The short goodbye...

Well, it's almost exactly ten years since I first breathed life into 'Sandy McManus', aka 'The Tefl Tradesman', and started this blog. In all that time I have achieved ... probably very little (if anything at all)

OK then, maybe not. After all, we have had some great laughs, ousted a few shysters, and thrown an unforgiving light on all manner of bullshit and deceit, both inside and outside the classroom.

Anyway, I have now decided that the time has come to recognise my immensely irrelevant contributions to the whacky world of Tefl and resign. I mean, give up the blog, and just let it float here in cyberspace, forever and ever (Amen).

Fact is, I no longer tread those perilous Tefl boards, as I recently applied for one of the jobs listed alongside. Much to my surprise, I even got it! I'll leave it up to you, dearest reader, to guess which one it is. Kindly leave your choices below, and the correct one will be rewarded with a free packet of 10 Royals.

So, farewell then, fellow Tefl Twats. It's been a hell of a ride, but the time has come to leave the saddle and make a a respectable sideways walk into the sunset.

At least for a good while, anyway.

Speak Up! - That Deleted Post!

Due to popular demand, I am restoring the post below, which was deleted as a result of the usual grubby activities by lawyers. Sandy will NOT be silenced!

***** 

Once again, Sandy's Tefl spies have brought to greater attention the dodgy doings of another shyster school. In this case, I am very proud to be able to shine the 'Spotlight of Shame' on Speak Up! London, who have been found guilty of flouting employment laws and promoting outright sexism in the workplace. The main character responsible is an upstanding gentleman of Asian extraction, pictured alongside (deleted due to copyright infringement claims), who goes by the glorious name of Mr Fartan!

Without doubt, this thieving toad represents another fine example of the cockroaches and scumbags who infest the UK Tefl scene. Last month he attempted to fire an employee for no reason and without notice or payment. No doubt this is the way employees, especially female ones, are treated in his country of origin. However, Mr Fartan (a.k.a. Farhan Quraishi) seemed to overlook that he lives in a civilised country now, whose laws need to be respected.

After a spirited campaign via social media, Mr Fartan was forced to change his cheating ways. You can find out all about the matter here:

http://www.solfed.org.uk/north-london/victory-against-wage-stealing-language-school

http://www.solfed.org.uk/north-london/marta-2-speak-up-0

http://libcom.org/blog/working-man-06062014

Anyway, I did some further digging into Mr Fartan and his academic cesspit, and I found some pretty vile stuff. He is a man who is not shy of making grand claims on his LinkedIn page, but in reality he appears to be much more of a wimp.

For example, he claims to be a "Multi talented individual whose skills set ranges" . Indeed , they probably range from promoting discrimination against his female teachers to failing to issue teachers with contracts. Or perhaps that is what he means by his boast that he is "Definitely not a one trick pony."? After all, he seems to have lots of tricks up his sleeve, especially when it comes to dodging his legal obligations as an employer.

He has also been pulled up about the full name of his school, which is Speak Up! London School of English on their website and advertising. Certain people at the London School of English, which is probably the UK's very best EFL school, have asked him to either alter his school's name or issue a disclaimer, stating clearly that his cheapskate outfit in tourist town is nothing at all to do with the high-quality outfit in Holland Park. However, for some strange reason that only Mr Fartan can provide, he has consistently refused to do so!

Another strange matter is the fact that on June 4 this year - just a few weeks back - Mr Fartan and his co-director, Kamila Cwiklinska (both of 49 Clarence Gardens, Camden) registered a new company at Companies House. This new school is called Speak Up London Language School Ltd - a name that is very similar to their current company, which was incorporated in August 2012, called Speak Up London Ltd.

Now, language schools come and go, and my experience of those that go after a name change is that they often claim insolvency and dodge the taxman. And for some reason, the current Speak Up! outfit has apparently paid no taxes and filed no accounts EVER!

Oh, and sometimes these shyster schools avoid paying their employees too. Is this another of those tricks that Mr Fartan likes to crow about?



Do YOU work at Speak Up!? Got a story to tell? 
Just send it to teflsandy@yahoo.ie and you'll receive a free packet of 10 Park Drive in return!

Would YOU work for 20K in London?

Well, would you? If you’re an EFL teacher you’d probably have to, but did you also know that – even as a Diploma-qualified Tefler with the following attributes, you may well have to!

• Experience of delivering examination classes ( FCE/CAE/CPE/IELTS) 
 • Experience of working in multilingual classroom 
 • Experience with continuous assessment, adapting lessons to meet individual needs, giving tutorials and setting learning goals 
 • Proficiency in time management and record keeping 
 • Can demonstrate a strong commitment to own CPD 
 • Confident with using IT in the classroom including IWBs
 • Flexibility and cultural awareness

Yes, step forward the Wimbledon School of English for advertising such a demanding job with so little reward!

I’m rather surprised, and not a little disappointed, that despite this very same school having won the highest of all possible marks in its recent British Council inspection, it’s still offering shit salaries for Dip teachers with oodles of experience.

 What’s worse, the ad makes no mention of how many of hours of classroom capers you’ll have to put in before they cough up that mighty 385 quid every week. If it’s around the 25 mark, that means you’ll be in effect working for something like a pisspoor 15 quid an hour!

Mind you, they do offer a free lunch. Whether you’re allowed a doggy-bag to help prevent yourself from starving to death on their shit salary is not clear, however. 

 Care to comment on that, Fiona Dunlop and Jane Dancaster?

Speak Up! forced to Pay Up!

Once again, Sandy's Tefl spies have brought to greater attention the dodgy doings of another shyster school. In this case, I am very proud to be able to shine the 'Spotlight of Shame' on Speak Up! London, who have been found guilty of flouting employment laws and promoting outright sexism in the workplace. The main character responsible is an upstanding gentleman of Asian extraction, pictured alongside, who goes by the glorious name of Mr Fartan!

Without doubt, this thieving toad represents another fine example of the cockroaches and scumbags who infest the UK Tefl scene. Last month he attempted to fire an employee for no reason and without notice or payment. No doubt this is the way employees, especially female ones, are treated in his country of origin. However, Mr Fartan (a.k.a. Farhan Quraishi) seemed to overlook that he lives in a civilised country now, whose laws need to be respected.

After a spirited campaign via social media, Mr Fartan was forced to change his cheating ways. You can find out all about the matter here:

http://www.solfed.org.uk/north-london/victory-against-wage-stealing-language-school

http://www.solfed.org.uk/north-london/marta-2-speak-up-0

http://libcom.org/blog/working-man-06062014

Anyway, I did some further digging into Mr Fartan and his academic cesspit, and I found some pretty vile stuff. He is a man who is not shy of making grand claims on his LinkedIn page, but in reality he appears to be much more of a wimp.

For example, he claims to be a "Multi talented individual whose skills set ranges" . Indeed , they probably range from promoting discrimination against his female teachers to failing to issue teachers with contracts. Or perhaps that is what he means by his boast that he is "Definitely not a one trick pony."? After all, he seems to have lots of tricks up his sleeve, especially when it comes to dodging his legal obligations as an employer.

He has also been pulled up about the full name of his school, which is Speak Up! London School of English on their website and advertising. Certain people at the London School of English, which is probably the UK's very best EFL school, have asked him to either alter his school's name or issue a disclaimer, stating clearly that his cheapskate outfit in tourist town is nothing at all to do with the high-quality outfit in Holland Park. However, for some strange reason that only Mr Fartan can provide, he has consistently refused to do so!

Another strange matter is the fact that on June 4 this year - just a few weeks back - Mr Fartan and his co-director, Kamila Cwiklinska (both of 49 Clarence Gardens, Camden) registered a new company at Companies House. This new school is called Speak Up London Language School Ltd - a name that is very similar to their current company, which was incorporated in August 2012, called Speak Up London Ltd.

Now, language schools come and go, and my experience of those that go after a name change is that they often claim insolvency and dodge the taxman. And for some reason, the current Speak Up! outfit has apparently paid no taxes and filed no accounts EVER!

Oh, and sometimes these shyster schools avoid paying their employees too. Is this another of those tricks that Mr Fartan likes to crow about?



Do YOU work at Speak Up!? Got a story to tell? 
Just send it to teflsandy@yahoo.ie and you'll receive a free packet of 10 Park Drive in return!

The Via Lingua TEFL Scam

I received this nice little addition to the blog the other day. Just so that it did not feel all alone hanging about at the foot of a blog posting about crappy TEFL courses, I have decided to promote it to pole position and do some follow up.

The Via Lingua TEFL course in Florence, Italy is a total scam. The school intentionally misleads potential students on its website by claiming that 85% of graduates of the TEFL course get a job within 30 days of finishing the course. This is a blatant lie - most of the people from the course go home without a job. The school provides very little in the way of support. Their idea of an exclusive lifetime job network for graduates is a binder full of print outs of job postings from TEFL.com and Dave’s ESL cafe.

Furthermore, the housing they provide is subpar and the owner of the school when confronted about these issues becomes very hostile. Via Lingua is basically a marketing scheme - they’ll say whatever they can (mislead, or leave out important information about the job market or working visas, etc) so they can get you to sign up for their course. They have about five or six websites all saying the same stuff, and they’ve paid bloggers and ESL sites like ESL Base to do free advertising. It’s not a professional school in any sense of the word. However, on the bright side (can’t all be bad, right?) Florence is a beautiful city!

It’s time for this school to be added to the TEFL blacklist. Via Lingua, you’re on notice.

http://www.vialingua.org/tefl-florence.asp

For further information, please contact info@vialingua.org, call toll-free in the US (888) 835-6207 or in the UK (44) 203-004-0943.

Actually I called the outfit in Florence a couple of times, but found it impossible to communicate with anybody there who could speak even basic English. Doesn't say much for their 'school', does it? 

The oddness of Riyadh: the place and the people (part 3).

And so, here we have, unfortunately, the last instalment in the trilogy of our beloved Tefl colleagues. Can any other trade or profession boast such a large amount of total nutcases?

Mr. D

On his first day he arrived with no money and asked for an advance of 500 Rials. Later that afternoon we went shopping in the large mall opposite. Even though we were staying in a hotel at the time, this did not stop Mr.D from spending the entire amount on exotic chandelier lamps and cleaning equipment. On the first day in the office, the LAN cable would not reach his desk, and rather than call for a technician, he grabbed it and ripped it out through the flooring and brackets on the wall, so that maintenance had to come and fix the problem. 

I agreed to go running with Mr.D at the back of the school in the mornings. It was a 45 minute run across gravel, and the temperature was 48 C. He turned up with no shoes on, but said nothing. We assumed that because he was tall and slim that he was a runner, yet within two minutes he was so far off the pace we couldn’t see him. To show how macho he was, the following day he decided to run around the school running track instead. Yet because it was nearly 50 C, running bare foot gave him such enormous blisters that he had to take time off work straight away. 

Shortly after that, all the teachers were given a free laptop. However, rather than accept the gift, Mr D went to the principal to complain about the free bag that came with it. Soon afterwards, he refused to work if the water cooler wasn’t replaced daily; and he would repeatedly call the manager in charge of maintenance a ‘cock-sucker’ until it was done, whilst citing a long list of reasons why he should not have to work without water all day. On top of this, about a month in, he began to upset his colleagues, who were mostly Lebanese and Egyptian, by getting into heavy conversations about Israel and Bush, and calling them all ‘cock-suckers’ during heated tirades. One week this happened almost every day before first class, which was 7am, much to the annoyance of everyone else. One of our colleagues, whose village had been bombed by the Israelis, did not need much convincing.

It was no surprise that Mr.D did not last long, as he could not teach for toffee. Five weeks into the term, a parent complained and wanted to know why her son had nothing in his exercise book other than line after line, page after page, of the sentence ‘I MUST OBEY MY TEACHER’. Some weeks later he did a moonlight flit, owing the school thousands of dollars and one laptop.

Mr. C

In retrospect he was by far the strangest person I have ever met. The first indication of this came when he went to the hypermarket opposite where we were first placed and bought a Pro tennis racket and some pro balls. The serviced apartments where we were staying then made a complaint after he converted his bedroom into a tennis court (which was quite possible, as it was a reasonable size and had marble floors and wall). He had moved everything out of the said bedroom and put it into the main room, meaning that you could not even open the door to enter properly and had to climb over furniture. The cleaners complained they could not do their job, and he was moved into another apartment. Before that happened, however, he took another trip to the hypermarket to buy some cheaper balls. The pro balls he had bought were too bouncy and he couldn’t control them.

The second strange thing that Mr. C did was to travel 33 kms across the city to buy a cheap Chinese bicycle. Although it was still August and very hot, he decided to cycle back in the middle of the day. The problem here was that the bike was so cheap it was impossible to change gear, and one of the pedals fell off half-way though the journey. In addition, he told me that many cars had tried to ram him off the road. When he asked me to repair the gears, the bike was so heavy that I couldn’t turn it upside down and rest it on its handlebars without help - it must have weighed well over 20 kgs.

It wasn’t until he refused the door-to-door transport arranged by the school that I began to wonder what sort of person he was. Even though the school was 18 kms away, Mr.C decided to walk to work instead. On the first day he woke up at 3am to get to school on time and was unable to fully complete the journey on the way back. On the second day he walked half of the journey to work before taking a taxi and was unable to walk back, choosing instead to accept the door-to-door transport provided instead. On the third day he abandoned the idea, much to the relief of the vice-principal.

In class any student who talked or got an answer wrong would have to come to the centre of class and do ten press ups in front of everyone. Most classes ended with a quick powerpoint of Mr C's time in the military. Should any student not want to study in class, he needed only to begin the lesson by asking him about something they had seen in his powerpoint presentation, safe in the knowledge that the course syllabus would be abandoned and the entire lesson devoted to his time in the military. How to handle machine guns was a point of great interest. 

Things then took a bizarre turn in the winter. Having abandoned the unrideable Chinese bike he had previously bought, he purchased a sports tourer and began riding it to work. This went badly wrong very quickly when he attempted to ride it down a flight of concrete stairs. He fell off and fractured his shoulder. The problem here was just weeks before Mr.C had decided to buy a long leather trench coat, identical to that worn in The Matrix, along with some dark sunglasses, and he dressed entirely in black. He continued to do this even though he came into work with his arm in a pink sling, which was impossible not to laugh at. Of course, any student who did laugh, which was just about every student in the class at some point, was forced to do extra press ups. 

Eventually Mr C resigned after his wife (affectionately named Robocop, on account of her metal knee plate) was denied a visa.  

All true I promise.

So, there you have it - a truly rich panoply of Tefl weirdoes and fruitcakes!

Now, do YOU have  any similar stories of personal oddness and eccentricity to add to the collection? Please feel free to enlighten us by adding a comment below!

The oddness of Riyadh: the place and the people (part 2).

Here is the next colourful instalment in the rich tapestry of Tefl weirdoes from Saudi Arabia. I was quite relieved to find out that I don't feature amongst them!

Mr.K (1)

A retiring Brit who spent nearly 15 years in Saudi camped in front of the TV. Never a day went by without him roundly cursing the place and its people. He was saving up to buy a house in Bulgaria, but sadly died before he could move in, meaning that he died full of personal misery, having been unable to appreciate the fruits of his labour. 

Mr.T

A strange Canadian who went to bed at 6pm daily so that he could wake and exercise at 4am the following day when it was not yet hot. He would frequently boast about the $5000 carbon fibre wheels on his triathlon bike, but was less sure about why he had never won a single event, even though he only ever competed in events with just a handful of entrants. 

Mr. K (2)

An Irishman with a propensity to throw chairs through windows after consuming illegal hooch during in-house karaoke sessions. Whilst in work he gained the reputation for being a compulsive liar and having a reluctance to admit that he didn’t really have the qualifications he said he had, owing to the fact that he hadn’t finished the courses he embarked on.

Mr. D

A diminutive Welshman with a large appetite for alcohol and whoring. He had been employed in various (in)capacities at virtually all colleges in the city, and legend had it that he once lasted more than one term at the same place. Dismissed (many times) for turning up for work roaring drunk, he was finally ordered to leave the country – only to be refused boarding the plane, due to his advanced state of inebriation. Last heard of in China, having married a Chinese prostitute.

‘Dr’ Y

A tall American who arrived to work as a ‘counsellor’, owing to his PhD in Psychology. He expressed a great interest in the welfare of the local whores, and spent most evenings acquainting himself with the city’s brothels. He took out an enormous loan after just a few months, and then promptly left the country on a pretext. Never returned.

Coming next: the big two!

The oddness of Riyadh: the place and the people (part 1).

Sandy McAnus is proud to present a series of pieces dedicated to that shimmering hub of teaching excellence, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. One of my contacts over there, based in the capital of The Gulf's shining light of democracy, has bravely volunteered (no inducements were offered, really) the following tribute to his equally singular colleagues.

*******

When I arrived in Riyadh a few years back, I had little idea of what would befall me. Having never been to the Gulf region before, there was much of a muchness about choosing a particular location -  they all seemed the same, and were equally desperate to recruit me. When two teachers dropped out of a PREP Programme at the prestigious King Faisal School Riyadh situated next to the American Embassy in the Diplomatic Quarter, two vacancies arose. With some research I noted that the school was home to much of the ruling elite of the country, with the Bin Ladens and the Al-Sauds being the more obvious benefactors. Yet generally, as is often the case with such dodgy institutes, there was a paucity of information about the place - just a bunch of sour grapes by some sad Tefl twats who either got fired or walked out because they were about to get fired. Aside from that, I knew very little.

The first thing people notice about working in Saudi is how painfully slow the visa process is, not to mention the cost of it. After running around for the best part of two months, however, I was soon on board a flight crossing hour upon hour of gleaming sand, wondering whether I had done the right thing. My main reason for going was because I wanted to get SARS; yes, that’s right - SARS. Not the bird flu kind, but Saudi Arabian Rials … or ‘fluse’ as it’s known locally.

Upon arriving in Riyadh, I was met and taken to a 3-star hotel on the edge of the city. This place doubled  as a knocking shop for fat Saudis and Bangladeshi boys, with the room opposite me being the main hub of activity, unfortunately. On my first day at work I was told that there would be a three week induction period before the students arrived, and that I should use that time to get to know my colleagues and the city. That was when the fun really began. Looking back, I regret not noting all this down at the time, as I have told many I could have made millions from revealing the antics that occurred in the first few months. Given the nature of it all, like many observers, I was too stunned to act, and completely unable to overcome the disbelief that occurred on a daily basis.

The job itself did not get off to the best of starts. One teacher resigned on the first day, rather than pander to a bunch of spoilt Saudi brats all year, whereas another teacher, Palestinian, was fired shortly after for allowing a boy to drown in the swimming pool during a poorly supervised sports day. I befriended what few ex-pat teachers there were, not yet aware that this is not always the best thing to do in the Gulf region. My colleagues were a whacky bunch of misfits, all of them mad in their own way, though two of them were clearly beyond anything I have ever come across. I will mention the merely unbalanced characters first, before moving onto the real crackpots.

To be continued

Rubbish in EFL

My God, HOW remiss of me! I completely forgot to enlighten you all regarding my thrilling experience with Luke ‘the Spook’ Meddings last year. 

For those of you who have no idea (or wish to know) just who Luke is, he is one of those unfortunate social retards (i.e., a Tefler) who claims to have half-invented the Dogme movement, along with his Australian chum, erm, old whatsisname.

Anyway, I went along to one of those crushingly dull and uninspiring seminars offered by the British Council last September, the sort of thing that only saddo Teflers attend - especially those geeky zits who see it as a chance to pad out their CV and crawl up the Tefl promotion ladder. (The suggestion that I was seeking to do the same is vigorously denied, by the way.)

The event was excitingly labelled “Found objects: How Picasso's bull's head can be used in the ELT classroom”, and the idea was that we should take things designed for another purpose and turn them into prompts for learning experiences. Dr Spook was thus entrusted with the weighty task of illuminating us mere Tefl troops in “the need to develop lesson frameworks and teaching strategies which help us to shape this into a learning experience.” Hmm, heavy stuff indeed!

Of course, so enthused was I by Dr Spook’s presentation that the very next day I attempted to put the principles of ‘Found Objects’ into practice. The following example of the process is taken from The Sandy McManus Teaching Diary and Reflective Journal, a serious pedagogical publication that will soon be available for purchase at a very civilised price of £9.99

 12:36  Teacher enters class (late).

T:         "Hello class, let's see what I've got in my pockets, while I desperately take some bits out and try and wing it through a lesson, with trembling hands and a hangover."

St 1:     “Teacher, you smell like dead dog!”

12:37   Teacher fumbles in pockets of trousers and jacket. DoS passes door and coughs loudly.

T:         "Ah yes, here's my docket issued by the Metropolitan Police for a stop and search under Section 44 Terrorism Act. As you can see, they've filled in "Photographing public buildings, acting suspiciously" under "Reason for stop and search."

St 2:     Teacher, you like photo? You see my sister photo – very nice!”

12:38   Teacher passes docket around class. Students’ interest appears to increase.
T:         "Now what's this? (rustle, rustle) Ah, yes, it's a fixed penalty notice for not paying my Tube fare. Oh dear … how embarrassing."

St 1:     “Teacher, why you no pay ticket? You spend all money in pub?”

12:39   Teacher passes notice to students. One student volunteers copy of same.

 T:        "And what's this? Ahem, yes, it's a screwed up copy of a restraining order from my wife, pressed into my hand by a process-server as I left the house this morning."

12:40   Teacher digs into plastic bag and pulls out various papers and photocopied materials. 

T:         "And this … a receipt from Oddbins, the off-licence, for two bottles of vodka. From yesterday..."

St 2:     “Oh teacher, you say me you drink whisky…”

 T:        "Oh, and here's an empty fag packet ... 20 Royals. And an old packet of Rizlas."

St 3:     “Ah, teacher – you like make spliff?”

Anyway, you get the idea. It was, in fact, a cracking lesson, and I discovered that several of my students had equally interesting objects secreted about themselves (half-eaten sandwiches, pots of noodles) and I was happy to complement them on their obvious shoplifting skills.

In short, it was another successful day at the Tefl chalk face. Thanks, Luke!

PS: Actually, my wife has just informed me that the event was cancelled, so I guess the above must have all been a terrible nightmare. Or perhaps it was those hand-picked French mushrooms I bought in Waitrose…

PPS: I forgot to ask: have YOU ever used rubbish in the EFL classroom (to pursue educational aims, I mean)? Please enlighten us with your experiences below...