Compact Car For Teachers Launched In Brazil

englishdroid.com : new Celta launched

In a revolutionary partnership, GM do Brasil and the University of Cambridgehave launched a new product: the Chevrolet Celta.

Exclaimeth English Droid, in what I thought to be the standard TEFL japing hilarity we've come to expect from Mr Barne's site.

But no! Shockingly Chevrolet has in fact launched a new compact car called the CELTA, which is now available in Brazil.

Truly THE car for TEFLers....though I think the Cambridge logo (or partnership) might not come as standard, and I gather that much of the English teaching features are a figment of Simon's very fertile imagination, but still it brings new meaning to owning a CELTA

Teaching TEFL in the UK?

The Shittiest Week of my Life (tefltrade.blog-city.com)

Well, at least us TEFLers in Thailand ply our trade out of necessity, scarcity, the lack of any other profession to the non-degreed and a love of being outside the UK, so what is the strange breed that is the UK TEFLers' excuse?

It clearly isn't much better paid than in Thailand, I mean some of the wages I saw quoed on this blog are almost good/average for Thailand, but London??

I think it's a fairly safe bet that I won't be looking for a vanilla TEFL job on my return to the UK.

Crossword Generator

Edhelper.com's Crossword Creator

I love little sites like this. Just stick in whatever vocab you want and add clues, and the site makes them up into a crossword.

Print, photocopy and voila one instant class filler ideal for classes landed on you when colleagues are absent.

Discovery's Puzzlemaker site is also very good for things like this wordsearch creator, or more obscure puzzles like Fallen Phrases

More Idioms

Idiomsite.com - Idioms and Sayings

Another nice idioms site...always handy for the staffroom, where I am constantly asked about the meanings and origins of phrases I just use without thinking.

Origins of Words

World Wide Words

Very interesting site which seems to focus chiefly on how idioms came to be.

It's written from a British perspective, but takes on words and phrases from all over the world.

I have now learned tonightthat "the dreaded lurgi" - a common British term used to denote an unspecified disease started out on 1950's radio in the Goon Show as a sketch and was probably written by Spike Milligan. It subsequently became a popular playground taunt and a generation or two later it's still being used.

Simon Barnes is Back!!

Englishdroid.com is the latest incarnation of the legendary (amongst English Teachers anyway) Simon Barnes, he of the late I Hate Teaching English site which mysteriously vanished without a trace last year. Presumably because his employers read it.

This great site had many a TEFLer nodding their head, calling out a-men, and halleujah, at the wise home truths this man spoke.

English Droid is so far a more sanitised version of IHTE, but still features Simon's inimitable style, and is laugh out loud funny. A litttle bereft of content so far, but if Simon's past efforts are anything to go by this site should be one to watch.

This is so highly recommended, that I'm almost wetting my pants.

Wordy Business

WORDCOUNT - Tracking the Way We Use Language

Nice Flash App, which sorts the most frequently used 86,800 words into order.

Via Ben Hammersley

Whilst we're on words (and why not it's supposed to be an English teachers blog despite the silly links), have a look at a lesson plan for teaching commonly mispronounced words in the English language for non-native speakers.

From ESL Teachers Board

Mind That Truck!!

The Reckless Taxi Driver Game comes via the life saving Dave Sperling's ESL Cafe.
Submitted by Simon Mumford who has an excellent speaking activities site apparently based in Turkey.

I tried this game out with M6 this week. The game is basically as follows, a passenger arrives at an airport and gets into a taxi, whose driver has a very bad habit of driving too fast and turning round to ask the passenger questions.

The students role play the two characters, by sitting as if they are in a taxi, with the driver asking simple questions such as, "Where do you want to go?" or "What languages can you speak?"
The passenger should firstly admonish the driver for not looking where he's going, eg "Look Out!" or "Oh my God, that was close!", and then answer the question.

The students really got into their roles as these two photos will testify, and was a short but hillarious activity quite do-able in 40-50 minutes. The serious point to the exercise is just to practise various question forms from the basic "Wh-" questions to "Have you ever..." questions, and responding to suggestions eg "You should go to" or "Why don't you..." There is also good practice of the Imperitive "Look Out!" etc.

Punctuation Quiz

EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES Punctuation Game

Fun but could have been longer. Can you place the commas and appostrophes in the right place?
Suitable for students and teachers, but ultimately a promotional gimmick to sell Lynne Truss's (now is that appostrophe right) book.

Linguini Blog

On English is an interesting English Linguistics and Language Blog that unlike mine manages to stay more or less on topic. Could be one to show an enthusiastic student too with it's nice use of title attributes. An instant source of reading exercises. The owner of this blog has been paying me a few visits so though it only polite.
Anyway this entry amused me.

On English: 50 SAYINGS SIGHTED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

"Your kid may be an honour student but you're still an IDIOT!"

"If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?"

"He who laughs last thinks slowest"

"Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes."

"i souport publik edookasion"

"We are Microsoft. Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated."

"Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?"

"All generalisations are false."

"Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine."

"Born Free. . . . .Taxed to Death"

Lots of Teacher Sites

Sites for Teachers is a very comprehensive selection of resources free and otherwise for teachers. Whilst it's not aimed at the TEFL teacher specifically (more the American education system teacher), you might just find something useful in there.

The Chaos - A celebration of the absurdity of English spelling.

The Chaos by Trenite is a versified catalogue of 800 English spelling irregularities spread over 275 lines. Kan had a go at reciting it and managed about a quarter of it but it is very long, but puts into context the difficulties that foreign speakers must have with some of the stupid irrational quirks of the English language.

Have you ever yet endeavoured, To pronounce revered and severed, Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul, Peter, petrol and patrol? Billet does not end like ballet; Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Would These Work at Wor?

ESL Games and Activities For Thai Students

This isn't the most inspiring TEFL site I've ever seen, but what is unusual is that it contains some tried and tested games that work with Thai students.

The problem with many of the ESL games pages and books I find is that they generally presume that the students are there willingly, and by and large want to actively participate AND that they are capable of initiating a conversation period.

There are all too many games like this, that sound like a wonderful idea at the preparation stage, but fall flat once you realise that little Somchai, hasn't got a clue how to think for himself, and needs everything writing down on the board (the creping rote feeling starts to arise), and then you may or may not get any production depending on whether or not he can be arsed.

That is why despite this site not being too comprehensive, or well-designed, it is geared towards Thai kids, and features some great ideas for activities that work for the lowest 55 person denominator class.

Of course it's not nearly as good as Sperling's ESL Cafe, but that takes time to hunt through for something that might just work if I modify it here and there.

The Fake Degree Debate

Debate has been raging all week on the TIT Discussion forum over at ajarn.com over whether it is acceptable to use a fake degree to obtain a job in Thailand.

A pretty simple question, you might suggest, considering that this was asked in an area of the forum known as "The Teachers Room."

I was quoted 3500 baht for a fake degree down KSR this morning. This seems a tad expensive for what is basically just a sheet of paper.

Is this the going rate or can I get one cheaper?

Tim

I've quite a bit to say about this so click on the link to read more.

It's reasonable to assume that most qualified teachers would baulk and react angrily at such a question and so many of them did, myself included.

If you use a fake degree to get a job would it be ok to pay you in fake money?

We don't set the standards, the schools and the government do, if you lie to obtain employment and you get found out then you should be fired pronto.

There are jobs that don't need a degree, so get one of those!

Personally I don't think a degree does not qualify you to teach English, however I do believe it is the right of the schools to set standards and expect them to be adhered to.

Haltes

It appears though that not everyone on the site shares mine and several other poster's views that to present a fake degree is just pure fraud. There is a prevailing view amongst many posters that it is somehow ok to use a fake degree as a degree doesn't demonstrate one's ability to teach English.

Take, for example, someone who spent a few years to get qualified for a profession (draughtsman for instance), but still hasn't got a degree.

What some of you are saying is that he or she should go back to Uni for 3 or 4 years (whilst wasting 3 or 4 years of their life with a bunch of idiots who's only interests in life are drinking, shagging and doing drugs), rather than buy a fake degree and work here in the company of like minded individuals/idiots who's only interests in life are drinking, shagging and moaning about anything and everything?

I really wish I belonged to the "Gosh, I'm excellent because I've got a real degree in theology" brigade

Marmite The Dog

The sad fact is that this whole sorry situation is as bad as it is because of the Thai Ministry of Education's insistence on only issuing teacher licenses, therefore work permits to people with a BA degree. This has led to short-staffed language schools to actively encourage recruits to get themselves fake degrees to smooth the work permit application process.

The problem I have with this is that when that person leaves this language school, the teacher is as likely as not to use the fake degree when obtaining another job. It's one thing for a corrupt language school to insist that it's naive recruit get a fake degree, but quite another for that teacher to take the fake degree and misrepresent him/herself at another school.

I understand better than many, of the difficulty of hiring good staff in Thailand, especially down south, but having fake degrees in the mix makes my job even harder. I would never knowingly employ someone with a fake degree. I would prefer someone who is at least honest with his qualifications even if he/she doesn't have a degree. I know for a fact that schools can ask the MOE to issue teacher licenses even if they don't have a degree. The issuing of licenses has become a requirement for first time work permit applicants in Songkhla now, but the benefit of one, is that one's passport stmp is extendable by the length of one's contract, in my case 1 year, so it's worth getting.

Fake degrees suck, and their apologists need to think just how exactly their widespread use is damaging the reputation of the teaching profession in Thailand.

Common Thai Pronunciation Mistakes

English pronunciation for Thai speakers
I found this link whilst searching for materials for my junior pronunciation course that I'm currently teaching (2 hours a day of pronun to 7 year olds? I ask you!)

I liked this page as it concisely filters down my pronunciation text books to just what I need to cover. Ship and sheep for example, a common French pronunciation error, isn't a problem in Thailand which has 32 vowels, which include most english sounds plus a good few of their own.

Meanwhile I should maybe actually get on with getting this class sorted rather than blogging everytime I find something.

WORD SURFING

WORD SURFING

An interesting site for TEFL/TESOL teachers, focusing particularly on keeping vocabulary books.

WORD SURFING

WORD SURFING

An interesting site for TEFL/TESOL teachers, focusing particularly on keeping vocabulary books.