"Yes, The Truth is an Odd Number, and Death is a Full Stop."

Indeed, I'm extremely sad to have to reveal that last Friday, the 13th of August (typical!), my life-time comrade-in-classroom capers, Dave the dodgy DOS, passed away, his drink-sodden spirit squelching its way heavenward in the late hours of the evening. Those cryptically wise words above were the sole substance of his final utterance, made as he gently lifted the last bottle of Fernet Branca to his quivering lips, before setting out on his pre-booked journey along Jacob's ladder (eh?!).

Actually it was MY bottle of FB he emptied, but let's not be too particular when discussing a man's departure from these mortal lands, eh? And as for the meaning of his ultimate pronouncement - I haven't a fuggin' clue!!

An Early Summer Bath

Shouldn't that be "Early Summer Break"? Well, maybe so, but I've been saving on water these past few years by only taking a bath once in every season. Apparently it's really good for the skin, and the smell doesn't get any worse after the first three or four weeks. You think I'm joking?!

Anyway, fact is that this blog will be dormant for the next couple of months - perhaps even until August - as Sandy departs for colder climes. It all depends how things go at my forthcoming resting place, pictured above. Y'see, my mate bought that pub, complete with stock, and swiftly boarded the place up, so's he could drink himself to death.

Only, the problem is, it's too much for him to drink alone, so he's invited me to stay with him until the booze obligingly shrinks and shrivels his liver and kindly dispatches him skyward. And I think he's also a bit worried about waking up dead one morning and having nobody around to get him buried. Poor fucker!

So, I've been volunteered into being the guy's guardian angel and getting him a proper Christian send-off. Otherwise, if the neighbours are the first to catch the sharp aroma of his lifeless pickled flesh, they'll send in the Social Services loonies - and they'll all drink what's left of his booze, the bastards!

No chances of that, mate - I'll be taking that!

Wanted - Chavs to Learn TEFL

So, I guess the inevitable has finally arrived. Any old dosser can become an EFL teacher now, as apparently the criteria for signing up for an EFL teacher-training course have become, in sympathy with the UK salaries, rock bottom. Well done to the UK's unregulated and unprincipled Tefl Trade for bringing us to this current dystopian state of affairs!

I mean, just have a butcher's at the criteria for entry from the latest advert from that paragon of ethical teacher-training, British Study Centres...

Applicants must:

• be at least 18 (It is generally recommended that candidates should be aged 20 or over, but candidates aged between 18 and 20 can be accepted at the centre’s discretion.)


• have an awareness of language and a competence in both written and spoken English, which will enable them to undertake the course and prepare for teaching a range of levels


• have the potential to develop the necessary skills to become effective teachers and to complete successfully the written assignments and the assessment of practice teaching.

So, not only do you not need a degree or higher education diploma of any kind, you don't even need an A-level or two. In fact, there's not a single mention of any academic or school-based qualification at all! Hats off to BSC for really scraping the bottom of the educational barrel here!

And just what do those rather guilty-looking phrases "an awareness of language" and "the potential to develop" really mean? More to the point, what are they trying to hide?

Presumably the first expression refers to the ability to differentiate between a noun and a verb, or is that a shade too demanding of the average 19-year-old scrotebag? Maybe if they can write "r u l8?" in standard English, they can make it on to the course, eh?!

Of course, the old cliche "potential to develop" can be skewed and screwed around to mean anyhing you really like, so it's quite meaningless here. How do they measure this 'potential'? Is it a visible entity, or does it come in the shape of the ability to pay the course fees?

Anyway, I've contacted the two charlatans responsible for press-ganging youngsters onto this course, but I'm still none the wiser yet. I wonder if they have any academic creds to speak of? Perhaps they'll be in touch after the weekend, the poor shameful souls.

Or maybe you'd be interested in having a chat with them? If so, you can contact the craven bastards as per below.

Good luck!!

BRITISH STUDY CENTRES SCHOOL OF ENGLISH

CELTA in Oxford: Steve Haysham, Head of Teacher Training, British Study Centres School of English, Oxenford House, 13-15 Magdalen Street, Oxford OX1 3AE. Tel: +44 (0) 1865 246620 oxford.tt@british-study.com

Trinity in Brighton: Anna Bate, Teacher Trainer, British Study Centres School of English, Fairfax House, 47 Cromwell Road, Brighton & Hove, BN3 3ER. Tel: +44 (0) 1273 731352 brighton.tt@british-study.com

UPDATE: BSC have some of the crappiest summer jobs I've seen in a very long time! Look here for some REAL STINKERS - from as little as 190 quid a week!!

Summer Schools - Seasonal Bonded Labour

Well, it's that time of the year again - time to slag off summer schools! But actually, as I've done this before (many times!) I think I'll just refer you to my previous scribblings before getting started on some new stuff.

OK, the truth is I'm feeling a bit uninspired for regular blogging these days, but I'm hoping the sight of some of my earlier eager-beaver stuff will get the creative juices flowing. Or maybe I should just crack open a couple of bottles of Old Speckled Hen, and get THOSE creative juices flowing, eh?!

summer school saturnalia [revisited]
May 31, 2009
In my previous posting about the sheer folly of committing yourself to a six-week sentence on a residential summer school, I promised (threatened?) to spill the beans on those other clowns in the equation, your 'professional' EFL ...

uk summer schools - a masochist writes...
May 27, 2009
Well, as the dreadful summer school season is swiftly marching towards us, I thought I'd dig out a few of my old 'dissertations' on the unfortunate subject, and present a sort of thematic approach to the coming few weeks' blogs on the ...

how to double your money at summer school!
Jun 03, 2009
Sincerely now, would you like to know how to make more money from your summer school than your employer intended to pay you? If so, read the piece below, kindly provided by a colleague of mine who has a legal background, and has put his ...

The TEFL Tradesman: Another Peek at TWIN
Jun 19, 2009
Let it serve as an example – one of the worst - of the genre of less-than-ideal summer Tefl employment. And remember - if you willingly sign up for this sort of punishment, you really only have yourself to blame! ...

Anyway, I do hope that's enough to keep you sterling Tefl troops going for a good while. I hope to be back here by the end of the week, insh'allah.

Eddie Yates' Second Career

Things are extremely busy here at the Sandy McManus ranch, and for a whole range of rip-roaring reasons - 50th birthday preparations, getting the cat neutered, preparing the first draft of my Tefl novel - so I make no apologies for recycling one of my favourite postings from about five years ago. For those unfortunate youngsters out there who have no idea who the inimitable Eddie Yates ever was, I refer you to google - and the picture alongside.

*******

I had a bit of an 'incident' with one of the other teachers a few days back. Well, more like a couple of weeks ago, actually, but I've been brooding on it, I suppose. Anyway, it goes a bit like this.

I was asked to cover an afternoon class for a fellow Tefler who had to visit the dentist, and seeing as it would mean a few extra quid in the kitty, I was happy to oblige. A few minutes before the class is due to start, my 'colleague' thrusts a tatty old copy of Hardway Intermediate into my hands, telling me to start unit so-and-so on page whatever. When I ask him for the register, he claims he's lost it.

So, I trundle up to the classroom, start getting to know the students, and we get going. It's a very nice class, quite small and rather chatty, mostly Latin types, including a handful of rather attractive South American girls. We spend a fair deal of time just talking at first, then move on to the prescribed unit, kicking off with a bit of vocabulary to pre-teach, before a reading exercise.

Then I do my usual trick of asking the students to write half a dozen questions about the text. This usually shows that the students still have problems forming the correct structures for making questions in English - either no auxiliary verb, it's in the wrong place, or they put one in when it's not needed.

Cutting a rather long and none-too-exciting story short here, we spend a good deal of time on this, as the students clearly need further instruction and practice on it, and we obviously fail to cover all the work requested by my partner-in-crime. So, having assured myself that they understand at least the concept of the present perfect simple tense (not too difficult for speakers of Latin languages, I feel) I ask them to look at the relevant grammar section at the back of the book, and see if they can get their heads round that grammatical colossus, the present perfect continuous tense. Nothing too heavy, just sort of 'take a look and see what you think'. Then it's the end of class, and we all part on good terms. Money for old rope, really.

Next day, my partner is not a happy chappie. He storms into the staff room after lunch, waving his half-finished rollie cigarette around and accusing me of having deliberately scuppered his finely-tuned lesson plan. "How can they cope alone with the present perfect continuous" he bellows "when they're only Intermediate level?"

Sitting behind a table (actually, it's the only table in our putrid squat-like staffroom), I gaze up at him, and take him in. Dressed like a dustman, with a grubby green t-shirt, baggy black trousers and a tatty flak-jacket on, he looked just like a middle-aged glue-sniffer. It was at this moment that I automatically dubbed him 'Eddie Yates'.

For those of you who don't know, Eddie Yates was a character in Coronation Street back in the 1970s, maybe 1980s too, back when the programme contained a good deal of subtle and sympathetic humour, rather than the current obsession with spite. Eddie worked as a binman, and was a lodger with Stan Ogden, the local window cleaner, and his long-suffering wife Hilda. Together, the three of them made up some of the most humorous working class zeros you could imagine.

Eddie, of course, was as idle as shit and dressed like a tramp; Stan was little better, and boasted a beer-gut the size of a small town. His wife Hilda became a well-loved legend, with her curlers, headscarf, and fag clinging to the corner of her mouth, not to mention that irritating, nagging, Lancashire accent.

So, Eddie it had to be. Not for the humour, mind, but for the attire and the idleness. Of course, I realised that the source of his ire was that he'd hoped I would teach his charges all about the present perfect continuous, thus relieving him of the onerous task. But I hadn't (you see, I focused on the students' needs - teach the students, not the materials, kidder!), and he'd wandered into the class, probably still half under the influence of the dentist's anaesthetic, and found himself in deepest do-do territory.

"It's called discovery learning" I shouted at him as he scuttled out of the staff room, in preparation for another rollie outside at the staff cancer table. Ten minutes later he wandered back in. "It's OK now" he gasped, "I've calmed down". As if that made everything all right.

There then followed a brief discussion, in which I tried to outline some of the principles, as best I could recall, of the idea of 'discovery learning'. Lovingly referred to in some quarters as 'fuck-off-and-find-out', it does actually have some pedagogical pedigree about it.

But Eddie was having none of it. His ignorance was obviously greater then my illumination. "But they're only Intermediates" he kept chuffing, like a steam train stuck on a loop line.

You see, that's what I really love about this job - working with such enlightened and professional people. Dress like a slob, speak like a slob, and think like one too.

Eddie Yates, welcome to your second career!

Two Down, One To Go

Sandy McManus - Exposed At Last!

I guess a lot of you out there have missed out on this latest revelation, but I have apparently been outed as ... Philip Kerr! No, I don't mean the Philip Kerr from Scotland who writes intriguing novels, I mean the English one who writes EFL books. Yes, that's him in the piccy alongside - not a scrap as handsome as the real article, I can tell you!

Anyway, I'll have you all know that I take this misunderstanding as a serious affront to my writing skills and general integrity. I mean, comparing the multi-talented blogger Sandy McManus with a mere scribbler of Tefl tat - oh, come on, fer chrissake!

If you still don't have a clue what I'm on about, which is entirely understandable, may I refer you to my Windsor Swindler blog, where the object of my attentions, the odious convicted fraudster and Tefl pariah Paul Lowe, believes he has unearthed the truth behind my identity. That's right - he thinks I'm Philip Kerr, and that PK is just me without the unkempt facial hair.

If you look at this particular blog posting from last month, which highlights Paul Lowe's aggressive attempts to rejoin the Tefl fraternity by his usual means of bullying and threatening the wrath of a lawyer or two, you'll notice that it has attracted almost 150 comments to date - must be some sort of record, no?

Anyway, you'll probably also notice that most of these comments come from the supremely troubled mind of Mr Lowe himself, in the name of 'the tefl enquirer'. A lot of his comments are also posted anonymously, which probably reflects his bipolar mental and emotional state, but the 'defecatory' style of writing is immediately recognisable as belonging to the Berkshire Bullshitter alone.

Coming abruptly to the point, he firmly believes that he has unfrocked the unfortunate Mr Kerr as the driving force behind Sandy McManus. Yes, I kid thee not, matey. Have a look at this, for an example...

Anonymous said... the brussels sprout and the family of vegetables!!!!‏

From: sandy mcmanus (teflsandy@hotmail.co.uk)
Sent: 22 April 2010 10:27:11
To: teflsandy@yahoo.ie; olivertwist1837@yahoo.co.uk

the brussels sprout and the family of vegetables!!!! guess what we're having for dinner???? heeeeeeeeeeheeeeeeeee PHILIP KERR seems remarkably quiet these days but... wait what is this ????? his magnificent legal teams all clad in the real true truthful armour of shining true truth have begun massing at the borders of truthland in the county to TRUTHSHIRE and now we can see their shining swords of truth-ness and truth badges all shouting about the TRUTH today tomorrow and the next day and.....

And there's lots more of the same verbal equivalent of a retarded pensioner dribbling into his cold soup. All in all, it makes for very sad reading indeed.

In fact, this entire 'incident', if I can call it that, has finally made me realise what others have been telling me for years - that Paul Lowe has serious mental and emotional problems. I mean, I do remember that during his trail for fraud last year his lawyer entered a plea of mitigation, referring to his client's 'depersonalisation disorder', but it didn't register with me - in fact, I thought it was just another attempt by the Swindler to avoid the grasp of justice.

Now, however, I do understand that he is a seriously sick man, one who deserves our sympathy rather than our enmity. I mean, who else but a mentally disturbed person would seriously claim to be "a brilliant man with an unmistakable mark of genius upon him", or would claim for himself "sheer class, sheer verve and wit and balls enough to go for it", not to mention believing himself to be one of "those ... who are set apart by class, education and innate intellect".

And if you still don't believe me, try this ...

This is a letter to all of those in the TEFL and EFL Industry who will, no doubt, have been dimly aware of a foul smell from one quarter of the industry for a very long time now-

the man making the smell poses as "sandy MacManus" a disaffected teacher and vox popular (he imagines) of the tefl world

we have very good intelligence now that this man is none other than Philip KERR, a minor figure in EFL/TEFL already and someone you may not, even his wife and children, mother and father, may not have associated with these acts of poison sociopathological obsession-

Philip KERR has been spreading his caustic and often obscene messages across various media and it is now time to expose him to the industry and beyond

we wait to hear what he is intending to say on the matter (maybe he will employ a lawyer to scare us off!) .... we will keep you posted.

Indeed, I shall certainly keep you posted on this matter. However, more importantly, as a result of my tardy recognition of PK's warped emotional and mental condition, I shall be discontinuing the Windsor Swindler blog very soon. I mean, although it may be a noble thing to publicly hassle a convicted liar, cheat and general Tefl pariah, it's extremely unedifying to find oneself guilty of hounding a person who has serious mental issues to cope with. Therefore the plug will be pulled on the blog at the end of this month.

Anyway, it's not as if there isn't enough information available on the web about the Berkshire Bully's illegal and unethical ways. Just google 'Paul Lowe' or 'Windsor English' and you'll see what I mean.

So bye-bye Paul ... it's been a long and complicated relationship, ours has, and ultimately I just feel sorry for you - but not half as sorry as I feel for your victims. May you rot in Hell.

SM (not PK)

TEFL Mythodology #3 - The Sexical Approach

The Sexical Approach is popularly believed to be a cunning method for both teaching foreign languages and seducing students, and was developed by an unemployed EFL teacher called Michael Lewdis in the 1990s. This technique has enjoyed great popularity in EFL schools all over the world, and was thought to have been responsible for the large increase in sexually-transmitted diseases that swamped Europe in the later years of the decade.

The basic concept on which this approach rests is the idea that EFL teachers enjoy shagging more than teaching, so if the latter can be exploited as a route to the former, all will be well in the classroom. Therefore, in the Sexical Approach, instruction focuses on carefully chosen fixed expressions that occur frequently in dialogues, and which Lewdis claims often result in a legover. The teaching of chunks and set phrases are therefore cunningly skewed to be able to reflect a sexual agenda, and then become common in the student's English, resulting in frequent sexual encounters for EFL teachers, both male and female.

In his review of the approach, Dieter Kranz wrote "The Sexical Approach can be summarized in a few words: bunk-ups and blow-jobs. The language consists not merely of traditional grammar and vocabulary, but often of multi-word prefabricated chunks that can be employed in a wide range of sexual situations." For example, the simple question 'Where is your toilet?' can be given a sexual purpose, especially if the speaker wishes to 'clean up' after a steamy session on the couch. Equally, the word 'toilet' can be replaced with 'bedroom' or 'condom', and a whole range of legover opportunities arise for the fortunate EFL teacher.

April 13 - 'Kiss an Israeli' Day!

That's right! Sandy McManus goes all agitprop and token political gestures with an anti-Israeli rant.

Actually, I don't need to rant. Just look at the facts, especially concerning the horrors of everyday life in occupied Palestine, from these extremely enlightening websites...

http://palestinenotes.blogspot.com/

http://notesfrompalestine.blogspot.com/

http://www.freedomfiles.org/archives/flagburn.htm

If you're still not motivated to rush out and shag a Zionist imperialist with a long beard and a funny hat, just bear in mind the following comparisons...

• Israel and South Africa (apartheid regimes)
• Israel and Nazi Germany ('lebensraum' - West Bank - to the East for the 'Master Race')
• Israel and America (colonialism that eradicates native cultures and people)

Yes, spare a thought for the dispossessed Palestinians, who are losing their land on a daily basis and being treated like third class citizens in their own country. Well done to Israel and their government of colonising religious fascists!

And give some thought to the good old US of A, those champions of democracy who prop up an occupying military power (the second largest army in the world!) and its apartheid regime to the tune of tens of billions of dollars per year in aid and preferential trade agreements. Without them, Israel would be ... well, just a small country led by a regime of ethnic-cleansing bigots and murderers.

You can read all about it here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby

Or you just might prefer not to think about it.

Sandy's Alternative Guide to EFL Conference Protocol

Go on - admit it. You went, didn't you. And it was twice as dreadful as they told you it would be - wasn't it! Well, you've only got yourself to blame, intcha, eh? Next time, pay attention to Sandy, right...?

So what in Judge Dread's name am I waffling about this time? Well, that Tefl conference that took place recently in Harrogate - yes, fuggin' Harrogate, of all places! I mean, if I could think of a place that conjures up visions of premature death through chronic boredom, it just has to be Harrogate. I bet even the old biddies snort crack up there, the place is so dull.

Anyway, just so that you don't get caught out again next year, here's Sandy's Alternative Guide to Tefl Conferences. Even if you do get the short straw next time, following this advice will entail your being remembered as a true Tefl hero and odd-ball for a good while - or at least until the next conference, anyway. More importantly, I can guarantee that you'll NEVER be sent to attend an EFL conference again, unless your employer wants his humble language school to suffer the same sort of very public shaming and professional humiliation twice.

First and foremost is the dress code. Never EVER attend in a suit or even dressed in smart-casual mode, as this will announce to all the Tefl world that you are but another saddo who couldn't get a job in management at Tesco's and chose the tacky Tefl path instead. And anoraks don't really belong to the 21st century, do they, so that option's out too. Fancy dress, as in the piccy above, could be an option, but you might be thought of as a mere eccentric, rather then the weirdo that you truly are.

No, you need to think 'MAXIMUM IMPACT', which typically involves having large amounts of nose-rings on show, cheesy henna tattooes on your arms, and plenty of spotty flesh on display. Nipple piercings are an option, but best left for the post conference bash at the pub, when you do your Lisa Minelli impressions on the pool table. Of course, the sort of attire that accompanies these shenanigans is the loose-fitting beach variety, so stock up on flip-flops and speedo shorts, with one of those luminous singlets with the number 69 on it in broad type. There, you look like a true Tefl conference hero now!

But clothes alone do not the Tefler make, so it's important to adopt the required behavioural patterns of the determined conference clone - right?! I mean, you want to be absolutely sure of making the desired impression, so make sure that you always sit right at the very front of every session that you attend. Smile inanely like some old duffer on medication, wink knowingly at the presenter, just to make her/him feel extra nervous, and scratch your nether regions frequently.

Then, in order to cause maximum discomfort and annoyance to each speaker, laugh at the wrong moments, especially the most inappropriate ones. If you feel your attention slipping, start playing with the ring-tones on your phone, at full volume of course, and then stand up and apologise profusely and loudly to everybody present. Sit down with a loud fart, and then stand up and apologise again. Then sit down again slowly and start fishing in your bag for a sandwich or a sausage roll - which you naturally offer to your neighbour first. Pick out your toe-jam with a tooth-pick, and flick the stick at the presenter, just to show your appreciation.

Interrupting and asking stupid questions will make it very clear that you haven't understood a single word of the presenter's codswallop, and will annoy your fellow Teflers immensely. Feel the ripples of discomfort pulsate with agonising predictability as you butt in with "But didn't Krashen write Headway?" or "Yeah, that Vygotsky guy - didn't he give a presentation here last year?".

Another important thing to bear in mind is that food is often supplied free at some stage of the conference, so make sure you bring enough doggy-bags with you. Even if the grub is not free of charge, just lurch up to unsuspecting diners and shout "Are you gonna eat that last little sausage?" while waving your grubby little doggy bag at them. You'll be surprised at the responses you get, I can assure you.

When you get back to your school and go through the tiresome rigmarole of a 'cascade session' with your colleagues - the lucky ones who didn't get forced to go - create a presentation to remember. Show them your colourful and carefully correlated pie-charts full of simplified regression analysis relating to the number of 'erm' and 'um' utterances you heard. They'll be truly impressed - especially your boss.

I kid you not - you'll NEVER get asked (or told) to attend another Tefl conference in your life. And that just HAS to be good news, eh!?