The Good, the Bad, and the Fuggin' Ugly!

So, welcome to the latest blog-posting from Yours Truly - a trilogy of informational snippets that reveal the great diversity of life available in Tefl these days. My thanks go to the EL Gazette (online version) for allowing me to 'paraphrase' - i.e., mangle and corrupt - a couple of their fine items of factual reporting.

The Good
London English Tutors is offering perhaps the best-paid EFL jobs in London, from £20 an hour for one-to-one conversation classes to £30 an hour for business English. Not bad, eh? Certainly much better than the old crap dished up at Malvern House, for example, who are still hoping to get teachers to work for them for a tenner an hour or less!

What's interesting here is that London English Tutors isn’t even accredited - but doesn’t need to be, as its students are already resident in the city and therefore don’t need visas. So bollocks to EnglishUK and the British Council, who would no doubt love to stick their noses in and tell them to pay less.

Of course, tutoring organisations have no need for classrooms and the usual paraphernalia of language schools, which saves greatly on overheads and means there's more money available for staff pay. In fact, London English Tutors is only charging a small mark-up to the clients (around five quid an hour), which makes them one of the cheapest one-to-one tutoring outfits in London.

Their director, a former teacher in the state sector, remarked drily that she was "appalled" at the rates that EFL teachers are typically paid at private schools, and that her rates are the same as those offered in London's state sector. However, if you're thinking of giving them a ring right now, a word of warning: the company reported "a hell of a response" just hours after placing the openings on their website.

The Bad
It's barge-pole time for Global English, a rather dodgy US company who are looking for teachers to work as online tutors from 11 pm to 7 am. Nice timings, eh?!

Even worse, the pay is completely unspecified, and they expect their teachers to "cover their shifts year-round, including holidays and weekends ... and find a substitute from our online staff when they are unable to work their shift". And I bet they want us to give the students a pound of flesh, too, eh?!

Actually, the company could run into a lot of difficulties in Europe, as the Working Time Directive means that it is illegal for employers not to give staff a minimum of 28 days a year paid holiday - even freelancers. In fact, in the UK teachers who work timetabled hours for the same employer cannot be regarded as freelancers, and Global English is also legally obliged to pay an 11% supplement of employers’ National Insurance contributions on top of the hourly rate. So go chew on that, yankee!

The Ugly
Remember this ugly cunt? I do. His name's Alistair Robb, and he's an EFL teacher in Maceio, Brazil. The reason he's trying to hide behind a mobile phone is as follows: some three years ago I sent him 600 quid to get himself back to his wife and kid in Brazil, as he'd done a summer school in the UK, pissed his cash up the wall, and found himself destitute. See, I really AM a kind soul!

So, despite only knowing him through our respective blogs (his lamentable piece of shit is still floundering here), as an online cyber-pal if you like, I sent 600 smackers to his UK bank account, which he promised to return as soon as he was able to. Yes,that's right - he promised to return it.

And did he ever? So, who's the biggest fool, eh?!

Well, Alistair - this is your last chance. If I don't get the cash by the end of the month, I'll post a picture of your wife! And then we'll ALL be sorry...