In 2017 the British Council’s charity status and its branding as a UK government agency helped to maintain tax-free income at around the £1 billion mark, which is what they made in 2016 according to their own report . Particularly lucrative among its commercial operations were those involving the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), its […]
via Reflections on 2017, Part 3 — CriticElt
Workplace concerns and workplace representation still represents a major source of disquiet for TEFL teachers.
One of the main problems in presenting a united front for teachers is that we are so disparate. There is no single forum that represents TEFL teachers’ interests nor a common bond which unites us. The transnational nature of the industry is also a major barrier to organising.
@TeflEquity it’s a matter of conscience but perhaps teacher unions offer a better platform to challenge it in an organised way @bealer81
— Elias (@EliasAbebe18) February 25, 2017
However, there is increasingly a consensus that teachers need representation, and that this would benefit the TEFL industry as a whole. So, how do we organise?
JOIN THE UNION! https://t.co/5pEkTdDvIW
— Adam Beale (@bealer81) February 26, 2017
… but which one? In an industry which tends not to be unionised, there are a number of choices for teachers. I know…
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Recently I was discussing job ads for EFL jobs in South Korea with a friend (who also happens to be a former advisee and hopefully will be a future co-author). After he’d read a sampling of ads from a popular “ESL” jobs website he was struck by how few job ads professed any desire for teachers with experience, qualifications, or personal characteristics or anything except a heartbeat and an ability to acquire the appropriate visa. “How is everyone fine with this?” he wondered.
He said he couldn’t get his head around how these language schools seemed not to care at all about experience or anything related to the job itself. The idea of language schools in Korea (and indeed around the world) just looking for a young (White?) face with “the right” accent is nothing new but I thought his question was poignant.
He went on, “How can these school…
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I recently started to apply to other academies here in Madrid. Several had been recommended by friends and colleagues and so I decided to send off my CV. I had an interview at one for a senior position, but no luck. I persevered and tried for another of the schools on my recommended list. Within a couple of hours of emailing them I received this response;
Hi there Adam,
Thanks for your email and interest in our schools. We are now holding interviews for the coming academic year 2016/17 between now and early September. Please get back to us and let us know which dates and times are good for you to attend an interview here in Madrid.
Our minimum requirements are that applicants be native speakers, hold a European passport (or have working papers for Spain), have a degree, the CELTA (or equivalent diploma) and a minimum…
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About two years ago, we finished the respective Master’s degrees we were doing – Will at Bath, Divya at Exeter. While we both enjoyed the relief of no longer having the research and writing deadlines, we also experienced the same rug-being-pulled-from-under-our-feet sensation of almost instantly losing our our journal access while being handed the diplomas with distinctions. Losing the logins that give one access to an intellectual community can make it quite hard to fully celebrate graduating from such a community. In the fields like education and philosophy, we graduate wanting to read more, not less.
The firewall has two sides; the fee-paying students and faculty members who have access, and the former ones (and the ones who never gained access in in the first place) who don’t. The wall paints a particularly poignant image in the case of teachers, like us, because most…
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