Some clips of Flight of the Conchords. "Business Time" and "Jenny" are partcularly great. Two very talented and funny Kiwis!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Oscar Results 2008

The annual TEFL Blacklist Oscars were delayed owing to a late flurry of worthy (or should it be worthless) candidates. In truth your noble sleuth has been spoilt for choice this year. The TEFL Blacklist has attracted tales of woe galore.
The TEFL business is riddled with sharks. Be very careful when accepting a job and remember to read the contract carefully.

THE WINNERS

1. WORST JOB BOARD. The winner by a mile is TEFL.com. They are worse than Dave's ESL Cafe in that at least Dave Sperling does provide a forum and allow some debate. TEFL.com allow none. The list of crap jobs they  advertise is endless and they accept adverts from anyone.

2. WORST FRANCHISE. International House. Call it an affiliate if you will, it all amounts to the same thing - money. The Covent Garden flagship centre is good but after that who knows as standards differ so widely. As long as anyone can pay the affiliate fee then they are allowed to use the name with lip service being paid to quality. Abuse of what, used to be, a hallmark of quality.

3. WORST SCHOOL. A really tough one this. There were so many candidates. The winner is New Zealand Centre for Culture and Education in Gangnam, South Korea. This outfit should be avoided at all cost.

4. WORST TEFL COURSE PROVIDER. i to i. Rip off merchants making megabucks through selling worthless TEFL certificates. A disgraceful outfit whose "certificates" are total crap. If you want a decent TEFL certificate, make sure that it is at least Cambridge or Trinity certified. Avoid all online courses, correspondence courses, weekend courses etc. unless you only want to go to some rubbish school in the middle of nowhere.

5. SPECIAL MENTIONS. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

FOR OWNERS OF THESE SCHOOLS: Human dignity refers to a state of righteousness, integrity, or virtue in human beings. The term dignity is defined as "the state of being worthy of honour or respect." When this concept is associated with the adjective "human", it is used to signify that all human beings possess intrinsic worthiness and deserve unconditional respect, regardless of age, sex, health status, social or ethnic origin, political ideas, religion, or criminal history. If violated, this can be considered discrimination. In other words, this respect is owed to every individual by the mere fact that he or she is a "member of the human family" (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, Preamble). This intrinsic worthiness is widely recognized by international law as the source of all human rights. In this respect, both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1966 affirm that human rights “derive from the inherent dignity of the human being”. At the philosophical level, following Kant, the expression human dignity is used to indicate that persons should always be treated as ends in themselves and NEVER MERELY AS A MEANS. Kant presents “dignity” as exactly the opposite of “price”: while “price” is the kind of value for which there can be an equivalent (roughly economic value), “dignity” makes a person irreplaceable. Therefore, dignity can be explained as a requirement of non-instrumentalization of persons.

ITS TIME TO STOP THIS ESL/TEFL EXPLOITATION ONCE AND FOR ALL. THE JOB OF ENGLISH INSTRUCTOR DOESNT EQUATE TO SLAVE LABOR, NOR DOES IT GIVE YOU AS OWNER THE RIGHT TO TREAT INSTRUCTORS AS YOUR PROPERTY!

Anonymous said...

Also, I might add neither does ''price'' permit an English Instructor to treat their position, the owners, the staff or the students with any less human ''dignity'' than you yourself deserve as an Instructor. Its time to clean up our acts as well. THE HARVEST IS NOW!

Anonymous said...

Hail to the Chief,

consider me recruited

The TEFL Tradesman said...

Shocking!! Could you accept this. dear Inspector, as a late claimant for the title of "Crappiest EFL Job in the UK"? It's enough to move me to start up me old blogging business again!

It's the Leeds Language College, offering no less than 250 quid a week for 30 hours of teaching!! That makes about 8 quid an hour, according to my mental Maths...

*******

Qualified CELTA teacher required to teach English to foreign students (age18+) of all levels in a lively college in the centre of Leeds. Must be a native English speaker with degree level education. Average six hours daily. Three to nine hours subject to requirements (it is expected that this will give an average six hours daily over the year). Please send CV'S for the attention of Adam Priestley to LeedsLanguageCollege@yahoo.co.uk.


Qualifications
Must have CELTA qualifications or equivalent. Degree level educated. Native English speaker.

Compensation
Guaranteed hours Monday-Friday all year round. Starting salary £12k+ per annum (30 hours per week). Initial contract will be extended to a permanent contract after 6-12 months. Stakeholder pension scheme. Personal training (e.g Delta, PGCE, ESOL) encouraged. 4.8 weeks paid holiday per annum.



Company/Organisation
Leeds Language College Ltd
Address Provident House
Vicar Lane
Leeds, ls2 7nl - United Kingdom
Telephone 0113 242 7534
Fax 0113 242 7534
Contact person Mr. Adam Priestley, Manager