Who do you work with?
Recognize any of your colleagues from this list?
Nothing more than a playful poke at some of the teaching characters we've all worked with down the years.
Business as usual
More rambling from a TEFL lunatic
I've been living and teaching in Phnom Penh Cambodia for six months now. I suppose I could write about the magnificent ancient temples of Ankhor Wat, the beaches of Sihanoukville, the Buddhist scriptures and artifacts, and the splendor of the Royal Palace. But I won't. What I would rather write about are the people.
Things I won't do for work
They say that everybody has a price
Although most of my TEFL experience has not been in Thailand, there is still a long list of things I won’t accept in a teaching job. Talk numbers and cross my palm with silver because these are the things I simply won’t do for work.
The teacher's diary revisited
One teacher's descent into madness. Now updated for 2011
The diary is the heartbreaking four-week journal of Mr Jim Elmdon - a teacher who came to Thailand and failed miserably. Keep a box of tissues handy.
Win-win teachers
How to become a more valued employee
Whether in the staffroom, lunchroom, shop floor, barracks, or around the water cooler next to the cubicles, the main topic of conversation has always been how incompetent the bosses and management were.
Working for the man
Are teaching agents spelling disaster for hard-working chalkies?
The main problem that teachers seem to have with agencies is the salaries on offer. Teacher agents and 30,000 baht a month salaries have suddenly become the Siamese twins of the Thailand TEFL game. They're joined at the hip.
Are you a crappy teacher?
Time to take the self-evaluation test
If you have evaluated yourself honestly and you have come to a conclusion that you are in fact a crappy teacher, what can you do about it? Since most of these things actually have to do with personal motivation, probably not a lot.
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.
Is it necessary to have practical experience in order to teach it?
As a professor of Management and Business Studies, I have been asked a few times in the classroom, usually after lecturing on how to run a global enterprise, by bright and inquisitive students why I wasn't actually in management as opposed to teaching it.
What are we here to teach?
Should we see ourselves as missionaries for Western culture values?
As foreigners teaching in a foreign country, what are the expectations and where are the boundaries?
Do students in private language schools have the right to choose who teaches them?
Should the most popular teacher get the largest share of the work?
The student was not happy with this arrangement and asked the manager why I could not teach her. The manager replied, 'You learn with who I choose, not who you want. And I have chosen the other teacher.'
