Notes from the TEFL Graveyard

Wistful reflections, petty glories.

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Location: The House of Usher, Brazil

I'm a flailing TEFL teacher who entered the profession over a decade ago to kill some time whilst I tried to find out what I really wanted to do. I like trying to write comedy (I once got to the semi-finals of a BBC Talent competition, ironically writing a sitcom based on TEFL), whilst trying to conquer genetically inherited procrastination... I am now based in Brazil, where I live with my wife and two chins.

Thursday 20 March 2008

FREE TEFL TIP - TEACHING WHILST DRUNK RARELY WORKS

There is nothing we British love more than a good drink, but those wishing to make their TEFL career last more than a matter of weeks should probably avoid teaching whilst intoxicated – it can be a very unpleasant experience for all concerned. As I have confessed previously, when I was younger I used to swan around like a poor man’s bohemian, heavily influenced into equating alcohol abuse with being alluring by devoted lushes such as Dylan Thomas, Jeffrey Bernard, Jim Morrison, Oliver Reed and their ilk, but I was probably most inspired by Charles Bukowski’s alter ego Hank Chinaski’s reflection, “When something good happened, I drank to celebrate. When something bad happened, I drank to forget. When nothing happened, I drank to make something happen.” I was a subscription paying fan of drinking to make something happen.

Unlike in other professions, in TEFL there is no place to hide. There are no corners in which you can quietly sit and nurse a hangover, no steady supply of aspirin and black coffee to ward off the accompanying pain and sloth. My first class given in a state of drunken breeziness occurred after spending a memorable evening in the company of my Welsh friend NPD and a striking blonde girl from Madrid, which ended, as most such evenings did, in the bowels of the underground Swiss Keller Bar in Charminster. As it was located under a restaurant, it possessed a liquor licence that guaranteed unlimited early hours thrills and spills, and as I fantasized that, with every pint, the Spaniard with us was finding me as increasingly attractive as I was finding her womanly lines, I ingested liberally, eventually arriving in NPD’s flat at around five, with classes programmed to begin at nine.

Rudely awoken at eight by the white light streaming through the unclosed curtains, we skipped breakfast and weaved our way to the school in a state of blurred apprehension. My first class was with three middle aged women, all friends from Majorca. Our previous classes had been riotous at times, as they were certainly out for a good time and constantly heckled each others’ efforts to speak Eengleesh. The tone changed on this day, however, as my rapidly deteriorating condition ensured that it was all I could do to sit in front of them and sweat. “Page twenty-two, exercise A,” I croaked, unable to muster the energy to teach them anything. After forty-five minutes of silent endeavour, one of them finally snapped, collected her things and walked out. “I’m going for coffee,” she pouted. Though I suspected that this could be a worrying development, I followed her departure helplessly with my eyes, like somebody struck mute by a sudden and debilitating palsy. I knew I should have tried to follow her and dissuade her from abandoning proceedings, but I didn’t have any strength in my legs.

When the break came at ten to ten, I headed unsteadily for the staff room for ten minutes of quiet respite. As I turned the bend on the stairs, through the window I was alarmed to see NPD hopping into a taxi and being whisked away to an undisclosed location. Far more versed than me in TEFL survival skills, he’d summoned all the energy he could and bounced into the class at nine o’clock, giving it his all for the first period. At the break, he’d retired to the lavatory, hurled exuberantly, then pleaded food poisoning to the Principal and been allowed to leave early. There was no way I’d be allowed to do the same, as there was only ever one teacher on standby. I was going to have to sweat it out alone, quite literally.

I was thus deprived of a chum with whom to share my considerable suffering, which in peacetime is the nearest us civilians get to experiencing camaraderie. Indeed, much of the enjoyment of binge drinking lies not in the actual consumption of alcohol, but in the mad stories that are revealed during post-bender debriefing sessions. There is always somebody who ended up relieving himself in a wardrobe or woke up in bed with a divorcee with chronic halitosis – getting thrown out of, or not even allowed into, nightspots brings special kudos. Eager to cover my own rather mundane speciality, which was to reach a certain point where I simply had to sleep in a bed, normally my own, and invariably alone, I took to making up stories to delight my partners in lager and lime. “What happened to you last night?” they’d enquire. “Me? The last thing I remember was taking off in pursuit of that blonde with the tattoos, but I reckon I must have fallen down a manhole, because I woke up in a 2-metre waste pipe next to a tramp who thought he was Alfred, Lord Tennyson.”

In fact, the nearest I ever got to having a vaguely amusing anecdote to tell was when I went to a party in somebody’s flat, disappeared whilst on my way to the bathroom and was found, fully clothed, snoozing in a bed belonging to a nightclub bouncer, who was fortunately out at work at the time. Suddenly ravenously hungry, I and my companion stopped at a petrol station and bought a McCain’s Mini Pizza each on the way home, only for the encrusted microwaved topping of mine to skid off amid my drunken fumbling and land upside down on my shoe. Not even sober could I do that again. Anyway, all was well that ended well, as I was able to reattach the separated components and diminish my hunger, in the process somehow avoiding a nasty case of botulism.

Luckily, I had no classes the next day.



Have you ever caught food on your shoe and been drunk enough to eat it anyway? Have you taught whilst drunk? Have you made up stories in order to fit in? Am I as sad as I feel?

10 Comments:

Blogger M. le Prof d'Anglais said...

Ah yes, the good old Swiss Keller. Did every TEFLer who passed through Bournemouth end up there at some point?

20 March 2008 at 12:21  
Blogger M C Ward said...

Another devotee! A legendary venue, sadly no longer. I once got thrown out of there, not for being drunk but because the miserable folk singing pensioner who used to drone on of a Wednesday barred anybody who swore. And it wasn't even me. I'm over it now though.

20 March 2008 at 12:29  
Blogger No Good Boyo said...

I once conducted a day of interviews for an translator's post at the BBC office in Kiev while wholly blasted. Mrs Boyo had sent me to "represent" at a British Embassy reception the previous evening, assuming that no harm could come to me at such a tedious and miserly gathering. Too right, until I met a very sleazy British businessman.

We bonded by looking at the obligatory Scotsman in a kilt who turns up at every British expat event no matter where you are, and simultaneously mouthed the word "twat". Businessman was attending the opening of a girly bar that evening - owned, as it happens, by the same and most affable bekilted Scotsman - and asked me along.

Oh dear.

At various points in the evening I sang on stage and narrowly avoided a misunderstanding with a "security consultant" over his wife. Businessman paid for my tab and get his chauffeur to drive me home at dawn, pausing only to invite me to a Yalta yachting event cum brothel he was organising.

I got through the interviews with the help of coffee, much vomiting, and Mrs Boyo's threat of much worse.

As usual, I appointed a blonde. I told my manager that this showed I'm not practicing favouritism as I'm a brunette man myself.

21 March 2008 at 13:55  
Blogger M C Ward said...

A quite excellent tale. Beats my pizza on the shoe incident pants down. Being in a country where alcohol abuse is generally reserved for the dedicated dipsomaniac, I must admit to a wistful yearning for some drunken madness, less the ensuing hangover, which would probably kill me nowadays...

21 March 2008 at 14:21  
Blogger No Good Boyo said...

You may have just stumbled on the strange bond between the British and the Eastern Slavs, oft remarked upon but never adequately analysed. It's all in the acceptability, nay, celebration of the public drunk.

21 March 2008 at 17:41  
Blogger M C Ward said...

You are right again. Where else would Pete Doherty still be considered worthy of attention, if not east of the Urals (my geography notwithstanding)?

21 March 2008 at 21:33  
Blogger El Gringo Vasco said...

once upon a time, I was giving night classes through Berlitz (screams, glass breaking, sirens, a dense thud, then silence)to two engineers from Monterey. I often wondered why they came to class as they spoke better English than I, although they did sound slightly Mexican. We'd often have class at the bar. Berlitz ended up giving me some ridiculous reward at the end of the year. You know, the ones that are supposed to make you feel good and forget how much they are exploiting you. My reward: "Best Field-tripper." How in the shit am I supposed to put that on a resumé? Hijos de putas!

25 March 2008 at 02:25  
Blogger M C Ward said...

Best field tripper award! That brings it's own, very special kudos. I want one.

Did you get to wear sombreros and drink tequila during happy hour?

25 March 2008 at 09:37  
Blogger Well-lighted Shadows said...

just found your blog...and this was the first post I read -- a Tefl classic -- teaching with a hanover is one thing -- leaving the class because you have to vomit is another. Is it ok to do this? Well depends on the students - Asians don't seem to notice this kind of thing.

12 April 2008 at 22:54  
Blogger M C Ward said...

You're right, Asians are often too busy being shy and demure to register self-abuse by their mentors. I prefer to play it safe - I think a big hangover would finish me off once and for all, nowadays.

13 April 2008 at 12:50  

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