TEFL News
Stay in touch with what’s happening around the TEFL world and around the web.
Bad News For The British Council In Russia
Russia and the British Council are at odds as Russia is asking the British Council to close its offices and the British Council initially refused. The British Council then reported that its British and Russian staff were harassed by Russian authorities.
The word is that this is connected to the spat between the two countries over the extradition of the Russian citizen accused of poisoning former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.
From what I’ve heard, I’d certainly leave a wide berth around the Russian government these days and avoid getting on its collective bad side.
One connection I find interesting - and applicable more widely in EFL - is that while the British Council is here referred to as “the cultural arm of the British embassy” I have also seen it referred to as an NGO (which stands for non-governmental organization) and a charitable organization.
VSO – the organization which places volunteers, including volunteer English teachers, in developing countries, and maintains that it is not part of any government (in contrast to the Peace Corps which is a part of the US government) – does in fact cooperate with the british council to do a shorter term volunteer placement program.
I certainly don’t think the blurry line dividing charitable, government, non-profit, and for-profit is only connected to the British Council. There are, for example, organizations which offer TEFL certificates - and also language schools – billing themselves as officially non-profit.
Date: January 16th, 2008 |
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Sudan Teacher Arrest
A first-year British international school teacher has been charged with “inciting religious hatred” in Sudan. In Sudan, where the legal code is based on Sharia law, it is considered an insult and is illegal to give the name Muhammad to an inanimate object. The charge is that by giving this name to a toy bear in her second-grade class, she insulted Islam.
Apparently, as a student-centered teacher would do, she got her seven-year-olds to suggest possible names for the toy, and in the end they held a vote and 20 out of 23 voted for the winning name. They were studying bears or animals generally, and each weekend a different child would take the bear home and write diary entries about what they did with the bear. Judging from the fact that there were 23 students who would all spend a weekend with the animal, this was not a one-off activity but one that went on for some time.
The school was founded by a Christian group but some 90% of the students are Muslim.[“an independent school founded in 1902, [it] is governed by a board representing the main Christian denominations in Sudan but teaches both Christians and Muslims aged four to 18.”] (Muslim) Coworkers have said they took no offense and realized it was an innocent mistake; it was apparently parents – reports differ on whether it was one set or many - who called the police to complain; several Islamic leaders, including some in other parts of Sudan, have spoken out in disagreement with the arrest and charge.
Date: November 29th, 2007 |
2 comments
Korea Visa Changes (Part 2)
Read about Korea visa changes first.
I don’t really know the industry in Korea well enough even to hazard a guess, but I can comment that TEFL, especially TEFL in Korea, does seem to rely heavily on non-career teachers who come because it is relatively easy to get a job and make a fair amount of money in a short time. It is easy to condemn in writing those who “don’t care about” teaching as a profession, but the reality is that the TEFL industry can happen because of this: teachers put up with poor conditions because they have motives other than developing as teachers - to see the world, to save money, etc. and then leave after a year or two. If more people came into the field expecting to stay with their Korean employer for years, things would be very different. Schools would not get away with the salaries and conditions they currently offer and it is logical that the cost would eventually get passed on to students. Its also worth pointing out that it is very possible to take the job seriously without committing to it as a life career.
Will these regulations have any unexpected effects?
Date: November 24th, 2007 |
5 comments
The TEFL Logue Goes Home
I suppose it’s about time to let my readers know that I’m 99% sure to return to the US. I did not teach this term and instead took the opportunity to travel a bit, and provided that I don’t have a major change of heart [in which case I will return and delete this post!], or become a victim of abduction [believe me, I meet all sorts; this could happen!], I will be returning to the US during the second week of November.
I won’t really be keeping a running tally of what’s …
Date: October 28th, 2007 |
5 comments
Japan EFL Giant NOVA Shuts Its Doors
Nova has long been known in EFL as perhaps the best example of McEmployment. In my mind at least, that title just means that potential teachers interview at home, go through Nova’s own training, and are placed at one of any number of Nova outlets throughout Japan. The chain takes care of living arrangements, plane tickets, and pretty much everything.
Or it was supposed to.
Reports of problems surfaced around June, when Nova got in trouble for not refunding student fees when, basically, it should have. The latest and most stunning news – if you are a little outside the Japan circle as I am - is that Nova has declared bankruptcy and closed all of its schools. According to the Education Guardian, this leaves somewhere around 4,000 foreign teachers teachers (1,000 of them Brits, in case you were wondering about the breakdown by foreign nationality) and 2,000 local staff without their October pay. About 400,000 Nova students will need to find new English schools to attend.
Date: October 27th, 2007 |
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Taxes For US Teachers Abroad
It’s tax season in the US, and if you have a US employer they should be sending you your W-2 forms by the end of the month. If you’re from the US and working overseas, and you need serious tax information, mosey on over to the real deal at the IRS website. What follows here are some assorted comments and thoughts I’ve collected. Keep in mind that this is an EFL blog and not an authoritative source of information on taxes. (Translation: if you get audited…don’t say I didn’t warn you!)
One of my first concerns was: my foreign employer sure is not sending me any W-2’s! What do I do? I found some form of an answer on the FAQ’s with the fine heading “Aliens and US Citizens living overseas”. Briefly, you fill out a form reporting your foreign earned income, but generally as long as it is under $85,000 or so in a year, it is excluded from taxation.
There is one complication. You either have to be A) “a U.S. citizen who is a bona fide resident of a foreign country or countries for an uninterrupted period that includes an entire tax year” or “a U.S. citizen or a U.S. resident alien who is physically present in a foreign country or countries for at least 330 full days during any period of 12 consecutive months.” My understanding of the second point is: if your contract runs July 2006 – July 2007, that’s fine. There is a step later which proportions the income that is excluded from taxation (if the one-year period starts in July, it is only up to 43,000 that is excluded, and so on).
There is also the question of: Do you have to file? The short answer I’m fond of is: even if there is a reason why it might be okay not to file, it’s not a bad idea to file anyway.
Date: January 14th, 2008 |
2 comments
Korea Visa Changes
In the wake of the case of an accused child abuser who had been working in Korea and fled to Thailand (recently caught by interpol), Korea has unveiled a slew of new laws for English teachers. Hat tip to EFL Geek for the latest on all this (this post and this post – and their links - specifically).
The gist of the case was that the man had abused some twelve children in Vietnam and Cambodia, and then gone on to work in Korea. He had not submitted the results of a police check to his employer in Korea, and is said to have bragged about this on Dave’s ESL Café as a posting member.
The new laws would put several new requirements on teachers, most likely only those applying for visas for the first time or changing employers; teachers renewing their current visa or with certain categories of visa (including those who are married to Korean citizens) would not be affected – though this is not totally clear. The laws would require these teachers to interview and apply for the visas in their home country. There are also clause which apparently make it easier to deport and/or blacklist teachers who are not “all that they should be”.
Please keep in mind that this is a brief overview of the regulations, and based on my reading of a few web pages, including an unofficial translation of the Korean law which I read on EFL Geek’s site. If it is not already clear, I am no expert on Korean law or employment regulations generally – but having worked in the industry and gone through the process in a handful of other countries, I have a context to put it in, plenty of opinions, and an interest in what others who are more familiar with the situation have to say about it.
All of these changes – so what? Here’s why they matter:
EFL Geek pointed out that the laws will take effect very soon after being created; it could be the case that teachers who were expecting no such requirement will need to produce documents which take a long time to procure. Specifically, if some who are already teaching in Korea need to come up with criminal record checks in a month, and it takes three months to get them from their respective home countries, this is no good.
I can add to the discussion that I have obtained an FBI Certificate of No Criminal Record from abroad and it is no easy task. Obviously mine is for a US citizen and I don’t know what certificates from other countries entail…but this one was not pretty.
Date: November 24th, 2007 |
1 comment
Thanksgiving / US Return Roundup
First of all, happy Thanksgiving! Of course it is the US holiday that I’m referring to, but as far as I am concerned, this is a nice holiday that has a meaning which is not necessarily connected to one particular country or a certain set of religious beliefs. Please do read about the great Thanksgiving I had abroad last year.
TEFL Logue Update
Firstly and most importantly, I want to reassure my faithful readers that TEFL Logue posts will keep a-comin’. They may keep coming a little less frequently, but they will keep coming. There have been some unfortunate spam issues in the last few days, and I have done my best to scan through it, as unpleasant as that is, but I may have bulk-deleted other comments too. So if you have commented and your comment has not appeared - I apologize. Around the first week of November, the TEFL Logue moved to its beautiful new format, and at least two comments from TEFLtastic did not get published. Sorry Alex – I promise it wasn’t an attempt to silence you!
In other TEFL updates, know that the second ESL Carnival submission deadline is coming up for Larry Ferlazzo’s blog - November 30. Send him a link to your recently published post (the only requirement is that it is something useful for English language teaching / learning) and he will include it in the ESL Carnival post, sending traffic to your blog and sending you to other cool blogs.
Katie Update And More On the Great MA / DELTA Debate
Date: November 21st, 2007 |
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Around The Web On TEFL: October 28
Infested dogs and English teachers go out in the midday sun. It sounds like my life story, but actually contains the reflections of a retired social worker who volunteered as an English teacher in Cambodia.
After living in Germany for five years as a KGB agent (”alongside our German colleagues and friends”), he “possessed” the language, and now says, “In five years, even someone with average language ability can master a foreign language — like the bear that goes to the circus and learns to ride a bicycle”…always the charmer, Vladimir Putin.
Do you notice that your students’ …
Date: October 28th, 2007 |
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Vote For TEFL President Here
With all the scandals about, you can trust the TEFL Logue not to do any ballot box stuffing. Cast your vote here!
Opinion Polls & Market Research
Date: October 27th, 2007 |
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