogging, which is what this basically is. The typo, the wrong collocation, the lax punctuation. I've got at least 3 mistakes in my last post because having posted I couldn't be bothered to change them. None of us are students and as long as we don't do this stuff in class, who cares?

There are many valid points in the article and it's no-one's job here to tell anyone to leave this shady joke of business.

[Shroob]

[Perilla]

I don't have any problems with the article. Yes it's a bit over the top but that's not surprising given that its trying to attract readers, and the Telegraph is not the Guardian.

Essentially it makes valid points against private sector TEFL. Scratch the surface at a high proportion of EFL academies anywhere and you'll find the only person making a good living out of it is the owner. The teachers will range from new graduates and traveller-types to disgruntled dropouts and oddballs. Oddest of the lot is often the DoS.

The TEFL sector is like a big Victorian house. Private schools and a variety of shanksters are down in the cellar; a muddle of operations and positions occupy the ground floor rooms while most of the light shines in through the upper floor windows on positions in the international schools, universities and the high-end government-led teaching programmes.

Arguably the best fun is to be found in the cellar, but it soon goes stale. Private academies offer good grounding and experience but after a few years at most you should be looking at a move upstairs or out the front door.

[wiganer]

Sebastian Cresswell Turner is a failure - despite his family background, upbringing and education - he is working for a living, taking orders off some bloody foreigner, all for 1500 Euros a month when he could be living the life of Riley somewhere along with his peers.

However, for a working class man such as myself, it is a honourable way of making a living. I haven't stolen from anyone, I never pretended to be something I wasn't and after a few years of teaching and doing a good job - I got my MA and I am now making decent money.

If you want to sit on an unrelated BA and the fact you are a native speaker then you will always earn 1500 Euros a month but don't go complaining if you don't want to upgrade your qualifications because you only have yourself to blame.

As for Alain de Botton - I mean really - to quote this imbecile trustfarian who had the luck to be born into one of the richest families in the world and who has never done a days work in his life. He will never know how it is to be someone whose life is dicatated by an alarm clock.

Creswell Turner - grow up - no-one owes you a living or a roof over your head!

[sharter]

I haven't got an MA in TESOl or Applied Linguistics and I make over three grand sterling a month net after housing etc. Made more in Libya and hope to return. I spent several year s teaching at a uni and it wasn't the pot at the end of the rainbow.....look at the hallowed Gulf uni jobs now; they pay crap. I also worked on a government programme for the princely sum of 18 quid an hour-hardly a king's ransom. The article is over the top but near the mark-certainly in Europe.

You clearly don't like posh people; it's not his problem he was born into a wealthy family. Maybe you're one of those many TEFL nutjobs.

[wiganer]

[Teacher in Rome]

[wiganer]

[Sashadroogie]

I think Wiganer is absolutely right about this, and I fully support his working class sentiments! Boo hiss to double-barrelled Eton boys who disparage EFL because they couldn't make a success of it. Long live the proles.

[Teacher in Rome]

[Teacher in Rome]

... though if you google him, you can see articles of his in the Guardian, New Statesman etc etc. (And Sasha - if the New Statesman publish something by a double-barrelled ex-Etonian, it can surely only be a matter of time that Socialst Worker follows!)

[Sashadroogie]

Arghch! The Socialist Worker!?! Splitters!

[sharter]

Wiganer old bot, you now seem to have made a load of assumptions about me too. I haven't ranted, unlike yourself.

We used to play Eton at sport; if you knew any Etonians, I'm sure you would like them as they're jolly good chaps.

The days of loony left class war are long gone.

[Mr. English]

I didn't read the article, but I TEFL and am hardly a slave. I have been through several careers in my life, the pipeline in Alaska, welder in the shipyards, self-trained lawyer (worked essentially as a lawyer though unlicensed, self-trained by virtue of reading about 5000 appellate court opinions), and a few shorter gigs. The best job of my life: freelance teaching in Guangzhou. In a good month I make 25,000 RMB, though not all months are so good. At the moment I have one class with three students, one with two, and the rest are one-to-one, mostly professional adults who need to improve their English if they want to move up their career ladder. They are interesting, educated, motivated people. Classes are two hours of talking. I have next-to-zero preparation time. I have next next-to-zero travel time. I love the work, work? I do have to focus, and I am good at it, but it is more pleasure than work. There are the annoyances, cancelations being the biggest one; lots of work-related travel for the students. But I most certainly am not a slave.

[barabbas]

As a grizzled tefler once told me, teaching TEFL is like winning the lottery. It all depends what you want from life and how you look at it.