The Tradesman Files

The TEFL Tradesman is venturing into previously uncharted territory, with these articles by or about some of the most famous (and infamous names) in the UK Tefl scene.
Lindsay Clandfield (hooray!!)
Paul Lowe (boo!!)
Mario Rinvolucri (erm…)
Tessa Woodward (aaargh!!!)

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Old post revisited: Was your Four-week TEFL Course Worth it?

This again is in reponse to an article on big Alex’s TEFL Tastic blog questioning the merits of doing the CELTA course. The respondents, of which I was the first, seem to agree that the author’s opinions need to be counterbalanced by looking at some of the benefits of doing such a course. In this [...]

The TEFL Jobs Revolution has begun

Are you sick to death of seeing TEFL job ads like this one:
“Wait staff positions available November 1st for restaurant at intimate and remote hotel in Mexico (nearest city: Puerto Vallarta).
Verana’s reputation and quality is based on our high standards and focus on first class service, eclectic styling and decor. Our staff deals with our [...]

This made me chuckle

I haven’t had a go at Dave Sperling for a while and perhaps don’t need to thanks to Gary’s excellent piece on the ESL Cafe on his Mexile blog.

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7 reasons why you have no chance of learning another language

We have a snowball’s chance in hell of learning another language, particularly inside the language classroom, if the TEFL Cynic is to be believed:
Not particularly well-kept secret of TEFL #14,793: Languages cannot be taught, they can only be learned. Whatever you do, don’t tell the punters it’s them who have to put in the work [...]

7 things you probably don’t know about me

We have blogging legend EFL Geek to thank for this particular post. OK, so here’s the deal…
1 Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog
2 Share 7 facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird
3 Tag seven people at the end of your post
4 Let them know they’ve been [...]

What happened to ‘Football Culture’?

No, I’m not talking about the changes in soccer over the past decade or so caused by the huge influx of television money. I’m actually referring to the British Council website of the same name. I originally stumbled across Football culture seven or eight years ago and was immediately impressed. Basically, it was a language [...]

It’s partly Greek to me

Celia Webb has followed up her article ‘Improving Vocabulary through Latin Prefixes‘ over at the ELT Times with ‘It was Greek to Me: Improving Your English by Knowing Greek Roots‘.
‘Greek provides many important prefixes, suffixes, and roots used in the English language‘ regales Celia in her article at the World’s first online TEFL Newspaper. ‘To [...]

Improving Vocabulary through Latin Prefixes

‘English contains many words adopted from other languages‘, notes Celia Webb, somewhat emphatically, over at the ELT Times: the World’s first online TEFL Newspaper. ‘In fact‘, she proclaims, ‘experts estimate 80% of English words originated elsewhere. The biggest influence on English vocabulary is Latin. An examination of the 20,000 most used words reveals 5,000 words [...]

Mr Kalgukshi Speaks

Not to me, let me make that perfectly clear from the start. My good friends over at the TEFL News Network gave me advance warning that this was coming and I have to admit to a little foaming at the mouth in anticipation of this interview. I’m not going to copy and paste sections, as [...]