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 29 January 2009

GREAT TEFL WASTERS I HAVE KNOWN – PETE

Whereas Idris was a TEFL waster in the drunken, lecherous, hapless sense we British seem to profoundly admire, Pete was an altogether different animal. He was The Man With No Shadow.

As far as anyone knew, he was a Liverpudlian living in Málaga through marriage to an Andalucian. Despite repeated attempts to engage him in social discourse over the nine months I worked with him, he showed himself to be uninterested to the bone in communicating with the outside world.

He would arrive and stand around with his hands in his pockets gazing at the ground until it was time to teach, then would silently slope off to his classroom, a term that could only be loosely applied to the six-foot by six-foot cubicles that had been cheaply constructed in the vast office space using paper thin partitions.

It was one of those highly successful schools that do nothing to warrant their popularity. They had totally cornered the pre-teen market.

The teaching faculty, of which I formed an integral part, was packed with unworldly no-hopers, desperate hangers on subjecting themselves to any depth of indignity just to remain on the Costa del Sol.

Wages were laughable. After a fortnight of working there, I decided to find out why the other teachers kept entering the tiny store cupboard with such frequency, wondering if there was some kind of cleaning rota in place I was unaware of, only to find it was the inaccurately designated “resources room”, built to the design of a ship’s lavatory, full of empire era manuals on understanding the natives and the proper manner in which to address one’s houseboy.

The Director of Studies was a raucous yet likeable American woman who went around screeching, “How should I know? I’m white trash!” in answer to teachers’ questions. When I complained that the course materials were worse than appalling, she informed me it had been her that had written them.

All this pandemonium simply passed Pete by.

When teaching in the cubby hole next to his it was impossible to tell if he was actually in the same vicinity as the students, such was the St Trinians inspired mayhem his presence, or lack of it, encouraged.

Occasionally he could be heard muttering a monotonal reprimand – “José Maria, no gouging, remember?” - but in general it seemed he was quite happy to sit and bear mute witness as his underlings flat-packed the furniture, hurled themselves at the walls and painted each other, all at a decibel level I frequently considered sufficient to bring a successful prosecution.

Then, at the end of his stint, with a silent raising of the eyebrows as he passed, he’d be gone into the night, like William S. Burroughs into the backstreets of Tangier.

I have never met a teacher who cared less about his work. He acted like a torpid South American civil servant who knows that, save for an attempted homicide, he cannot be fired.

And I have to secretly admire him for that.

8 Comments:

Blogger The TEFL Tradesman said...

Ah, now you've just inspired me, my dear MC, to write about "Tony the Trot", a somewhat leftwards-leaning Tefler I once shared a mess-riddled flat with in Turkey.

But I'm buggered if I'm gonna do it here. Come on over (that's an invite, BTW) to my blog in a day or two, and I'll reveal all!

Can you possibly wait? I thought so...

BTW, did your ponderous colleague ever end up at the shrink's office?

29 January 2009 at 15:28  
Blogger Gadjo Dilo said...

A Liverpudlian with no interest in talking or in joining in a fight?? I find this all quite disturbing.

31 January 2009 at 06:21  
Blogger No Good Boyo said...

The idle yet civil service is southern Europe's great gift to the world. The BBC is the only British institution to get it just right. I call it the Renault Principle,after the Casablanca copper not the Communist car plant. Sounds like a blog post coming on. You truly are an inspiration, young MC.

31 January 2009 at 09:25  
Blogger Troy said...

Disinterest? I call that Zen...

It's a truly admirable place to get to really. If you can just get to your happy place and really not give a shit at all what the little pricks are doing (sorry for the Andalusian there) and basically only step in when bodily harm is about to come about...you've made it!

Only then will you be able to suffer and actually thrive on what is pre-teen and teen hell that is TEFL teaching here in Spain.

31 January 2009 at 17:08  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's rude of me to drop by infrequently and them leave you some homework, but here you go...

http://www.eltworld.net/blog/2009/02/7-things-you-probably-don’t-know-about-me/

I've permanently vacated blogspot by the way. Didn't know the Tradesman had lived in Turkey!?!?

I think I'll have to add to these anecdotes soon.

2 February 2009 at 04:47  
Blogger Daphne Wayne-Bough said...

I toyed with the idea of working in TEFL at one point, but your revelations have shown me that I made the right choice in opting for exotic dancing.

8 February 2009 at 07:18  
Blogger Ms Scarlet said...

Sax playing and taming frisky ferrets also seem better career choices, Daphne.
Sx

9 February 2009 at 10:48  
Blogger M C Ward said...

Thank you all for your glittering commentary. Welcome to Daphne - I think you definitely made the right choice. Are there any vacancies?

Incidentally, do a lot of people say "Somewhere, over the Wayne-Bough"? I can't be the first, surely.

12 February 2009 at 10:28  

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