Job Discussion Forums

[nellychess]

Good or bad, I'd love to see either documentaries, or even B movie quality shows involving ESL teachers and students.

Thanks

[Glenski]

This is even less than B rated.
http://englishteachersseries.com/

[Zero]

The scene that most people think of is when Robin Williams starts teaching the class in Good Morning Vietnam.

[Insubordination]

Way back when, there was a comedy show from England called, 'Mind your Language', which people tell me was funny. I've never seen it but I looked it up on IMdb http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075537/

People have often told me about 'Mind Your Language' when they find out what I do for a living.

ETA: There are a number of clips of youtube from this series. Do a search for the title and you'll find them.

[mmcmorrow]

I wrote an article on this topic for TESOL's 'Essential Teacher' magazine in 2005 (ET 2.2) - it might be accessible to TESOL members, if you want a look. Here are a few comments off the top of my head:

'Mind your language' was actually a very popular series in the 1970's, going through 4 seasons. It was set in a community college ESOL class, with pretty stereotyped characters - sexy French, hot-blooded Latins, Indians etc - with a teacher wearing the regulation tweed jacket

'El Norte' - an American Spanish language film has scenes in a community college - basically students just individually repeating phrases

'Italian for Beginners' has a few scenes in a community college Italian language class in Denmark - the teacher has a heart attack and then the class is taken over by one of the students, who had played a bit of football in Italy

'The Taste of Others' is a French film featuring an English language teacher and a businessman - with some scenes of one to one lessons

I think there must be a kind of rule in movies that the shorter the scene is, the more stereotypical it has to be, in order to establish the location in the shortest possible time. So, generally speaking, the short ESOL classroom scenes in movies tend to feature drilling or teacher-fronted accuracy work - I suppose on the basis that these are most recognisably TEFL like and can also focus on individual characters. ESOL teaching is portrayed as something people fall into and / or combine with something else - which has an element of truth, I guess!

Martin McMorrow, Albany, New Zealand

[nellychess]

Thanks all.

Love the English Teachers show !

[Trebek]

"Stripes" Starring Bill Murray. Very funny ESL scene at the beginning of the movie.

[Mike_2007]

I saw a couple of episodes of a series some years back. I can't remember what it was called but it seemed to feature dysfuntional Canadians who were trying to resolve their issues whilst teaching in Taiwan (or maybe it was Korea).

[BenE]

Didn't 'Banged up abroad' have an English teacher on it. There was some scene that made it look like a very uncomfortable job to have. Then the rest of the episode was about his weed smoking and eventual demise.

[mozzar]

[Majuro]

[TwinCentre]

When I worked in Japan in the late 90s, there was a brilliant amatuer film going around - made by some NOVA efl teachers - called 'Let's Do Talk'....if anyone gets hold of this it was hillarious to say the least...I would love to see it again, had all the stereotypes of English Teaching in japan as well as some clever observations. It was, obviously, about a language school called 'Let's Do Talk', focussing on the Gaijin DOS trying to cope with the loser Gailjin teachers, whilst the passive Japanese students looked on in bilwilderment.

Great!

[santi84]

My Name is Earl has a good ESL episode

Unfortunately some of his students can only say "My Name is Earl". He teaches ESL to immigrants in California to try and make up for picking on a French kid in elementary school.

If you are interested in watching a television episode about the Dancing Monkey, I suggest you tune in

[Insubordination]

Saw a movie the other day called 'Happy Accidents'. Marisa Tomei took a job teaching ESL after she was fired from her telephone customer service job. It was presented as an unskilled job and there was only one scene in the classroom. The students looked like a diverse lot.

[artemisia]

I once just happened to catch this episode on TV: "Joey and the ESL". I later found some of it on Youtube. (For the record, I strongly deny that I ever watched "Joey"!!).

Joey and the ESL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTQCbds8hsc