TEFL SOUNDS A BIT LIKE PIFFLE

If we indulge in a little idle wordplay, even the acronym TEFL (pronounced “teffle” for the uninitiated) has peculiar onomatopoeic connotations. It sounds a little like “piffle” or “sniffle”, or perhaps most fittingly, “skiffle”.

TEFL is the skiffle of the educational world, a little faded and outdated, populated by eccentric, tweedy people, the poor cousin of state school teaching, the bastard nephew of university lecturing. Just as TEFL teachers spend a large portion of their free time cutting and pasting to make their own materials, in much the same way skiffle artistes entertain themselves by making their own madcap musical instruments.

If there is ever a blockbuster movie made about TEFL, the soundtrack will simply have to feature the Doghouse Skiffle Group.