Hey, Teflers - would you like the chance to travel the length and breadth of this fine country?! Meet with high-powered executives from the world of business and academia? And still have to rush back to Bournemouth to teach your evening class of lower intermediate Koreans?Well, now's your chance - and you can earn the incredibly piss-taking sum of ... 18 grand a year!! Yes, if we are to believe the recent job advert from Bournemouth Business School International on tefl.com, it's all very possible!
Anyway, do you have the following? "A university degree, CELTA or DELTA qualifications, substantial English language teaching experience with IELTS, strong interpersonal and organisational skills, and the ability to build good working relationships with university international departments." Ooh, crikey - obviously they want nothing but the best at BBSI!
But wait - it's not just any old job they're offering for that might salary - no way! "The successful candidate will be responsible for providing ongoing and active support and advice to foundation and pre-masters students during the university application process. He/she will also oversee the preparation and running of BBSI's Professional Work Placement scheme." So it's an 'oversees' job, eh??
Anyway, the fine burghers of BBSI are not happy with just that, as in addition you'll have to do some teaching, or, in BBSI-speak, "the applicant will need to have the ability to manage a demanding workload at key times of the academic year." In other words, you will get shafted - but not all the year round!
And so the nauseatingly self-proclaiming blurb drones on. "BBSI has a policy of constant innovation ... " it barks, which probably means they'll give you the sack as soon as it suits them.
Right, so, what will you actually have to do to get that overwhelmingly generous salary of 1500 a month (less tax and NI, of course)? Well, according to the advert, you have to find university places and work placements for misguided foreigners who apparently believe that a UK university degree or internship is something worth waving at a prospective employer back home. Well, a fat lot of good they've done the average Tefler, but - hey, don't let on, will you? Oh, and there's that little matter of "an adjusted teaching commitment" - probably 30 hours a week whenever they feel like it.
Actually it's the language of the advert which is the most cringe-inducing, alongside the actual job itself, of course. According to the BBSI bullshit machine, "we work closely with employers to ensure that trainees benefit fully from the often challenging experience of working in the UK." Yes, it's that unwelcome old euphemism 'challenging' again. After all, what would be more 'challenging' than getting bawled at by some grumpy Tesco's line-manager in a language you barely understand, or having to deal with Sharon and Dave's complaint that their new toaster blew up as soon as they shoved in the frozen sausage rolls!?
Anyway, if you are desperate enough to be interested in this dogshit job, you can call this old dragon of a DOS (see pic), who goes by the name of Gill Wood. I don't know about 'wood', but she looks like she's made of scrap iron, and hard enough to bite your bollocks off from 30 yards, so take care. Check her out (with caution!) at the address below.Bournemouth Business School International
Avon House, 26 St Peters Road
Bournemouth, DorsetBH1 2LW
Tel: 01202 780777
However, on the up side, you might also get the chance to shaft this old slapper pictured alongside, the BBSI boss's PA - known as 'Luvverly Lourdes' to all those who know her!
Good luck! And remember the motto - At BBSI, Crap Always Comes First!
5 comments:
An 'insider' at BBSI has written to inform me that this was "a ruthless ridiculing of a very average school". And I'm not quite sure what he meant - any ideas, anybody?
Hi, I recently got an e-mail from rentacoder for a job, and found that the job was writing a university assignment. I e-mailed the teacher:
Andrew, I am not trying to dob anyone in for plagiarism.
I got an e-mail from rentacoder the other day because I had noted Prolog as a language I was able to use.
The job was to do assignment for CSE2AIF, due 7.10.2013. This marks to me the decline of civilisation as we know it.
I had a horrible time doing a CELTA course in 2008. (A minimal qualification for teaching ESL).
This course has the name of Cambridge attached to it, but was outsourced to more than 256 schools worldwide.
I was aghast at the assessment, which I failed, and since then I cast a very critical eye on courses.
I had a recent master’s degree in language science, so I thought that failing CELTA was a sign of “the death of Cambridge”, or perhaps “the death of the university”.
(George Steiner was initialled failed for his Ph.D at Cambridge, which he obtained in 1960.
His thesis topic was “The Death of Tragedy” – perhaps today someone needs to write a thesis on the topic “The Death of the University”).
I completed a grad cert in engineering at UQ in 2009. I found the assignments for the computer programming languages Z and B very difficult, but did not mind because this is what I wanted to do.
I have no complaints about the assignment you set in 2013, but maybe it could be an option to hand out the code already done and let people play with the system, and write an easy 1500 word essay about their experience in using the system.
(The specification on the web site says “equivalent to 1500 words”, I assume this means a 1500 word essay).
Best regards
Richard Mullins
#1 of a number of comments to be made about the CELTA course in Brisbane in 2008.
I had enquired about the course, and was offered a place at the last minute. I was required to do a grammar test on internet, which I did very qucickly and without preparation. I then had a phone interview - this only went for the few minutes and the person interviewing was happy to say I had passed.
After failing the course, I found that the other 5 had had a one on one interview for 3 hours with the tutor before being allowed to enrol.
If I had passed,this would not be worth mentioning. BUt it seems significant now that I failed the course.
Richard Mullins
nrmullins@sctelco.net.au
#2. Because of urgency to enrol, I enrolled without buying the book and then found that it was not in the store.
I did not get to read the book ("Learning Teaching" by Scrivener) until late in the course.
I accept now that it was very foolish of me to go ahead without the book.
I had bought an alternative book (The 2 volume Celta course by Thornbury) and I had thought that would suffice.
Thornbury and Scrivener are both very elementary books. Anyone who has already studied linguistics would find them to be of kindergarten standard.
This is not to ridicule them. In fact I regard a kindergarten standard as very high.
Richard Mullins
nrmullins@sctelco.net.au
#3. On the first day of the CELTA course, we are given a bundle of papers, 200 or more pages.
#4. The next day, we were given lessons in Indonesian. This could have been a very useful exercise. The CELTA course requires that we have 6 hours of class time in another language. This is as much time as is taken up by the observed practice teaching lessons.
We could have written essays on the exercise of learning Indonesian.
It has often been said that the CELTA course is very intensive. This would be so if we were learning languages during the course.
It is hard to learn another language in a largely monolingual society.
I could go to Inala and try out some Vietnamese phrases. I would need to practice for 100 hours by myself first.
Richard Mullins
nrmullins@sctelco.net.au
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