Notes from the TEFL Graveyard

Five people again voted, as my stubborn attempts to canvas opinion on vital TEFL issues continues apace. In answer to the, some may say indelicately incomplete, statement, "My TEFL salary is:", the following responses were registered, after a recount: ... none of your bloody business - 0 votes (0%) ... enough to keep the wolf from the door - 1 vote (20%) ... enough to keep the wife from the door - 3 votes (60%) ... enough to keep me in snuff and monogrammed handkerchiefs - 1 vote (20%) ... sub-Saharan - 0 votes (0%) One foppish respondant shares my predeliction for stylishly whistle-clean air intakes, one person believes their income enough to keep wild animals at bay, whilst fully 60% regard their pay as enough to keep their spouse from departing. So there you have it - a TEFL salary won't lose you a wife, but it probably won't gain you one either. There again, it might, depending on whether she's studied numbers in English yet or not. Probably best not to m...

Another generally successful TEFL Graveyard poll has now closed, with a grand total of five votes registered. As the last election was marred by a vote-rigging scandal in which two of the seven votes were cast from two different computers by the same lonely person with too much time on his hands (I believe they call them “hackers”), I can only assume that the same five citizens have voted again. I salute you, pollsters, you are the manure that helps the rose of democracy shamelessly blossom. This time, four readers said that they prefer my humble burial ground to Dave’s ESL Café (no need to shoot myself in the head just yet, then), whilst one visionary prognosticator shares my conviction that I’ll be famous one day, and wants to be able to bask in some reflected glory. The only lingering doubt is whether I’ll achieve notoriety for doing something brilliant, or whether my name will be carved forever in TEFL infamy as the first known perpetrator of a Reverse School Massacre. This is wher...

Some call it Customer Relationship Management... Vote now, only six days left! (UPDATE: The poll is now at the bottom of the page)

The TEFL Graveyard Poll has now closed, with a staggering seven votes, two of which I made from different computers in a misguided attempt to get the ball rolling. In answer to the question, “ If I could teach English to anybody living or dead, my choice would be... ”, the results, in reverse order, are as follows: Mother Teresa (Albanian nun) – 0 votes (0 %) – Perhaps unsurprising this one. Selfless acts of altruism need no translation. Marcel Marceau (French mime) – 0 votes (0%) – Given that Monsieur Marceau spent his life communicating in his own unique form of sign language, it can only be assumed that he didn’t even speak French, perhaps due to having no roof to his mouth or summat. Bit of a trick option that one. Tabatha Cash (French liberal) – 1 vote (14%) – Although she has sadly now retired, I became an admirer of Ms Cash’s work as a socially inept adolescent. I’ve always wondered about her opinions on the future of European Union integration and whether the Maastricht Trea...