Job Discussion Forums

[workingnomad]

As the philosopher Alain de Botton says: "You become a TEFL teacher when your life has gone wrong."

Interesting perspective on tefl as a career, is it a fair reflection?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/3325192/The-slavery-of-teaching-English.html

[Glenski]

A lot of sour grapes and apparently devoted to Brits working only in Europe. We are not all as broke as the author makes out, nor are we all fat, suicidal, and lacking in ambition and living "hand to mouth". Apparently when the author wrote, "After the age of 40, English teachers are burnt-out, skill-less and unemployable, their working lives a wasteland, their future oblivion", he didn't really know what he was talking about, nor did he realize that teaching itself is a job. He seems to treat it as a backpacker wayside event in one's life. Of course, if he himself has not gotten additional training, learned to cope with a foreign land, and networked, those circumstances may apply...to him.

Your own opinion, workingnomad?

[workingnomad]

My own opinion? The author is an idiot.

[spiral78]

Ditto what workingnomad said.
My life was going fine when I became a TEFL teacher, and it's been even better since. As that's over 14 years now, it seems to be a pretty solid outcome in my case, at least!

[Qaaolchoura]

[johnslat]

Dear workingnomad,

I agree - and so did many posters when the article was introduced here before:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=90816&highlight=sebastian+cresswellturner

Regards,
John

[Cool Teacher]

Alan de Bottom is himself a buertn-out writer who looked fifty when he was thirty and is now considered a pomposs mediocrity by the newspapers who is projecting his own failure (in the eyes of his father) on a wide group of people he may never meet.

He's so insecure theat he had a meltdown over a negative book rreview and worries he is now "finished" at the age of 42.

[coledavis]

His version reminds me of a combination of Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall and the English Teacher X blog (hilarious and usually lacking in good taste). I think it is true in some cases, but there are plenty of people who enjoy seeing students develop and who do create decent careers for themselves, even if the trappings of material success tend to few and far between.

[artemisia]

Never mind. Maybe someone could write and tell him how enthusiastically his notions on Teflers are still being discussed on Dave's in an endless looping thread (from c. The Dark Ages til ... probably ... Kingdom Come).

His name will live on here.

[Teacher in Rome]

[Qaaolchoura]

[wailing_imam]

I am doing alright, bought a nice flat in Singapore (�250,000), travel 4 or 5 times a year including at least a fortnight in Europe and get annual bonuses on top of my salary of �7500 a year. My mates working in London in all manner of jobs are having a torrid time. I'd say that those of us with the right paperwork can get a fairly decent existence in Asia.

[Xie Lin]

[Hod]

[scot47]

"Understand whgat people are saying" That is exactly what I cannot do in my native land. Unless you immerse yoursel in popular culture TV and tabloids you will not understand what 90 percent of bthe poulace are talking about.