Infected Mushroom-Psycho. British stereotypes: do mention the war, please. The stereotype is itself a stereotype.
The European image of the Brit – either pukingly drunk football fan or snooty City gent, both living off past imperial glories, sullenly resenting being in Europe rather than ruling the world – is itself a cliche. Just as Brits know that every good Frenchman wears a striped shirt and beret, and that ruddy-faced Germans subsist on a diet of beer and sausage, so we know precisely what all those Europeans think of us.
And, sure enough, drink, class and the second world war all crop up in the thumbnail sketch of the British (Europeans tend to use "British" as a synonym for "English", rather forgetting the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish)provided by our colleagues across the Channel. It would be nice to say that our neighbours have us all wrong – but, sadly, cliches only become cliches if they are built on a foundation of truth. Start with the bottle. Still, it's not the volume of pints (or litres) consumed that has led to our boozy reputation.
How much are you worth? « EFL thoughts and reflections. The issue of pay has always been a sensitive one.
I recently came across 2 adverts which shocked me, both concerned pay: 1)La rémunération proposée est de 17,00 € Brut /heure.=17 Euros before any taxes=13 euros an hour2)Our online school offers qualified teachers $9 per class before tax=7 Euros an hour Both jobs only require a ‘TEFL certificate’ ie even a weekend one would be valid. Neither job pays higher depending on qualifications or experience and neither school has the possibility of getting a better/higher paid teaching post as there aren’t any. The fat has truly been trimmed! Of course, the first job may seem better paid but think about….travel time, travel cost, prep time, no/few materials. Also, perhaps we can class the 1st as a small language school but the second is from one of many internet schools which seem to be the first wave.
I know both places and neither knows the DELTA or what an MA TESOL is. Do learners know what they need? There is a lot of talk about learner needs, needs analysis and learner centred lesson planning and course planning.
But do learners really know what they need? Or do they just tell us what they want? The difference between “wants” and “needs” is neatly illustrated by the image on the right – a want is something that is desirable but unnecessary. A need is something you have to have no matter what! And do we always know the difference? In education the reliance on needs analysis worries me, as I fear it might be misplaced. But we don’t always notice and the doctor analogy is perhaps right – the learners come to us and say “I’m having problems” before we then think about what the causes and solutions might be.
To find out – I conducted a small scale study with a group of FCE learners. The results show three tiers of prioritisation: Tier 1: Vocabulary, Use of English, Exam PracticeTier 2: Speaking, Writing, GrammarTier 3: Reading, Listening. So does this match the data? The CV « Curriculum Vitae. Personal Statement My name is BENEDICT LE GAUCHE and I was born on 02/05/83 which makes me 28 and ripe as a lemon. I’m looking for a job I’ll like. As a man of integrity I’m not about to try and give you the impression that all the jobs I’ve had previously were brilliant learning experiences tailor-made to equip me for precisely the job I’m applying for (hello you) when in reality they have been, for the greater part, boring and drudgerous and disheartening.
I should state I was not bad at them. The capacity to bear such trials whilst retaining an at-most-times sunny disposition might be called something like ‘the ability to work under pressure’. Work History Cleaner/Caretaker; The Women’s Organisation, Manchester ; 11/08/2010 – Present Duties include: Working out how dirty I can let the building get without Lisa complaining and then cleaning to this exact standard.
Host: Zion Arts Centre, Manchester; 02/02/2011 – 28/07/2011 Moving chairs from one place to another place. Pointless.
Main Page - partsregistry.org. British National Corpus (BYU-BNC) Tunes.