TEFL Teaching Life
Read about day to day life outside the TEFL classroom for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language
Interview With A Current ESL Teacher - Former Community Organizer
As regular readers know, I try to bring the world of TEFL a little closer to you through email interviews, and I’ve got a winner right here. But this time – you can try and guess who the interviewee is using the following clues:
S/he was involved in another line of work before teaching: community organizing work, helping organize low and moderate income people to advocate for better housing, work and legal reforms.
Despite being a self-described Luddite (albeit at least a little tongue-in-cheek I suspect), s/he once organized a program where computers and Internet connections were donated to a group of EFL learners in the US – with some pretty stellar results.
S/he has an EFL-relevant blog which I have mentioned it and linked to it on a number of occasions. S/he was furthermore the grand prize winner of the 2007 International Reading Association Presidential Award For Reading and Technology.
S/he is not a procrastinator like me.
Any ideas?
Date: October 21st, 2007 |
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Interview With Cairogal, EFL Instructor With Experience In The UAE, Egypt And Spain, Part 2
Find Part 1 of Cairogal’s interview here, and find her blog, Here, there and everywhere…here.
On Egypt and culture shock
Money, or the lack thereof, took me to Egypt for two years teaching mainly Egyptian young learners in an English-medium school. Though Egypt is not a hotbed for ESOL teachers, there are opportunities in language schools. The cost-of-living is low, and the quality of life is high. Life is truly never dull, but culture shock is almost inevitable. Patience, an open-mind, and the willingness to learn the language and culture are almost essential for taking your new school management in stride, as well as the taxi driver who will try and rip you off. Don’t visit Cairo before starting work there: you might change your mind.
On the MA TESOL
Date: October 8th, 2007 |
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“Languages Of Love” From The Guardian Abroad
Have you ever:
…dated someone from the foreign country you work in?
…married someone with a different native language?
…broken up with someone fitting into either the above groups?
If you can answer yes to any of these, as many a TEFLer can, then you may be interested in Guardian Abroad’s take on the “languages of love”.
I already feel that I go on about personal stories and details enough, so I’ve mostly decided to leave my dating life off the TEFL Logue (though who knows, it could provide some much-needed comedy, heartbreak, and drama). However, I will share that I did have a lengthy and now (some time ago) finished relationship with a guy from the region I worked in.
The details are of course reserved for pay-per-read or something, but I’m full of general opinions! Conveniently, I will refuse to back these up with examples, citing mainly my need for privacy. But it’s bound to be interesting nonetheless, so please do read on.
First of all, I found illuminating an online comment from a teacher in a “cross border” marriage: who can be a “foreigner” in a relationship?
Date: September 30th, 2007 |
2 comments
Will I Face Culture Shock?
Partly it depends on your experience – often people who have travelled before are less affected than people who are travelling abroad for the first time.
Some definitions describe a “honeymoon period” where things are just quirky and intriguing, but after some time those same things become frustrating.
Keep an open mind
…well of course. Don’t constantly compare your host country to your home country or expect them to be the same. Things are different and that’s part of the charm. Sometimes it is hard to know though if something that seems really wrong is in fact wrong (your boss has no plan for the school) or is simply a cultural thing. Better advice might be “learn about the country before you turn up.”
Find others you can relate to on some level
I think having other teachers in a similar position as you (new teachers if you are new, native speakers from your country if you’re a native speaker, people around your age) to occasionally commiserate with might be the most useful tool. I remember how my mindset changed when another native speaker teacher working in a different country started describing some of the frustrations that plagued her working life. Wait a minute, I thought, that’s my working life she’s describing! I was the only new teacher and only native speaker at my school and really had no sense that this was typical – local colleagues may be accustomed to these things, and even if they don’t like them, they haven’t had to go through the process of getting used to them.
Date: September 27th, 2007 |
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Bizarro Moments In TEFL, The Sequel
Due to the popularity of the first odd moments in TEFL post, I’m back with yet another. I’ll admit that it is not really specific to the classroom, but it is hard to imagine it happening in some other context.
One of the few things Sarajevo lacks is good Chinese food (unfortunately I complain a lot about lack of food diversity). There is or was at least one restaurant – some of my students actually wrote a review of it. Among their complaints: no bread served. Their solution? Go down the street to a local …
Date: September 22nd, 2007 |
1 comment
How Many Kisses Where You Live?
In the online comment of one expat in Poland:
Pole to Pole, three kisses is the standard. Living with a bunch of ex-pats where zero up to three are all possibilities, anything can happen! Most of us default to three, and hope the other person doesn’t pull out midway!
Social kissing may be coming back into style in the UK, according to a recent BBC article. But no one really knows when or how many kisses, which can lead to any number of awkward situations.
I suspect social kissing is still a ways off in the US (fortunately), but as most EFL teachers work abroad, my readers are the perfect ones to ask: how many kisses where you live? Bows? Man-hugs?
I have yet to master the art of social kissing. I think it’s fine, nice, even, but don’t like feeling awkward. Am I being cold by shaking hands, or even by waiting for the other person to start? And south east Europe, the region I’ve lived in the longest, presents some complications, as people may expect: I was told by a student and friend that Croats and Muslims kiss twice, and Serbs three times. I’m not sure how this works out in practice in Bosnia but it seems like it could cause some confusion. And what to do if you meet someone of Roma nationality in Kosovo?!
Date: October 14th, 2007 |
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Interview With Cairogal, EFL Instructor With Experience In The UAE, Egypt and Spain
Cairogal, who writes Here, there, and everywhere and is also one of the more prolific TEFL Logue commenters, has worked in Spain and the Middle East and is finishing up an MA TESOL. I recently asked her if she’d be willing to share her experience and advice for others in an email interview…how did she find Madrid in the winter and, more importantly, how did she survive on the salary? How is it finding work in Egypt, and what should you avoid doing before you find work in Cairo? How do you sidestep culture shock jaunting off to the Middle East for the first time? Find out here…
On getting started - and young learners
I fell into language teaching like so many who came before me, and like those who will surely come after. A self-proclaimed stick-in-the-mud with no experience teaching English flew thousands of miles to be a primary teacher in Sharjah, UAE over the course of one academic year. I truly enjoyed teaching the little ones in Sharjah, (which included mixed Arab nationalities, some Indian, Pakistani, etc.) and through the course of my trial and error classroom management tactics found that I could forgive a few jerky teachers from my own youth. My advice to those considering teaching young learners is to buy some books on classroom management, talk to other teachers, and become a well-oiled machine in terms of
organisation. They’re like wild animals: kids smell fear and poor-planning.
On Spain
Date: October 8th, 2007 |
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Warm Fuzzy Group Hug Post
My readers may have noticed I sometimes err on the side of being critical or, dare I say, argumentative. I think that makes me interesting, but I’m sure there are people who are ready for a bit of a “group hug” type thing on the TEFL Logue.
So – here it is. Save a link and don’t expect too much more where this came from anytime soon!
Sure, plenty of people don’t like the fact that English has become so dominant, or that English language words have “invaded” other languages. But again and again I am reminded that, for a variety of purposes, English language ability really is important for people, and not just in a nominal way, or because someone says they need to know English.
Date: September 28th, 2007 |
2 comments
“Backpacker” Teachers As Axes Of Evil?
Threads about the term “backpacker” in the context of ESL are regular occurrences at Dave’s ESL Cafe. Can we retire the term “backpacker”, why do they let “backpackers” teach, are “backpacker” teachers the reason why “real” teachers get a bad rap? My somewhat cynical opinion is that some people are happy to make distinctions, especially when doing so means they come out on top and can say “I’m better than that”. I certainly don’t think this is unique to the field of teaching but this is obviously an example that many in this field can relate to.
I suppose in holding a view like this, I may come across as being “on the side” of “backpacker teachers” or something, but I don’t see that as my position. I don’t consider myself a backpacker teacher, and I don’t think that lacking a DELTA or MA makes a person so. It’s unfortunate if some who have such qualifications are incapable of distinguishing between someone on holiday and someone responsibly doing a job which they may or may not get a further qualification in, or which they may or may not continue to do for the rest of their life.
It occurs to me of course that plenty of people who do have advanced qualifications do not treat others as less or do not look down on them (us) for the lack of those degrees.
Date: September 23rd, 2007 |
3 comments
The Czech Republic Now Entering The Zone
Changes are on the way for one of Eastern Europe’s TEFL hotspots: the Czech Republic will soon officially be a part of the Schengen Zone.
Sadly this is not an indication of good Chinese food on the way (that’s Szhechuan, not Schengen!), but rather regulations which will make impossible the once every three-month visa run utilized by many schools and teachers to get around work regulations.
The Schengen zone already incorporates much of western Europe and will soon include many new EU countries. Like with most official visa procedures, the situation is complex, but basically, an individual can spend no more than six months out of any one year in the Schengen zone [it is described in the article as two three-month stays in a year, in a rolling six month period, which as I have always understood translates to six months out of a year, with those two periods back to back]. It’s not possible to get around this by leaving the zone, getting a stamp in your passport from somewhere else, and turning around and returning: you have to stay out for six months before you can return. This is not compatible with a nine-month or year-long EFL stint.
Obviously, if you have a proper work permit, this is all irrelevant: you stay for the length of the permit and you don’t need to make visa runs of any kind. It seems to be the case in the Czech Republic though that many employers and teachers do not go through the lengthy procedure for obtaining a work permit.
It’s easy to frame this as teachers who don’t care about the law, rather than including local schools as accomplices in avoiding the law – as this article seems to do - if you’ve never gone through the process of getting a work permit.
Date: September 20th, 2007 |
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