LIFE, LOVE AND WORK OVERSEAS

LIFE, LOVE & WORK OVERSEAS

“Whether the weather is good, or whether the weather is bad…” It’s an old, half-forgotten ditty from my childhood, but I’ve just got home from a 30-minute motorbike ride in a tropical downpour, and weather is very much on my mind.

And here is the weather report. From a few different countries I’ve worked in. No, don’t worry, I’m not going to get all technical and start waxing on about global warming, polar jet-streams, El Nino and other meteorological oddities. What I will say is that I’ve noticed the weather in different countries is as different as can be.

Take Indonesia for example. Weather here is very localized. I came out of school one day, stood on one side of the road, and noticed that on the other side of the road was a wall of rain. As I watched, in less than a second the curtain of rain advanced across the road and enveloped me. On another day I was riding along in a bajaj (a 3-wheeled taxi) and suddenly the driver braked violently. Ahead of us, and closing in fast, was another curtain of rain. One day I was driving my car down a street in Jakarta when suddenly a bolt of lightning hit the street not 30 meters ahead of me. It fizzled and crackled as it hit the ground, and left a large patch of dry asphalt. Had I been 30 meters further on, I would have been toast. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the tires insulate the car and leave its occupants unharmed. That’s one theory I don’t want to put to the test; I’ll leave that to the Mythbusters team. Indonesia has two seasons: dry (very dry), and wet (very wet). I was teaching a class one evening in Indonesia at the end of a long, extremely dry season. Suddenly we heard an unaccustomed sound. Big, fat raindrops were hitting the school roof. In an instant the lesson was forgotten and the whole class rushed outside and stood with faces raised to the long-awaited rain.

When it rains in Indonesia, it buckets down. But Indonesia is no match for Thailand and Cambodia. There the rain comes down on your head with the force of a high-pressure water cannon. And with it comes the lightning. Sheet lightning, forked lightning, ball lightning  – you name it they’ve got it. Thailand’s thunderstorms are spectacular. I had a roof-top flat in Bangkok, and during a thunder and lightning session I would go out and marvel at the display. Every ten seconds or so the lightning would illuminate the sky for a split second, then plunge it into darkness once again. One night I had a good idea: why don’t I put a bucket out to catch the rain, thus saving myself of the tiresome task of lugging water up from the tap on the second floor? Next morning I inspected my bucket of rainwater. Floating on top of it was an inch of black grease.

Now, cross to Cambodia.

  

I arrived at the beginning of the rainy season, a time that the tourist guide-books advise is best avoided. The mornings are cloudless and stultifyingly hot. A twenty minute walk has me dehydrated and panting, and searching for the nearest air-conditioned bar for respite.  In the afternoon the rain clouds gather, and around sunset the first fat raindrops plop onto the roofs and awnings. With practised efficiency the waitresses and waiters snatch up table cloths and condiment sets from the street-front tables, and whisk away the seat cushions.

Then comes the rain.

My god, the rain. Within seconds streets become fast-flowing rivers. As if by magic the endless stream of motorcycles ceases, riders huddling under shop awnings, bus shelters, and trees. Lightning flashes etch freeze-framed pictures of a glistening city onto the retina.

By morning the skies are once again cloudless, the sun as searing and unforgiving as ever.

Next, love in Asia. As I wrote in EFL minus the B.S., a single teacher will have no problem finding a soulmate in Asia, no matter how temporary. But there’s a price to pay when a male teacher hitches up with an Asian girl: he’s expected to become family provider. This may manifest itself in requests for money to help fix granny’s leaking roof, or father’s emergency motorbike repairs, or a loan to see mother through a rocky period. In the case of my current girlfriend, it came in the form of Younger Brother. An affable enough guy with no English and no apparent means of support, Younger Brother was your consummate freeloader. He had an unerring sense of timing and smell. Ten minutes before a meal was due to be served, there would be a knock on the door and Younger Brother would enter. He would help himself to giant portions of food, twice as much as anyone else, eat it, lie down on the floor and sleep for half an hour or more, then wake and leave with a brief “Goodbye”. His visits became increasingly frequent, and I became increasingly pissed off.

“If he were to occasionally come with some fruit or a few cans of beer in hand, I wouldn’t mind,” I protested to my GF, “but he just appears, eats, and leaves without so much as a thank you. Tell him he’s not welcome.”

My girlfriend promised to do so, tomorrow or the day after. She didn’t of course; such a thing would be unthinkable in the culture of Asian hospitality.

 “Look, if you don’t tell him, I will. I’m sick and tired of him feeding his face at my expense.”

“OK, I will, I will. Soon.”

I took to going out as soon as Younger Brother appeared, and not returning until he had departed, but this failed to get the message across. (If he had noticed my absences at all).

The final straw came when I woke up one morning and saw that he’d slept the night. I took him aside and said “I don’t like you sleeping here. I don’t like you eating here.” To reinforce my point I handed him a print-out of a Google translation reading ‘NO MORE FREE MEALS HERE FOR YOU’. Younger Brother said “Oh. OK”, reached for his motorbike helmet, and departed. And has yet to return. Halle-bloody-lujah! Problem solved.

There’s only one other problem remaining. My GF’s mother, a pleasant, likeable lady, comes to visit us from up-country every now and then. She’s no trouble around the place, she helps with the washing up and mops the floor, but her visits do seem to go on and on and on. Now I’m perfectly happy for her to visit for a week, even two weeks from time to time, but a five-week stay does seem to be pushing it a bit. It’s a problem that’s going to take more delicate handling than the last one.

I’ve been changing schools a bit lately. One school didn’t offer enough hours, one school’s confusion and mismanagement defied description, one school did nothing but complain about the teachers’ performances. I’ve now got two jobs: 14 hours from Monday to Friday, and a second school offering a 10-hour block at weekends, teaching tiny tots and children. To top it up, I’m doing two hours private lessons a week, and a third school is calling me in to substitute once or twice a week. I’m working seven days a week (not an unusual situation in Asia). It’s not a perfect state of affairs; with a seven-day workload you’re liable to lose track of the days, and the hours are antisocial, but it’s the best I can manage for now. I’m not the only one; my fellow teachers report just as many frustrations and unsatisfactory employers as me. Ah well, nobody promised us a rose garden, I guess.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Here’s what readers have said about EFL minus the B.S.: “This book is about as good as it gets.” “So, you have checked it all out and decided to go teaching overseas. Now listen you fool… don’t even think about it until you have read this book!” “Excellent book.” “This book is spot on in giving the basic lay down of teaching overseas.” “The book is a quick read and should be read by every EFL teacher.” “Definitely a good read while on your flight to whatever country you are going to teach.”

 So there you have it. Buy your copy of EFL minus the B.S. today. A quarter of a million readers can’t be wrong! (OK, OK, I have exaggerated a teensy bit there.)

THIS AND THAT

THIS and THAT

Here’s a run-down on what you’ll get when you buy EFL minus the B.S. There’s a country-by-country breakdown on teaching in all the Asian countries, and a vaguely alarming chapter on how many hoops you need to jump through to secure work permits for those countries. There’s a chapter on living and working overseas – not all wine and roses. There are the chapters where I’ve roundly criticized school management (mostly mismanagement), language teaching theories (mostly mumbo-jumbo), and linguistics (wholly mumbo-jumbo). Plus some tips on teaching children and teenagers, and on how to fine-tune classroom dynamics. I rail on about bosses I have met (nine out of ten of them all-round ass-holes) and teachers I have met (nine out of ten good to work with, the others undeniably weird). There’s a chapter about how to start up your own school, and another about sex and the single teacher (based on extensive field-research on my part). 

There are no chapters on pedagogy, or the meta-cognitive paradigms of second-language acquisition. You’ll have to look elsewhere for info on those subjects. When writing the book, I didn’t overly concern myself with political correctness. Some readers have taken me to task for this, accusing me of insensitivity, chauvinism, racism, negativity, and just plain ignorance. Gulp, I’ll try and do better in the sequel.

Now here’s something not related to teaching, but something that’s been on my mind lately. Associations. No. I’m not talking of the Automobile Association or the National Rifle Association here, I’m talking about the weird associations our minds make with specific places and specific events. Associations that will stay with us until the end of our days. You with me here? No? OK, let me give you a few examples.

I’m in New Zealand, I’m in a supermarket queue, and I overhear the lady in front of me saying “Isn’t it terrible about Princess Diana?” A moment forever frozen into my memory. Another example: In New Zealand once again, but this time in a small, isolated West Coast hamlet, and I hear a customer remarking to the shop assistant “It’s sad, isn’t it? And he was the twin of Robin. I never knew that before.” My heart gave a bit of a lurch, and I hurried outside to tune into my car radio and await the news. As I had feared, Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees had died.

I’m sure you all have similar associations. Most people can tell you the time and place where they first heard news of a beloved celebrity’s death, whether it be JFK, Lady Di, Amy Whitehouse, or Elvis Presley.

Most of my mental associations, I’m happy to say, are not connected to the death of someone, but to music. I’m in Katmandu, I have an eye infection that’s keeping me closeted in my dingy hotel room day and night, and the guy a few rooms away is playing the Bee Gees “Tragedy” over and over and over. I’m teaching in Seoul, not enjoying it all that much, and AFKN (American Forces Korean Network) is incessantly playing Randy Vanderwarmer’s “Just When I Needed You Most”. (Great song, great voice; I wonder why he sank into oblivion immediately thereafter. Perhaps it had something to do with his choice of name.)

Whenever I hear the old Bee Gees hit “Holiday”, I’m instantly transported to a flat in Gloucester Road, London, that I shared with 14 other people. Whenever I hear Cat Stevens sing anything at all I’m back in London too. “Knights in White Satin” puts me back in the Atlanta Hotel, Bangkok. I hear Bob Marley singing “I Shot the Sheriff”, and I’m wandering down Notting Hill Road. I hear “Disco Duck” (a horrible song that enjoyed brief popularity in the mid-seventies) and I’m transported to the Kings’ Club in Itaewon, Seoul, where a hundred or so sweating, off-duty GIs are singing and quacking in unison. And whenever I hear The Eagles “Tequila Sunrise”, I’m sitting in a hostel dormitory in Jakarta with my best friend who insisted on playing the song non-stop.

Yes, funny things, associations are.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Here’s what readers have said about EFL minus the B.S.: “This book is about as good as it gets.” “So, you have checked it all out and decided to go teaching overseas. Now listen you fool… don’t even think about it until you have read this book!” “Excellent book.” “This book is spot on in giving the basic lay down of teaching overseas.” “The book is a quick read and should be read by every EFL teacher.” “Definitely a good read while on your flight to whatever country you are going to teach.”

 So there you have it. Buy your copy of EFL minus the B.S. today. A quarter of a million readers can’t be wrong! (OK, OK, I have exaggerated a teensy bit there.) 

PRONUNSHIATIN PROBLEMS

PRONUSHIATIN  PROBLEMS

Some students can master correct pronunciation from the kick-off, and some can’t, no matter how hard they try. The Indonesians call it “having a thick tongue.” So, in this post I’ll address the problem of handling cases of thick tongue.

I’ll start with Clarence, a student I once had. Clarence (or at least I think that’s what his name was, it was difficult to tell) could not for the like of him reproduce any sound correctly in spite of my best efforts. Unison drills by the hundreds, individual repetitions until the cows came home, breaking the words down syllable-by-syllable, rhyming drills, nothing worked with poor old Clarence. (Not all that old, by the way. He was about 30.) Now here’s a funny thing about those students whose pron is abysmal: they love to talk. You would think they’d sit in a corner with their mouths closed rather than be subjected to a succession of “Pardon? Huh? What? Say that again. Whaddaya talking about? Repeat”. But no, they’re eager to air their unintelligible utterings at the drop of a hat. “Ah, T-shirt!” “Yes, Clarence, what is it?” “Flugelhorn spligglepan zimbabwe judder titty bum-bum?” “Right, Clarence. Good question. Now let’s see… how shall I answer it? Oh, look at the time! We’ll have to come back to that question next lesson.”

It cannot be said that Clarence didn’t work hard at getting his pron up to scratch. Before he spoke, I’d see his lips silently moving as he prepared himself to say something. He threw himself into repetition drills willingly, with a determined frown on his face. But the more he tried, the thicker his tongue got. Clarence wasn’t stupid, by any means. His written work was faultless, and his reading and comprehension skills impressive; it was just that he couldn’t say the damn words right.

There are some sounds that any student will have difficulty in mastering. Sounds that don’t occur in their native language. Consonant clusters. Multisyllabic words (it means long words, Roger!) Some students will settle for an approximation of these sounds, and hope for the best. And as long as they’ve got the other sounds and words right, the listener will make sense of what they say, often by using context as a clue.

But the Clarences of this world get all the sounds wrong, leaving their listeners bewildered and at a loss how to respond.

Now here’s my theory on how to handle severe pronunciation problems. To my mind, the key is in the students’ listening skills. If they don’t hear it right, there’s not a chance in hell they’ll say it right. How do you hone students’ listening skills? With dictation. But not just ordinary old dictation – rapid dictation. You say a sentence and get them to write it down. No talking, no copying from your neighbor’s paper, just listen and write. I say the sentence at normal speaking speed (that is to say, fast), I repeat it again and again and again. As I speak, I circulate around the room and put red marks on the students’ papers indicating where a mistake occurs (but not what that mistake is). I’m constantly seeing instances of an individual making a particular mistake (e.g. a missing ‘s’ from a plural noun) that is exactly the same mistake which occurs in his or her speech. I continue repeating, repeating the sentence until 95% of the students have got it 95% right. Then I ask them to repeat it (along with a response) in unison and with a partner. Then, on to the next sentence. Try rapid dictation. If you do six to ten sentences per lesson, you’ll see a marked improvement within two weeks. A student who last week had his dictation paper dotted with a myriad of red marks, this week has only half a dozen, and next week even fewer. And you’ll hear their pronunciation becoming better and more natural, too. For my money, rapid dictation is one of the most effective, valuable tricks in the book.

Did rapid pronunciation work with Clarence? Um, no. I’ve got no explanation for that, no excuses. I’ll just repeat the opening sentence of this blog. Some students can master correct pronunciation from the kick-off, and some can’t.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

My new book, EFL minus the B.S. (now available on Amazon) is my take on the English teaching game world-wide. From applying for a job, living overseas, work permits, management and mismanagement, classroom dynamics, teens’ and children’s classes, to sex and the single teacher

LEARNING A SECOND LANGUAGE AIN'T EASY

LEARNING A SECOND LANGUAGE 

AIN'T EASY

‘No gain without pain.’ It’s a cheesy, over-used saying, but oh so true when it comes to learning a second language. The pain we’re referring to is enough to ensure that for every 100 beginner-level students enrolling in an English language course, 17 will not complete the beginner’s stage, 13 will drop out at the end of that stage, 21 will drop out after the elementary level, and another 41 will drop out at the end of the pre-intermediate level or soon after. Which leaves us, just 30 or so weeks after the course started, with only eight of the original 100 students still active. That’s one hell of an attrition rate in anyone’s book.

Why is it so, I wonder? After all, everybody learns their first language without undue trauma. Even the thickest, laziest, most inept of us. But when it comes to learning a second language, it’s a different story entirely.

The student starts off with a rush of enthusiasm. Think of all the benefits that acquiring a second language will bring me! A better job. An assured future. Perhaps the opportunity to meet a foreign partner – a devoted, loaded, generous foreign partner – who’ll eat out of my hand and grant me my every whim and desire. It’ll be my passport to international travel. It’ll be the key to success. Oh, the benefits are endless! So you rush to a language school, you listen enraptured to the front-desk girl as she confirms every one of your dreams in spades, you hand over your money, you’re given a text book, and told to come back at 7:30 pm the following Tuesday.

Once back home, you sit down and flick through your new text book. And that’s the moment when your first doubts and misgivings begin to emerge. “Hell, look at this! Unit one: ‘Are you a student? / Yes I am. Are you a student too?’ Unit three: ‘The be verb.’ Unit seven: ‘Can you swim? / Yes I can’. Bloody hell! This isn’t going to get me a better job, or hook me up with a foreign wife/husband, or have the slightest impact on my future. What, oh what, am I getting myself into here? Well, I’ve paid my bloody money, and a helluva lot of it too, so I’ll just go along to the school and find out for myself how they’re going to set me on the road to fluency and success.

Fast forward six weeks. You can now use the ‘be’ verb 80% accurately (although when speaking you tend to omit it altogether). You can now extract personal details from someone you’ve just met (“Right, so you’re a student, you like football and video games, you can swim, and you have no pets. So, what will we talk about next?”) You have expanded your English vocabulary to the tune of 80 words. You still can’t understand English pop songs, or conduct a prolonged conversation, or make head nor tail of your teacher when he talks at a normal conversational speed on an open topic. Your chances of landing a top job in a top company are as remote as ever. You still haven’t found the English-speaking gal/guy of your dreams. You are no closer to attaining that successful, happy future you thought was at your fingertips.

The first level of your English course is soon to end. Should I extend it or not extend it? If I don’t extend, I’ll be able to upgrade my phone to one that will allow me to surf the web, play games, make movies, listen to half a million songs…. I’d be the envy of all my friends with a phone like that. Tempting…

.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

My new book, EFL minus the B.S. (now available on Amazon) puts the English teaching game under the spotlight. From applying for a job, living overseas, work permits, management and mismanagement, classroom dynamics, teens’ and children’s classes, to sex and the single teacher. 

RANDOM THOUGHTS

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Uh oh. Another one of those days when no single topic is running around inside my head waiting for me to expound upon. So, once again, I will just record a few passing random thoughts before they escape me forever.

I have been trying to analyse exactly what kind of blog topic attracts the most viewers. A few months ago, after I had just posted my ‘Corporate EFL Classes’ blog, in which I’d pointed out that teaching company classes is pretty much a lose-lose situation for the teacher, I received an e-mail from my son. “Are you ever going to write a positive blog?” it read. Oh hell, I thought, am I being too negative? Am I coming across as an ill-tempered, whinging malcontent who never has a good word to say about his chosen profession? So, suitably chastened, next day I sent off my ‘Rewards of Teaching English’ blog (a kind of ‘EFL Soup for the Soul’ article.) A blog so feel-good and positive it warms the very cockles of the heart. The result? Two days of the most dismal viewing figures ever. Ouch! So the readers don’t want warm and fuzzy, huh? OK, my next blog post will be an outpouring of invective and withering criticism of the EFL game. Thus: ‘The Top 5 Moans about EFL’. I’m awaiting the readership figures on that one.

(Maybe I should go 50-50, with one positive blog alternating with a negative one. To try and please all of the people all of the time. Mmm… I’ll have to give that some thought.)

For a writer, there’s nothing so dispiriting as asking a literary agent to consider handling your book. Literary agents tend to come across as self-important primadonnas. There are those who will tell you not to send a proposal; instead, send a one-page letter convincing them why they should bother reading your proposal. Some ask for a reading fee before they will deign to read your book idea. The majority of agents will insist you do not send your book proposal to anyone other than them. They will stipulate the format your submission should adopt: American spelling, Chicago Tribune style punctuation, 12-point Times Roman font, five letter-space paragraph indentations, etc, etc. And should your format not adhere to their stipulations, the proposal is relegated to the slush pile without being read. Most literary agents take smug satisfaction in informing you that they receive 300 unsolicited manuscripts a week, and thus your book stands a .0001% chance of seeing the light of day. And most will warn you not to expect a response from them for three to four months. Some even take delight in saying that should your submission prove unacceptable to them, do not expect a reply.

I have a dream. The time: sometime in the future. The situation: my book has finally been published and has proved a runaway success. With a self-satisfied smirk on my face I send off an e-mail to each of the literary agents who’d given me the brush-off. “Dear Mr/Ms XYZ; It may interest you to know that the book which you rejected seven months ago has now entered the New York Times best-sellers list at number four. It has, to date, sold upward of a quarter of a million copies. And I only used three letter-space indentations, too. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it, you wanker.”

Teachers. Alain de Botton is widely quoted as saying “You become an English teacher when your life has gone wrong”. Gulp, that hurts. But why did Botton (sorry – de Botton) make this observation? Sure, I’ve worked with teachers whose lives have definitely gone wrong; assorted drunkards, druggies and no-hopers who would be better off in a job where they had no exposure to the public at all. (The army, perhaps.) But I’ve worked with many more teachers who are devoted to the profession, and carry it out in a professional, caring manner. And I’ve found that the ratio of losers to professionals is about 1:10. So there, Mr de Botton.

No-one is quite sure just how many of us English teachers there are out there. I read one estimate that there are 20,000 expatriate EFL teachers in South Korea, and that China recruits 100,000 new native-speaking English teachers annually, but as for total numbers worldwide, it’s anyone’s guess. My estimate is that there are a helluva lot of us. Here’s an idea: English teachers unite! Let’s form a worldwide union to press for better pay, better conditions, and better schools! There are some guys out there who are religiously trying to do just that. But I can’t help feeling that their efforts will come to nought. There are too many teachers, they’re spread across all four corners of the globe, and they’re a widely disparate mob. A union? Nice idea, but I predict it’s doomed from the start.

Students I have met. Idris, a young Indonesian man of around 24 whom I taught, comes to mind. Idris was affable and easy to like, and we formed a friendship. We’d go out after class for a meal once or twice a month. Idris was single (but wished he wasn’t), and lived with his parents in a small, cramped house in the Jakarta suburbs. As the eldest son in a family of six, it was his responsibility to look after and support his five siblings, who ranged in age from six to twenty. A weighty responsibility, but one he accepted without qualms. After all, that’s the way things are in most Asian families. He would join me in a beer, (sipping it through a straw), but after one and a half glasses would beg off, saying he was much more comfortable drinking Coca-Cola. Idris had one regret in life. At the age of twenty he had fallen in love with Sri. They had gone out, held hands, and had planned a wedding someday. Alas, it was not to be. After lengthy consideration, his parents had decided that Sri, a Sumatran, just wasn’t quite suitable for a Javanese to marry. And so Idris and Sri had shaken hands and bid each other goodbye. Idris was near to tears when he recounted this story to me.

After our first meal together, I leant back and lit up a cigarette. Idris carefully unrolled his sock and extracted one of two cigarettes secreted there. “Why do you keep your cigarettes in your sock?” I asked. “My father doesn’t know I smoke. If he found out he’d be very angry.”

Bosses I have met. (Shudder.) I’ve worked for so many bad ones it’s hard to choose which one to write about. Some bosses are just too busy and too important to have anything to do with the teaching staff. I worked at one school in Saigon where I never got to meet the boss. Her edicts were handed down by nervous staff members. “You will be paid one week later than usual, because payday is a bank holiday,” the secretary announces in an awed tone of voice. “What? Tell Mrs Thuong that’s completely unacceptable.” “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly do that.”

Then there was the Aussie boss of a big school in Indonesia with the temper of a newly castrated pit-bull. During one flaming row with seven teachers he sacked all of them on the spot. ‘The Day of the Long Knives’ it became known as. Thus the hapless Director of Studies was landed the task of finding seven new teachers virtually overnight. He did a creditably good job of it, but inevitably most of the replacement teachers were an ill-assorted bunch of misfits who had no business at all being in a classroom. (Six of the seven sacked teachers went on to very profitable, plum jobs in Brunei, by the way. Tax free.)

Flaky teaching theories. There are plenty of silly teaching methodologies about, and every now and then you’ll find yourself working in a school that has whole-heartedly adopted one of these misguided methods. Would you be prepared to don Mickey Mouse ears and do Disney character role-plays every day, lesson after lesson? There’s a chain of schools in China that expect you to do just that. How about this: You teach 20 new vocabulary words each session, by unison drilling. No games, no light relief; just unison drill, unison drill, unison drill. No full sentences thanks – just stick to the words alone. Or how about the SALT method? (Suggestive Accelerated Learning and Teaching.) It’s designed to get the left and right hemispheres of the students’ brains in sync. All it takes is copious amounts of drinking water, candles, group hugs, and a little bit of Mozart playing in the background. And perhaps a little tap dancing to get the students’ speech rhythms right.

As teacher, don’t even think about questioning the efficacy of these methods, or suggesting a slightly different approach. No, the management has decided on Mad Method X, and Mad Method X is what you’ll apply, (if you want to be paid at the end of the month, that is).

Right, there you have it. My idle mianderings. Any of it ring a bell with you?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

EFL minus the B.S. is now available on Amazon, in both paperback form and Kindle version. Buy your copy today.

AN ASSORTMENT OF PASSING THOUGHTS

An assortment of passing thoughts

I sat down this morning to write an update for this blog, and found that my mind was completely devoid of ideas. Undeterred, I decided to just write on a series of random, disjointed topics – whatever came into my head. (I have never let a dearth of ideas stop me from sounding off authoritatively on any subject.) Soo… here goes. And my apologies in advance if it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

First, Asians’ music preferences. They like Western music. They’re not too up-to-date on the latest songs, but they love The Carpenters (in fact most of them know the words of “Yesterday Once More” by heart), and they love Lobo too. Why is that, I wonder? If you listen closely to The Carpenters and Lobo, you’ll find that they enunciate their words very clearly – that’s probably got a lot to do with it.

In a Vietnamese school I was doing a series of oral placement tests. Next in line was an elderly, shapeless Vietnamese woman. “Hello, what’s your name?” She raised a hand and gave that open fingered waggle that means either “no”, “nothing”, or “I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.” I tried a few other simple questions and got the same reaction. In front of me I had a sheet of paper on which I had to record scores of one to ten on things like Pronunciation, Vocabulary Range, Listening, and Grammatical Accuracy. For the first time ever, I awarded the woman zero in every category. “That’s all, thanks. Goodbye.” Another hand-waggle. I shooed her out of the chair, and called a receptionist over. “Sorry, but that lady has absolutely no English. I doubt she could ever learn any either – she’s too old. Sorry, but in all fairness to her I think you should discourage her from enrolling here. She’d be like a fish out of water even in Beginners’ Level.”

My sage advice was, of course, ignored, and two weeks later I walked into a new Beginners’ class to find a smiling Mrs Vinh sitting there. Oh hell. Well, as you’ve probably guessed by now, Mrs Vinh turned out to be one of my star pupils, enthusiastically throwing herself into every activity, and quickly becoming a favorite of her fellow students, all of whom were a quarter her age. She had more gumption and determination to speak out than all the other students put together. Lesson Four was: “Can you swim / dance / sing / ride a bike?” etcetera. I asked Mrs Vinh “Can you sing?” and she smiled and nodded her head. “OK, please sing for us.” Without a moment’s hesitation she launched into an old Vietnamese love ballad, complete with facial expressions and hand gestures. When she came to the end of the song the whole class erupted in rapturous applause.

I asked a Pre-Intermediate level Russian student what his ideal job would be, and he answered “Proctologist”. Where in the hell had he picked that word up, I wonder?

Jeeze, this blog post sure is random, isn’t it? Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Oh yes… the boss I most love to hate. Here’s a copy of her staff Christmas Party invitation. “You are invited to the Christmas party on December 23, at XYZ Restaurant. All teachers are expected to attend. Wives and children can come, but there is a charge of 300,000 dong for each of them. Children must not sit in separate seats. Any teacher who does not attend or who leaves early will be fined 400,000 dong.” Yes, peace and goodwill to you too, you bitch. This particular school owner has become known as “The 3-D Boss” – Dishonest, Dislikeable, and Devious. (Not that she gives a damn; she’s laughing all the way to the bank.)

I’ve always found EFL jobs overseas by first going to the country of my choice, and doing my job-hunting there. I have a good friend who’s been teaching English almost as long as me and who has approached it in an entirely different way. He has first found the job on the internet, applied and been accepted, and then flown to the country in question. Which method is the more successful? You could argue the pros and cons until the cows come home, but let me quote one fact which clinches the argument. He’s now earning $32 an hour, as compared to my $20. And he gets an accommodation allowance and holiday pay too, damn his eyes.

I’ve just received a wedding invitation from an ex-student who met his wife-to-be in my class 18 months ago. Now doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy? It does me. He may not have gained much English from his course, but he did gain a life-long partner.

So, there you have it. An assortment of passing thoughts that entered my mind over the past hour. Make any sense to you?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

My new book, EFL minus the B.S. (now available on Amazon) puts the English teaching game under the spotlight. From applying for a job, living overseas, work permits, management and mismanagement, classroom dynamics, teens’ and children’s classes, to sex and the single teacher. 

CHILDISHNESS RULES, YEAH!

CHILDISHNESS RULES, YEAH!

A while back I was joking around with a young adult class, and one of the students said, “Gee, Mr Don, you are so childish!”

I was chuffed, to say the least.

Lashings of childishness will serve you well in an EFL class. Think about the average classroom 100 or so years ago. The teacher was God, and his or her every order was to be followed slavishly. No slacking off. No fooling around. No muttering to your fellow students. Follow the instructions, or feel the wrath of an irate teacher descend upon your head. Classrooms are places of serious study, not jesting, day dreaming, or getting off-task. Such unclassroom-like behavior would invariably land you a caning, or at the very least an hour’s detention.

So, as well-meaning as those good teachers of yore were, why not a bit of fooling around… joking… laughter… silliness? As long as it doesn’t take over the lesson entirely, what’s the harm? Or more to the point, what are the benefits? There are plenty in my view.

A student with a relaxed mind is more receptive to new information, rather than one whose mind on its best behavior fearful of invoking a teacher’s wrath. Silliness brightens up a lesson and keeps your students alert and on their toes. The time seems to pass quicker. Students leave the classroom with smiles on their faces, looking forward to tomorrow’s lesson. I rest my case.

What kinds of silliness sit well in the EFL environment? Here are some examples. We all know the “Stop the Bus” activity. Now if students were required to say “Teacher, I’ve finished” at the end of each round, the important ingredient of silliness will have been stripped from the activity. Another example. You’re doing an activity that requires each student to write a sentence on a piece of paper, then exchange it with another student who must answer the question. A very straightforward (and rather predictably boring) reading and writing activity. So how about this: instead of merely passing the question slip to another student at random, tell the students to crumple their slips into balls, and to lob the balls into a box on the floor? When all the balls are in the box, students pull out one each. The throwing of the paper balls becomes one of the highlights of the lesson, with students either cheering or jeering each other’s throwing accuracy. Another: Students are required to perform tasks one by one in succession. OK, how do we select whose turn it is? The teacher points at the next student? Nah, you’re passing over a good chance for an injection of childishness there. Give a student a balloon or a ping pong ball, and tell him or her to throw it to a student of choice. Fun, laughter, hilarity. Music to my ears. 

I won’t give any more examples; I’m sure you’ve experimented with a few yourself, and found them very successful. But what I will urge is this. Make silliness a regular ingredient of your lessons. You won’t be disappointed. And neither will your students.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You won’t find the teaching hints contained in EFL Minus the B.S. in any other book, journal, or EFL training course. They are the result of my own 40 years of trial and error (lots of error, plus the occasional EUREKA moment). They’re 100% original, and 95% infallible. Don’t believe it? Read the book and find out for yourself.