Notes from the TEFL Graveyard

When Sammy, Dario and their ilk decided that they wanted to become billionaires at everyone else’s expense , I felt that TEFL was my trump card, which is something I hadn’t really expected, given my past skepticism as to its usefulness in my meandering professional trajectory.  “I can always go back to teaching English, if it all goes tits skywards,” I reassured myself. A recent visit to my accountant’s office to disclose the true horror of my finances unexpectedly proved to be a masterstroke - being an incredible human being, he asked me what the plan was to try to get some money in. A fair question , I had to concede. “If I had somewhere to teach in the evenings, I could try to get some group classes going,” I explained, ”That can be quite lucrative if you can get enough students.” “You can do that here,” he announced, without missing a beat. He subsequently affixed a whiteboard to the wall, and even arranged for me to have a desk in the corner and offered the use of his mul...

As a pioneer of digital nomadity, I was asked the other day by one of my followers what my view is of the ongoing AI revolution . I have to admit that I’m something of a layman when it comes to this particular subject, but thinking on my feet, I replied that the technology does seem to allow the creation of incredibly realistic videos of people from a simple photograph , so I imagine the early adopters will be  con-men and/or  perverts .  Indeed, my Brazilian friend Deberkleberson recently gave me a demonstration of AI-powered image generation. He typed into his computer that he wanted a picture of a badger bursting into flames on a street in Dubai with Brad Pitt’s face on it , and I must say the result was uncanny. To be fair, I’m not entirely convinced of the utility of such an image, unless it was designed for use in some kind of campaign to warn about the dangers of wildfires in the UAE ; although, I can’t imagine they have badgers there. All that fur would make it f...

  Available now: https://books2read.com/sittingonahorsefacingbackwards My humble gift to the world. No matter how disillusioned you may be with your life, you will read this and think, "It could be worse - I could be as hopeless as Wardy!" 😉🥂

It's not like I'm obsessed with him, but apparently, Sam Altman is now after a cool 7 trillion dollars to make more powerful computer chips, to enable his AI to run the world more effectively, presumably from an extinct volcano somewhere in the Pacific . Is it just me, or does anybody else think giving one person this much power is not guaranteed to have a favourable outcome for the majority? Especially when that person has made utterances such as, "AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies" * . Well, that's okay then.  Let's just put him in charge of the nuclear button as well , shall we? *  Top 10 Sam Altman Quotes - BrainyQuote

Not a day goes by without Dobber* stumbling past our gate on his daily mission to secure free beer and fags **. The later in the day he appears, the more unsteady his gait, as being a deceptively careful planner, he clearly has a few cans of lager readied the night before so that, when he awakes, he can start the day with a liquid breakfast to ensure his blood alcohol content remains stable . More often than not, his first port of call is the hairdressing salon two doors away, where he will inevitably regale my stylist Gerson with an incoherent monologue and/or rant. Depending on how thin his patience has worn, Gerson will frequently proffer a few notes and coins and ask Dobber to visit the supermarket down the road on the corner to buy him something, anything, on the unspoken understanding that the change will be used to purchase some more cheap alcohol . Cue Dobber stumbling past our gate again, this time heading in the opposite direction with a renewed sense of purpose . As the s...

If I had any kind of “ Internet following ”, or if I were a “ digital influencer ”, I would probably steer clear of the subject of this post for fear of a mass online lynching followed by the need to publish a flat-chested apology , but as I’m in my own little corner of the blogalaxy and I can mumble away to myself largely unnoticed - brace yourself, Sheila. It was a frosty winter’s morning and I had just arrived in the staff room. “ It’s a bit Pearl Harbour ”, I quipped, a comment met by quizzical looks from my colleagues. “ There’s a nip in the air! ” If it didn’t exactly gain me a standing ovation, my play on words drew a number of chuckles and the odd wry smile. But scarcely had the sound waves been emitted by my vocal chords than a tart Glaswegian (yes, those words are the right way round, though thinking about it, they could probably be reversed) snapped, “Well, that’s a bit racist! ” At the time, I had neither the time nor the energy to wade into her as maybe I would...

Of all the oddball comments I’d heard in TEFL over the years, the words that issued from the Principal’s mouth that lunchtime definitely made the top three. Sweeping into the staffroom with his hand clasped to his brow, he blurted to no one in particular, “That idiot’s just put one of the Thai girls in a headlock ”. Books were slowly closed, and eyes cast downwards, as we strived collectively to imagine circumstances in which putting a Thai girl in a headlock would be a) necessary, or b) warranted. The Thai girls at the school at the time were all demure, unfailingly polite and cheerful , and none of them appeared likely to require incapacitating physical restraint . The “idiot” in question, whose name slips my mind, was one of the many unhinged summer teachers who’d descended out of nowhere and tricked their way onto the staff due to a long career spent teaching English all over the world. In fact, a long career in TEFL should arguably be a very good reason not to employ s...

“Wardy, you’ve been living in the land of the thong and the endlessly smouldering barbecue for over ten years now, so enlighten us, what’s your take on the current state of Brazilian politics , in light of the forthcoming presidential elections?” I imagine people would ask, if only I’d grant them an audience . I shall reply using an analogy. As I may have mentioned herein several years ago, I once had a spluttering career in the Human Resources department of a local metallurgical factory, during which I limped along gamely for just over two years before I was rooted out and banished . Our department had no dedicated manager, so we reported directly to the Director of Administration. There were six of us in the department at the outset, a Psychologist, three HR Analysts (of which I was one), and two HR Assistants.  One of my fellow Analysts was a short, stocky individual who peered earnestly out from behind a pair of narrow, rectangular spectacles, always giving the impres...

Contrary to a common misconception, TEFL has not finally got the better of me and forced me into an early retirement consisting of crafts, art therapy and medication in an institutionalised environment , life has been tossing me hither and thither with almost reckless abandon. The upshot being, I'm back, and this time I mean it . Back from Campinas, which turned out to be a costly move on so many fronts , but now firmly ensconced in a rather fetching house with a big yard, a generous barbecue area, electric lighting and running water. Again, it's election time, and our new neighbour is one of the chosen ones who drives around town with wedding disco speakers tied to the roof of his car urging us all to vote for his candidate - luckily, I can't vote being a foreigner, so a) I can safely ignore him, and b) no one can blame me when it all goes tits up . A woman called today to do a pre-election survey. One of the questions was, "Is there any candidate you look at...

Judging by the quantity of Police Statements I am translating at the moment, Northern Ireland is not a good place to be if you're Portuguese. But the more nationals from that country that get beaten up, fail to repay debts, steal each others' electrical equipment and have their windows smashed by gangs of hooded youths, the better for business as far as I'm concerned. The tragedies of globalisation - and they say crime doesn't pay ...

Brazil is, we are told, currently experiencing something of an economic miracle , finally making progress towards fulfilling the massive potential it has always harboured. Economist speak feverishly about all kinds of economic indicators that make little sense in the lives of ordinary people, and the country is held up as a beacon of hope in an increasingly grave global economic meltdown. Various companies have wasted no time in jumping on the bandwagon, notably Johnny Walker, whose TV ad, "Keep Walking, Brazil" depicts Sugar Loaf Mountain rising into the form of a giant, to the disbelief of onlooking cariocas . " The giant is no longer sleeping ", the caption reads at the end of the spot, which may sell a few more cases of whisky, but is about as detached from reality as it is possible to be without employing psychtropic drugs for those at the bottom of the food chain - such as TEFLers . In many ways, TEFL is a perfect capitalist model . Charge students as mu...

Continuing my occasional series on Great TEFL Wasters, allow me to cast my mind back to Jason, a typically chirpy Londoner I met whilst teaching in Italy. As with most London lads, he fancied himself as a bit of a player , with just fashionably long curly hair and a cocky patter that veritably flowed off the tongue. He was unique in that, during the whole time I knew him, I only ever heard him employ one adjective for a myriad of situations - the brilliantly versatile " unnatural ". When I once pointed out a rather fetching female to him in a nightclub, he whined, "Cor, strike me, that's unnatural, innit?" Another time, I invited him to stop in a bar for a coffee , to which he responded, "Coffee? Nah, I don't drink coffee, mate, it's unnatural, innit, coffee?" His profuse perspiration I'd noted on a not particularly hot day was explained away with, "Yeah, I've always sweated a lot, it's unnatural, innit?" And so it went...

My recent absence may be explained, if not justified, by my having moved to the warmer climes of Campinas , pronounced "Cam-penis", which pleases the 12-year old inside my shorts. Leaving my in-laws peering wild-eyed over the parapet of their own lunacy , bless 'em, we have left them to their lectures and bickering, finally transferring our worldly possessions to a place of our own, a move which has been a modest 9 years at the planning stage. If I'd known that would happen, I'd still be drinking lunchtime pints and eating scampi in the Dorset Soldier in Corfe Mullen of a weekend and trying to get excited about football on a big screen . Our worldly possessions have been packed, unpacked and carefully arranged, we await the arrival of our new sofa, dining table and chairs and TV stand unit thingy, netting has been strategically placed in front of our eighth-floor balcony and windows to prevent our 1.5-year-old from practising skydiving, though she does seem d...

The trouble with family visiting from the old continent is that they leave you in a worse state than they found you. Since mother and middle sister left, I've found myself exploring a morbid fascination for YouTube interviews with Morrissey , wearing my late father's sports jacket around the house and pining to, of all things, go rambling (here, crossing somebody's land is likely to land you with a cap in your harris at the very least ). Heaven knows I'm miserable now.

There is something deeply tragic about the TEFL school staff photo that to this day haunts my dreams. No offence to those being snapped, but it isn't hard to recognise the silent desperation hidden behind the wool ties, the sensible clothes, the pained haircuts. Normally, those involved are a motley crew aged anything between 20 and 65 - those at the younger end of the scale are still fairly normal looking, for the years haven't yet taken their toll. They entered TEFL due some kind of wanderlust , or maybe just some kind of lust , judging by the number of Tesco Value lotharios I have come across over the years. I remember a particularly smooth teacher of Italian parentage who used to descend on Bournemouth of a summer fancying himself as a modern day Lord Byron, entrapping doe-eyed latinas and chaperoning them to the beach at night, which, he claimed, was " guaranteed to get them in the mood ". Probably not surprisingly, his popularity with women was inversely pro...

The male voice choir I participate in has reached something of a plateau I feel. For over a year now, we seem to have stagnated, unable to see any marked improvement in our performances and still victims of the vices that have become commonplace. We start songs impressively, start to wobble, and by the end have sometimes completely come apart – rather than singing as a unit with one voice, it’s more like every man for himself . And much of the cause is cultural, it seems to me. I don’t like to criticise my adopted country, but I am going to make a rare exception and opine that I am living in the land of “that’ll do” . Choir singing, for example, is the pursuit of excellence . Our choir, being one of the few male choirs in the region, is met with standing ovations at every turn , largely because we are such a novelty. This is not to say it’s undeserved; to the untrained ear (there is virtually no culture of choir singing in Brazil, apart from local church ensembles, which are all ferve...

Yesterday I was just tucking into my jugged hare when the doorbell rang. My father-in-law answered it to a lady, returning to inform me that it was me to whom she would like to address an enquiry. Unaccustomed to lady callers , I descended to the gate and held a barely audible shouted conversation with my suitor above the rabid barking of my hound. "Is it you that gives the English lessons?" she enquired. "Not any more, I'm afraid", I snapped, snorting involuntarily , "I work with translation now, and I don't have time to give lessons." She appeared to crumple physically. "I can't believe it," she whined, "a friend of mine called you a while ago and you told her you weren't giving lessons any more," she went on, this revelation begging the question as to why she thought I'd make some kind of inconsistent exception for her . "It's for my 16-year-old son. Not even conversation?" Ah yes, conversation clas...

I remember reading a Somerset Maugham short story once in which the writer moves into a house where he is told one of his neighbours is a poet. Interested to meet the bard in question, Maugham decides to pay him a visit. When the gentleman opens the door, Maugham is immediately impressed by his physical appearance , and goes on to describe his keen eyes, noble face – generally, he is exactly what he expects a poet to look like, the twist in the story being that he’s actually called at the wrong house and is describing the wrong man . I was reminded of this story after a particularly vivid dream, which I won’t recount in full out of pure compassion. I don’t know how Freud did it, listening to all those people’s dreams – to me, it’s the most boring thing anyone can do , start to recall dreams to you. It’s just a load of mumbo jumbo, “I was in this dark place, which was like my grandmother’s coal cellar, but it wasn’t, and there was this huge carrot...” blah, blah, blah. Utter nonsense. B...

Keen-eyed readers who popped by in around June may remember a garbled message I posted (and swiftly deleted) relating to some fairly major legal difficulties I was facing , which, thankfully, turned out to be utterly baseless. Without wishing to go into the morbid details, suffice it to say that our attempts to adopt a young waif led to a rumour circulating in the region that there was a German child trafficker at large - and I'm still not sure which part of that double insult riled me more. I am delighted to say I have been fully cleared of all suspicions, with my moral integrity and island heritage more or less intact . What it has provided me with is yet another demonstration of the depth of the other-planetary madness by which this country operates, where criminals (and clowns, in the literal sense of the word ) are routinely elected to public office, and people hoping to adopt an abandoned child are criminalised. And people wonder why Brazil's attempts to secure a perman...