Notes from the TEFL Graveyard

After day one, I've gleaned this much about Texas Hold'em from Seu Francisco, which I'm selflessly spreading across the blogalaxy, or at least this western spiral arm: - if somebody has a good hand, he's likely to keep himself to himself ; - if somebody has a bad hand, he's likely to look around the table at the other players to see if he can pick up any clues from their physiognomy ; - the best players never bet everything they've got on a hand - they bet moderately to string others along; - the answer is to develop a uniform appearance, be patient and always do exactly the same thing , no matter what cards you have; Seu Francisco is a former Brazilian Poker Champion , and thus should be lent multiple ears, in my humble view.

On Wednesday I finally met the shadowy Seu Francisco. He'd cancelled our Tuesday arrangement due to his being in Montevideo gambling (officially, casinos are illegal in Brazil). I was ushered into a meeting room in his property agency with a large casino table in the middle and packs of cards littering the surrounding surfaces. Ten minutes later a large car drew into the courtyard outside and a tottering brunette with designer everything got out, with Seu Francisco a few paces behind. Brazilian entrepreneurs all seem to have the same kind of personality. They tend to be gruff, suspicious and exude an unwillingness to suffer fools gladly, which could put me in immediate danger, I mused ruefully. His ladyfriend was at most half his age and demonstrably sullen, as most extremely wealthy women seem to be in my limted experience. "I'm going to Las Vegas with her," Seu Francisco snapped, gesturing vaguely in her direction, "and we want to understand what they say in th...

I’ve had a pretty good week. Nothing great has happened, but those little frustrations that normally boil over into an unseemly ire have passed me by like water off a duck going straight over my head. This turning problems into happiness stuff looks pretty righteous to me. I even managed to get through my eight elementary classes yesterday without feeling like somebody had wheel-clamped my heart. I would usually shuffle into the first class like a dead man walking, but after finding some inspiration from an unlikely source, I would describe my entrance as, if not a strut, certainly nearer a gambol than a lope. English Teacher X’s Teacher Tips is a mini-site packed with useful clues as to how to survive teaching. I’ve always found his accompanying blog about his misadventures teaching English in Russia by turns hilarious, harrowing and somewhat bleak, but with his teacher tips he hits the bull right between the eyes. His advice that buying a ball is the best investment a TEFL teacher ...

I rose at 7:30am today, slipped into my cleanest dungarees and headed to Osasco in the suburbs of São Paulo for a meeting with Seu Francisco, a gentlemen with whom I had arranged a meeting to discuss the prospect of regular English classes at his company. ( Seu is a polite form of address for more mature men, similar to the English form, Old Man ). His immediate concern is to learn the language well enough to enjoy the full potential of Las Vegas , which sounds to me like an English course worth giving. I girded my loins for a rare 50km solo drive to the metropolis and set off at an environmentally friendly speed, waving trucks, buses and the odd cyclist past as I hugged the inside lane. The meeting was arranged for 9:00am, and as luck would have it, I arrived on the dot. After first calling at the wrong factory and confusing everyone by not knowing Seu Francisco’s surname, eventually I was let into a small courtyard and greeted by a large, friendly woman. “I don’t think Seu Fr...

I prepared a lesson featuring the scene below from Love Actually . In the middle of watching the scene I was ambushed by an overpowering urge to weep. I don't know if it was a homesickness-driven longing for the side streets of London, the tacky Christmas carol recording, the sheer sentimental romance of it all, or the result of a build up of female hormones. I've never really trusted the milk here. I draw crumbs of comfort from the fact that Hugh Grant wasn't in the scene.

When bedding down on the straw for the night, it is not uncommon for the gentle preamble before sleep takes hold to be punctuated by a loud noise from outside in the street. This is normally due to the detonation of the rojão , a loud and unentertaining cousin of what we westerners would describe as a firework. Those responsible are normally adolescents with undoubtedly glittering academic careers ahead of them, though on occasion it is, in fact, the settling of a mild disagreement between drug dealers through the employment of firearms. Even the dedicated curmudgeon wouldn’t begrudge the odd firework display to celebrate important events. I particularly remember watching the enchanting spectacle of the Millennium Eve fireworks from Southwark Bridge in London, my delight only slightly overshadowed by the growing certainty that I was about to fall over amid the swirling crowds and be trampled to death, never to discover if my computer had crashed due to that Y2K business or not. Fi...

One of the commonest figures to be found within TEFL is the aspiring administrator. This is a teacher who, often drained by years of repetitive, poorly remunerated clowning around in the classroom, seeks a position managing other teachers, such as Director of Studies (aptly and attractively known as "Doss"), from which they can sit in an imaginary TEFL director’s chair smoking a cigar, bellowing, “CUT!” and enjoying not having to pull a linguistic rabbit out of a hat twelve times a day, five days a week. I include myself within this TEFL subgenre, although my past experiences of administration have left me with an odd yearning to get back into the classroom and be king of my own modest sandcastle. In 2005, whilst I was working in HR at a local factory, my Brazilian friend Bert and I decided to start our own school. I had recently managed to wriggle out of a honey trap I’d set for myself, when I offered to give a free English course to my colleagues in the factory’s Training a...