A Lathophobe Writes...

... very well, in fact. What I really mean is that there's a blogger out there with a virtually unpronouncable name, and he writes a blog with an equally obscure and opaque monicker. It's something to do with sodomy, I reckon, judging by the number of pictures of scantily-clad young men on the site, but I could be wrong. Anyway, check the blog out here, if you would be so kind.

Well, he's written an extremely interesting and humourous post about the perils of Tefling in Greece and the rigours of teacher training there, both of which had me nodding my head in quiet agreement and almost peeing my pants with mirth (instead of the usual substance you normally pee your pants with). However, the story of Sotiris - "a lugubrious individual with a droning voice" - and his painful attempts to pass himself off as a competent teacher made me want to stand up and shout at the screen, something like "you can not be fuggin' serious, you mad fuggin' Greek!"

Even better, I was reminded of my own attempts to inflict an unwelcome teacher-(re)training programme on some unfortunate ladies in Central Asia many years ago. After a short while it became quite clear that (a) some of these elderly 'teachers' had a lot of trouble expressing their most basic thoughts in English, and (b) they had signed up more out of curiosity (a real Englishman!), and the belief that they might be able to match me up with one of their daughters. In the end, we just sat around drinking tea and chatting.

Actually, none of the above is really true - I just couldn't be bothered to write anything of my own today, so I though I'd nick his stuff instead. Ha! However, here are a couple of the same geezer's efforts to throw a little light into the dark pantheon that is teacher-training in the home of dodgy democracy and crunchy kebabs.

http://giaklamata.blogspot.com/2009/10/memoirs-of-teacher-trainer-ii.html

Where's the second one gone? I can't find it! What a fuggin' shambles I am today...