I've moved

Hi all, thanks for dropping by. To make things easier, I've decided to merge some of my blogs, which, including this one, can now be found at ELT World. I've been getting off my backsides and writing recently, so come over to the new URL and leave lots of lovely comments.

TEFL News Headlines at ELT World News

Thanks to everyone who has visited this blog over the past year. I'm busier than ever over at eltworld.net setting up things. I can't believe the ELT World news blog has been up and running for almost a year now.

Please drop by and learn all the latest TEFL scandal from around the world at the ELT World News blog, you'll be surprised at what's going on in the wonderful world of English language teaching.

Advice for New TEFL Teachers

Douglas Anderson shares his knowledge with those just starting out in the profession:

When you first arrive in your assigned country, the first few minutes can be shocking. The air smells different, the people surging around you are likely different, the looks of buildings and storefronts and wares for sale may all be different.

If you are in modern country, such as Japan, you will likely feel only slightly uncomfortable, as the airport will be clean and streamlined, although perhaps twice as busy as you expected. But signs will be in English, and you will have no problem navigating through the airport to the outside world.

If you are in a third-world country, the airport could be a far cry from anything remotely comfortable, with military soldiers everywhere, a crush of people, strange maybe even repulsive smells in the air, total chaos. If you are alone, this can be especially intimidating.

When I arrive in a new country, I am always surprised at the first few moments outside the airport. The sky looks different, the air smells different, the chaos of people coming and going is different. Finding a bus or taxi or jeepney can be a fun experience but it is more likely to be a trying experience, so it is best if someone can meet you and help you get oriented for the first trip from the airport to your place of residence.

Depending on your guest country, and the resources available, you may get a private room with a private bathroom, or a shared room and a public bathroom.

The school may look a wee bit different from the brochures, which tend to highlight greenery and other colourful aspects. Brochures also don't tell you about oppressive tropical heat, or cold winds from the mountains.

Before starting your trip, you should read up on the culture of the country. For example, in Thailand, people would be shocked if you touched a child's head, or if you washed your underwear and hung it outside to dry.

During my stay in Thailand, I managed a software development project and hired a couple of university-educated Thai women to help. We worked out of my two-bedroom apartment. One moved into the spare bedroom in the apartment, and the other slept on the sofa five nights a week. The one in the bedroom said she lived a long way away and the daily commute was aggravating. Fair enough. But the second one lived 20 minutes away by elevated electric train. I never really understood why she wanted to live with me. Perhaps I was a father-figure for her.

One day, I rounded up all the towels to put in the washing machine. The women had their own bathroom, and the towels were provided by me. The apartment was modern and fully equipped.

One of the women said, "Doug, what are you doing?"

I said, "I'm going to wash all the towels in the machine."

She said, "But you took the white one."

The white one was a cotton bathmat that had been on the floor in front of the shower.

"Yes, I will wash it with the others."

"Doug, you can't do that."

"Why not?"

"It's for the feet."

Apparently in Thai culture, you don't sully your body towels with foot towels.

I said, "Sorry, this is a machine, very hot water, with detergent and fabric softener. I am going to wash all the towels and bath mats together."

She was unhappy with this, had a strange look on her face, like I had said something totally disgusting.

After the towels had been washed and dried, I took one of the bath towels and held it under her nose, and said, "Smell this."

She took a whiff and said, "Oh, Doug, smell very good."

I said, "That's the fabric softener, it has perfume to make the towels smell good."

Then I held the white bath mat under her nose. She didn't move away, although I expected her to. "Smell this one."

"Doug, same same."

"Yes," I said, "and now you know why I washed them together. In your culture, you wash them by hand, and would do the foot mats last. In my Western culture, with machines, we put them all in together and they come out the same."

She accepted that. In this case Western culture overruled Thai culture.

As I write this in November 2007, a British ESL teacher has been arrested in Sudan, which is a Muslim country, for letting her primary school students name a teddy bear "Muhammed". Although this is a very common name in Sudan and other Muslim countries, giving a toy bear this name is apparently insulting to Islam, according to the charges against her. One of the parents of the students complained to police and she was arrested. If found guilty, she could receive many years in prison, a hefty fine, and 40 lashes with a whip.

So learning something about the culture you will be living in is advice you should take seriously.

In Central and parts of South America, for instance, you might think the culture is Spanish, and that is certainly the dominant one, but the underlying Mayan culture is still there, especially amongst people whose primary language is Quechua or Aymara. Don't assume you understand their culture because you know about Mexican or Spanish culture. Do some research first, so as to help you understand where they are coming from, and try to structure your lessons to fit with their culture. This can be as simple as changing place names: don't talk about the Mississippi River, for example, use a local river instead. They will associate with that, but not associate with the Mississippi.

The beliefs and attitudes of your guest country will potentially be different from what you naively expected, so research! research! research!

As you become accustomed to your new daily routine, students, and fellow teachers, you will discover that some of the teachers have become cynical with time. They may have been there 20 years, and never say anything good about the place; they seem to live in a cloud of negativity. You will be eager and fired up and enjoying the challenge; they will talk about police purges, stupid management at the school, incompetent governments, corruption, and whatnot. The list is never-ending. Try to avoid these people. Live your own life, and be happy with the little differences and challenges that are thrown your way.

In Thailand, the vast majority of people are Buddhists. They are taught from an early age to meet adversity with a smile. One time, I was waiting under an awning for a tropical downpour to lessen. I watched a young lady attempt to cross the flooded street in front of me. She stepped in a hidden pothole, lost her balance, and fell face first into 6 inches of dirty water. She stood up, brushed the water off her face, and laughed. If that had been me, I would have been cursing. But she was a Buddhist. She laughed.

Meet adversity with a smile.

A good philosophy to live by.

If your assignment is in a third-world country, find out if the school and/or students have basic supplies. In rural Peru, for example, there might be one small chalkboard for a one-room school, no paper at all, and certainly no pens or pencils. While that kind of school is not going to have English classes, you can still help them enormously by traveling with two suitcases, one for your stuff, and the other filled with notebooks, pencils, chalk, small chalkboards, crayons, art paper, children's scissors, etc. Before you start your flight, contact the school and find out if they need these supplies, or if they can put you in touch with a rural school that does. Those $50 worth of supplies might be more than a rural school has ever seen and will make a big difference.

Another piece of advice: keep a journal of your experiences. If you have Internet access, create a blog and update it regularly. But in any case, be careful not to write anything in your journal or blog that is critical of the school management, the local religion, or the government. That journal will be a treasured keepsake in future years, and remain with you the rest of your life.

After you've been living and teaching for a while in the guest country, returning to your home town in your native country can be a jarring experience: culture shock in reverse. You became an ESL teacher for the fun of travel, the joy of discovering a new culture, and now you're back in Wal-Mart or Tesco standing in a queue behind an enormous fat lady with a shopping cart full of junk. Your mother is glad to see you, but you find your town boring, the food bland and voluminous.

If you are back for good, and have to get a job, you will probably find yourself bored out of your skull working in an office. Your co-workers will have no interest in your ESL experiences and couldn't care less about the things you did and the places you went.

Pretty soon you will be scouring the Internet looking for other ESL jobs; you've got to follow your dreams, wherever they take you...



About The Author

Doug Anderson has a web site with English grammar tips and ESL teacher tips at http://www.learn-faster.org/English

Classic Articles: In Search of the A Word: Can Ambition survive in TEFL?

In celebration of the imminent release of the fifth edition of Horizons Journal, I've decided to revisit some of the classic articles from the first four issues. In this article, I question whether or not ambition can exist in our profession with the help of members of the ELT World forums:


Many native speakers in our profession are children of the 60s and 70s, the decades when, my students kindly inform me, old people were born. Consequently, many of us remember the decade that followed, when pop stars wore gold suits and politician's names entered dictionaries with the creation of new words such as reaganomics and thatcherite. This decade of Texas oil barons and shoulder pads had a great influence on those of a certain generation, and particularly it seems for those in our profession, in our ability to identify with the A word. Search for it in the body of literature surrounding ELT, I promise you, it's hard to find. Look for it on teaching forums; you'll be hard pressed to find anyone raising the issue. Indeed, one of the few places you will find mention of the word ambition is in job ads, such as those for the enticingly bird flu free schools in South East Asia. So, why is it so difficult to find mention of the word ambition in our profession, and what exactly do those non-life threatening languages schools in China and elsewhere really want when they ask for dynamic, ambitious teachers? Putting images of Simon Le Bon on a yacht singing 'her name is Rio' aside for a minute, there are several very good reasons why mention of the A word remains so elusive in our profession today.

In at the deep end

Firstly, we must consider the bizarre nature of certain aspects of our profession. Very few, perhaps no other, professions deliver such a baptism of fire as ours offers. Consider the path of entry for native speakers, most of whom have an incredible amount to deal with in their first few weeks on the job. In most industries, despite the forces of globalisation greatly changing the nature of work in the twenty-first century, the experienced professional throughout any number of disciplines, ten to fifteen years into their career, will embark on a post in some foreign clime, by which time they will know their jobs inside out, have developed a level of confidence in their ability, may well take family as a further support system, and, given they will be arriving to fulfill a high level position in their organisation, will have neither financial worries nor as many feelings about being stranded alone in a strange land. Contrast this with the experience of the ELT professional: the first day on the job will, in many cases, be in a country likely to be completely alien, furthermore during this period of adjustment the new teacher will be getting their first ever experience of being in the position of teacher, daunting enough without the effects of culture shock. Ally this to factors such as financial insecurities, linguistic difficulties and little in the way of emotional support and it is easy to see why the start of our careers is so traumatic. This must have some influence on the ambitions of those taking their first steps into the world of English teaching.

Running to standstill?

Another way in which our profession works in contrast to many others can be made obvious by comparing it to just about any other. I think back to a friend of mine who started working part-time at the local supermarket when he was sixteen. After several years, he had worked his way up from lowly shelf stacker to assistant manager, and to a position in Eastern Europe overseeing the acquisition of a Hungarian supermarket. Along the way, he developed a wide range of skills and steadily progressed, having a satisfying career full of upward mobility. What he didn't do was spend many years looking at every aspect of shelf stacking to become as good and accomplished a shelf stacker as he could be. So, along with an overseas position only coming after serving many years in his profession, there was always a sense of upward movement in his career. As teachers, we do the opposite; we spend a large part of our career progression trying to get better at the same job that we had when we first entered. Whichever way we look at it, this lack of tangible progression has some effect on the teacher's ability to show ambition. We work very hard in a lot of cases to stay at what could be considered the bottom rung of the ladder. Professional development is an admirable thing, and our profession is all the better for it. Are we, however, thinking about ourselves when we broaden our abilities to deliver in the class room? Are we satisfying our own needs when we embark on training courses? Are we thinking about our own careers and futures? Are we really able to perceive ourselves as ambitious individuals simply because we devote time to enhancing our abilities to teach?

Admitting we have ambition

Another good reason why ambition is hard to track down is this perception of the A word amongst us ELT professionals. Consider the following and see how familiar it sounds; whenever I ask colleagues whether they would consider themselves ambitious, I'm often met with a response such as this, 'I don't know if I'd call myself ambitious but...' which is often followed with some justification about achieving personal satisfaction or self actualisation. It feels sometimes like we're frightened to admit that we want to achieve anything for ourselves, almost as though it were a character flaw. Of course, there is undoubtedly a good reason for this, although there is even less doubt that the reason is a source of great debate. Several possible causes spring to mind. Firstly, we must think about what kind of people enter language teaching to begin with. Could we describe ourselves as money driven go-getters with a desire to succeed or be damned? It doesn't really sound right, does it? Maybe we don't possess what traditionally would be viewed as the need to succeed, the need for money, power and possessions. This argument in itself seems too simplistic, and other external issues must surely come into play. An infamous article in Britain's Telegraph newspaper a couple of years ago highlighted, in graphic detail, the horrors that we face in terms of mistreatment by employers and the low income positions we are forced to endure. After years of poor treatment and living in the gutter, the ELT Professional is conditioned into seeing low self-esteem as an inescapable part of their lives. Sadly, I think we all know true life cases that exemplify this symptom of the language teaching industry. After all these downtrodden experiences resulting from time spent teaching English, can any ambitious individual retain their desire? When we can so easily think of people we know who seem caught in a cycle of low paying jobs, who are scared to return to their home country in case they find out just how badly off they are, can we really consider this a profession in which a meaningful career can be had, or just an industry that some of us adventurous, free-spirited souls were unlucky enough to get caught up in?

The industry vs. the profession

Let's examine that word industry. The late great Sir Alec Guinness once famously commented, upon returning to the stage after a spell in Hollywood, how nice it was to get back to the acting profession after spending some time in the industry. The contrast between the two factions is as strong in our chosen field as it was for old Ben Kenobi, and the difference between the two sides also has a great influence on ambition. Many of us work in private language schools and are constantly aware of the need to get the punters in. Perhaps we also use course books chosen because the incentive offered by the publisher was too good to turn down. Of course, there are any number of reputable, professional schools out there, but these two brief examples illustrate where the a lot of main priorities lie for a large number of language instruction providing institutions, and it’s not always with the aspirations of their teaching staff. Furthermore, as many of us start out in such work environments, we come face to face with the realities of the TEFL industry almost immediately. Naturally, language teaching is not alone in experiencing such issues but it does explain why the job can become so dispiriting to so many. Furthermore, English teaching shares characteristics with other jobs which are seen as not offering careers for the ambitious amongst us. Few people embark on a career in hospitality or food service, for example, if they want to get on in life. The hospitality industry is renowned for factors such as labour intensivity, high staff turnover and poor pay and working conditions due to issues such as a lack of trade union representation or professional support. Ring any bells? The stranger in a strange land factor mentioned previously goes to compound the problem; people entering the profession aren't only being offered poor pay and dubious contracts from employers, they're entering these situations alone and far away from home. How many ambitious and dynamic individuals are being lost from an industry that is increasingly efficiently run, based around profits first and foremost?

Summing up

So, what are we to do? We can't fundamentally change the nature of the job: we're teachers and we'll remain teachers, unless we choose to branch out into different areas of the profession such as becoming course book writers or regulars on the conference circuit. It's more than likely that to meet our ambitions as teachers, we need to become teachers plus. Secondly, we need to admit to ourselves that it's OK to be an ambitious person and that this doesn't necessarily have to have negative connotations. Furthermore, we must accept that it's not OK to live in poverty and be mistreated by employers, this is the area in which we can increasingly take control of ELT. Think about it, if you can get a job without any qualifications or experience, is it likely to be a good job? If you're serious about doing this for a living, should you even consider taking such employment? In the past it wasn't always easy to uncover information regarding overseas employers, although if someone is prepared to give you a job without you having undertaken any training, they're just as likely not to care about treating you well, as there is always someone else waiting to take your place. There are even less excuses with the existence of job discussion forums such as that at the ELT World website, where you can find out what you're getting yourselves into by reading about others' experiences and asking questions. Blogs are another way of finding out what you are likely to be faced with if you move abroad to teach. I'm a huge supporter of teaching blogs and regularly feature them at ELT World. They will become an ever more effective way of planning for the extreme culture shock that TEFLers face when they move to a new country. Also, blogs such as The TEFL Trade (tefltrade.blog-city.com) and websites like TEFL Daddy (tefldaddy.com) and TEFL Watch (teflwatch.org) provide invaluable information on how to avoid an early departure from what many of us believe to be a rewarding career. More than ever, there's little reason not to come into our profession without ambition. I feel that I've barely scratched the surface of this issue and wish to invite you all to share your thoughts on this matter.

Private health care in Greece

If you aren’t covered by Greek social security, you should take out private health insurance. It’s advantageous to be insured with a company that will pay large medical bills directly. Most private health insurance policies don’t pay family doctors’ fees or pay for medication that isn’t provided in a hospital, or there’s an ‘excess’ payment that often exceeds the cost of treatment. Most will, however, pay for 100 per cent of specialists’ fees and hospital treatment in the best hospitals.

Generally, the higher the premium, the more choice you have regarding doctors, specialists and hospitals. You should avoid a company that reserves the right to cancel a policy when you reach a certain age, e.g. 65 or 70, or which increases premiums sharply as you get older, as trying to take out a new policy at the age of 65 or older at a reasonable premium is difficult. If you already have private health insurance in another country, you may be able to extend it to cover you in Greece.

Private health insurance is popular among the Greeks and there are numerous national companies offering policies, including Alico AIGlife (www.alico.gr), Ethniki Asfalistiki (www.ethniki-asfalistiki.gr), Generali (www.generali.gr) and La Vie Assurance (www.iatriko.gr).

Foreign private health insurance companies with policies covering Greece include AXA PPP Healthcare (www.axappphealthcare.com), BUPA International (www.bupa-intl.com), Exeter Friendly Society (www.exeterfriendly.co.uk) and International Health Insurance (www.ihi.com). Note that almost all hospitals and clinics included under foreign private health insurance schemes are situated in Athens or Thessaloniki.

Teaching English in Greece

The employment situation can be quite uncertain for newcomers to Greece and therefore many people choose to try teaching English as a foreign language, on a full or part-time basis. It can bring in a good income whether it is your preferred career choice, or you wish to do it short-term until another career choice pans out.

Qualifications and Experience

There are many language schools or frontistiria in Athens and all over Greece, to which you could apply for work. In order to get a job in one of these schools, it is still not strictly necessary to have a formal teaching qualification such as TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). Often all that is required is a university degree (in any subject) from a UK or US university. That said, if you are uncertain about your ability to teach English and want to ensure that you start off in this line of work with the necessary skills, a course would be useful. It would provide you with some teaching theory, knowledge of English grammar (let’s face it, many of us have never formally studied English grammar in any great depth, even though we speak and write English everyday) and give you some valuable experience of teaching in a classroom, since this is included in most courses. When applying for jobs, you will find vacancies that specify that previous teaching experience is required and others for which no experience is necessary.

It does not matter if you do not speak a lot of Greek. Native English speakers are often valued for other reasons such as having what is seen as a “proper” accent. Many people also swear by the approach of not speaking your students’ language, so that they hear only English being spoken for the duration of the lesson. You will find ways to make yourself understood. In my experience of language teaching, it can even be counter-productive if your students know that you speak their language well, because they may be too easily tempted to speak to you in Greek when they find it hard going.

Finding work

Teaching English as a foreign language jobs are widely advertised in newspapers and on the Internet all year round and most often from August to October. As well as applying before in Greece, you can also go to door-to-door around the frontistiria with your CV, again in the August to October period. If you are visiting them in person, it is not recommended that you spend time doing this any earlier than August because the schools often do not consider their recruitment needs much before the beginning of the academic year.

Pay and working conditions

Pay and conditions offered by language schools will vary enormously, so it is important to check these out in detail first before accepting a contract. If time is on your side, it may be worth speaking to several schools rather than taking the first job you are offered. Also, if you work in a frontistirio it is quite likely that you will be working mainly in the afternoons and evenings, since this is when children and adults are free to take their lessons.

Making some extra money

Many people who teach English as a foreign language in a school, also do private English on the side and this can become a lucrative activity in itself. Working in a language school for a few months is a good way to meet students and advertise the fact that you do private English lessons, on a one-to-one basis. It can be difficult to get the first few, but then through word of mouth, you’ll get more if you do a good job – that great social network of mums and dads on the school run can work wonders! The University of Cambridge ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) exam system seems to be the most widely known and respected in Greece, many people who want to be taught privately are preparing to sit a Cambridge exam or some other type of test. It is worth familiarising yourself with the system – there is an enormous amount of free information on the Internet, including lesson plans, tips, exam practice etc. The exams which are most commonly sat by students are the "First Certificate in English" (which many people still refer to by its old name: "Lower"), "Certificate of Proficiency in English" (known as “Proficiency”), and “Certificate in Advanced English” (commonly referred to as “Advanced”). More information is available from the Cambridge ESOL web site (www.cambridgeesol.org).

What private students will want from you varies a great deal. Some may just want a conversation class, others may just be starting on the Cambridge examinations path and there will be some who are already at a very high level and may need detailed coaching on specific grammar points or on vocabulary for a particular purpose e.g. business English. And given these differences, the amount of preparation required on your part and the fee per hour you are able to charge will probably vary too. I will finish with a word on advertising. My experience has been that I have paid out money for two newspaper ads, which got back zero replies! What has worked well for me is local advertising - you need to use your imagination. I put a card in local shops and a small notice in the back window of my car and you can see people reading it at every traffic light! Just beware of getting calls on your mobile phone while you're driving - not good! As I said before, word of mouth should kick in too once you have your first couple of lessons.



About the author

Emmanuel Mendonca moved to Greece in 2004 and is getting to grips with his new life in Athens. He publishes Greece travel and living articles at www.athensroom.com which is a website for newcomers to Athens.

It was Greek to Me: Improving Your English by Knowing Greek Roots

Commentary from Celia Webb


Greek provides many important prefixes, suffixes, and roots used in the English language. To understand the full meaning of a word, it is essential to know the original meaning of the roots used to form the word. Not only will your comprehension of the word be more complete and accurate, you will understand many more words since roots and other word parts (i.e. affixes, prefixes, suffixes) occur in many English words. For example, Webster's Dictionary has seventy-seven listings starting with the Greek root -chrom-.

Root words are most often combined with other word parts to precisely describe a particular phenomena, action, or thing. Continuing with the root word -chrom- an example of this type of combining is chromolithography =chrom (color)+lithos (a stone)+graphien (to write) which is a method of producing color printed pictures using stone or zinc plates. Many roots are much more productive than -chrom- and certain prefixes (like un- meaning not, lack of, the opposite of as in undo) and suffixes (like -ology meaning a specified type of speaking as in eulogy or the science, doctrine, study of, or theory of as in geology) are in hundreds of words. You can greatly improve your command of English by familiarizing yourself with these word parts.

Your command of English spelling will also be strengthened by knowing the origins of a word. Knowing a word originated from Greek gives clues to some of the tricky spellings in English like the silent initial p- in pneumatic and psychopathic.

Here are frequently used Greek roots and their meanings with an example word. Improve your memory of these roots by copying them into a notebook. Write down the root, its definition, and several examples of its use. You can add examples by looking for more in your dictionary. Practice using the words in sentences when writing and speaking. Look for words with these roots in newspaper, magazine, or books you read and underline them. Create flashcards with the Greek root on one side of the card and the meaning or the reverse. The more often you use the word in some way, the better you will remember it.

-aero- (air) aerobics

-angio- (vessel) angioplasty

-anthrop- (human) anthropological

-astro- (constellation) astronomy

-centre- (center) central

-chrom/o- (color) chromatic

-chron- (time) chronograph

-dem- (people) democracy

-hydro- (water) hydroelectric

-kinesis- (movement) kinetic energy

-leuko- (white) leukemia

-litho- (stone) neolithic

-metre- (to measure) meter, geometry

-morph- (form) morphology

-naut- (sailor, ship) astronaut

-path- (feeling, suffering) pathetic

-ped/o- (child, children) pediatrics (do not confuse this Greek root with the Latin root pedi-meaning foot)

-phil/o-(having a strong affinity or love for) philosopher

-phon- (voice, sound) phonograph

-phos-,-photo- (light) phosphorus, photography

-pneu- (to breathe) pneumonia

-pseudo- (false) pseudography

-psych- (soul, mind) psychoanalyze

-tele- (distant) telephone

-therm- (hot) isotherm

Knowing Greek roots can help you discern the meaning of a word and expand your vocabulary exponentially. Study them carefully and your ability to understand precisely what you read and hear will improve.



About the Author

Celia Webb, President of Pilinut Press, Inc., publishers of advanced readers for children and ESL students. Check out http://www.pilinutpress.com for more free articles on developing reading-related skills, word games and puzzles, and activity sheets for the company's entertaining and educational books.