Strange New Places

Yesterday morning's session was one of the strangest I've ever taught. We just got on with it, but it was like I wasn't there. We worked through the materials I'd provided, but without genuine interaction. Often, the class would talk amongst themselves in Arabic.

I can only assume that solidarity is being demonstrated with Old Gomez, whose authority I have been seen to ignore. This is a first, I've never had a class behave this way before. It's actually really interesting.

On the one hand, subjectively, I can't wait to see the back of these bastards. LM, who has already had a year of them, and takes them now for academic skills in the afternoons, understands completely, and has agreed to move the poisoned chalice elsewhere once we've gotten past this exam in a few weeks.

On the other hand: there is a big issue about these learners being colleagues, potential fellow teachers at the college. Which is fine, but this lot under the generalship of Old Gomez have set up an anti-authoritarian structure in the classroom as effective as anything you'd get from intelligent and rebellious teenagers in a brutal classroom regime. And they've done it answer to Old Gomez' ego, not to any oppression.

When they move on from English to studying Leadership and Management, under the wing of a sensitive chap like PTI. Oh, lordy lord. LM and I have wondered how PTI will cope, given the touchiness of all of these students on virtually everything, and given the extraordinary inflammatory dynamics of the Addams Family. And so, I comfort myself in the cool atmosphere of my classroom with the thought that I might be watching the early development of a Sudanese-teddy incident.

More Fun with Turns-on-Her-Heels

I've made no secret of the fact that, once I get my MA, I expect to be doing a job not unlike LM's. I've told him this and that I'm watching how he handles things with professional detachment. What I haven't told him is, I think he's doing an impossible job. We walked down to the local shops together last night - it's a pleasant walk if you go the right way, along a tree lined and very quiet lane, bordered by some very wild looking cattle pasture on one side.

He said he was asking me as a friend, Did I think his management was ok, and he was asking this because he could not deal with TOHH, and it was being suggested to him by his line manager, HD, that perhaps his "management style" was to blame. He also told me that she'd knocked on his door on Friday (day off for everyone), saying that she couldn't stand this anymore, something had to be done NOW, and then when he tried to reply she, well, turned on her heels.

I was quite relieved to be able to let off steam about her myself. She's taken this job without thinking. This is not an easy situation for someone whose only interest in life appears to be shopping. So, OK, she made a mistake, but then she could give notice - EFL teachers can walk into any city in the non-English speaking world and find a job within hours, if not minutes. There's no excuse whatsoever to feel chained down.

But she seems to rather whine, complain and unsettle the troops. She seems to have fixed on LM as the cause of her woes, claiming to have been lied to at her interview. This is all a bit much, LM is a genuinely decent bloke who's rather good at his job. And I doubt he fibbed at the interview - why would he? I think she probably heard "swimming pool" and didn't hear an future markers. (As if a daily swim will keep her inner misery at bay...)

Things have apparently come into sharper relief for LM and TOHH because of her five-week review where he had to record her attitude as "unsatisfactory". (The Company's form only gave a choice between that and "satisfactory", ffs: what else could he do?)

This afternoon I was sitting in my window with my shisha pipe and The Sopranos on the laptop, and TOHH went by and asked me if I had an Internet connexion. I said that I did, but that it was very slow. She said, "I haven't had a connexion all morning." And then she stood there and just looked at me as if waiting for a reply, for what seemed like a very long time. She didn't look right. She really shouldn't be here.

On the other hand, LM told me, the feedback he gets from her students is very satisfactory. I'm not too suprised by that. She is one of those EFL teachers who almost worship their learners, advocating for them almost as a parent would. I've met quite a lot of teachers like that, mostly middle aged childless women, like TOHH. On the surface, it's an attitude which passes for devotion to the job. Actually, I consider it to be unprofessional: one needs to be good natured and courteous, but you're not going to take them out for a burger and a milkshake at the end of the class.

During our walk, LM speculated on "If", (not "When") this contract's teddy bear event will come. This thought cheered me up no end: the scenario of angry crowds outside the college, and HD escorting TOHH to the airport, fielding phone calls from The Sun and The Daily Mail as he did so... Incidentally, reading between the lines, the teddy-bear teacher looks like a classic student worshipper. And look what happened to her.

Bold Talk and Teddy Bears.

There was some rather bold talk at the interview about flying out in mid-November. Recently, somebody predicted 28^th December. The best bet now is mid-January. We shall see.

It’s worth blogging. I’ve got a two year contract to teach English in an English Language Further Education College in a country recently shedding its pariah status.

I got the job no doubt because I already have 15 months experience in that country. Nobody else employed so far has got this experience, and sometimes I feel like the old timer in a Western, spitting his tobacco juice and saying “that’s all fine and dandy, but try doin’ it in injun country!”

I’ve been here a month now, and got my first payslip today. Well, I suppose that’s when you realise you’ve got a new job, when you’re getting told about slightly healthier lucre in a payslip that looks slightly different.

I say “been here”, but the nearest to “here” is the laptop they gave me on my first day. It’s a portable office with music. I spend a couple of days a fortnight at my company’s offices in the east midlands. The rest of the time I’m working from home.

The last month, I’ve been designing and all-singing-and-dancing placement test. That’s about done now, and next it’s curriculum design. Both are fiddly, intricate jobs, absorbing enough to keep you focussed whilst working mostly from home.

The Sudanese tefl teddy bear business seems to be sharpening minds wonderfully.