Today was a sad day for me as I learned of the death of Ofra Haza. Read more »

Eagle eyed readers will note that the tagline at the top of this blog has changed from “Tall TEFL Tales” to, in context, probably one of the funniest lines from Friends.

This signals a change of direction in the blog for a few posts. Reading through all the entries I notice there’s nothing very personal there except at the beginning. It’s all EFL related stuff. How will any readers get any insight then into the Life of Mike? As the young Braveheart was told by his uncle, that is something we’ll have to correct..

Ok, from now on I will upload a few favourite vids on personal heroes etc. This may help me to recapture the sense of wonder at the world which has until recently seemed lost forever…

Having written about kids hagwons in Korea, next up are adult only schools. I’m afraid I can’t recommend them. The biggest problem is the split shifts you have to work - as your students are only really available for study at the top and bottom end of the day, and that can often mean 630am starts! For more on split shifts, see my post entitled Day of the Dead… Read more »

To teach kids or not to. That is the question. Actually I taught kids in Japan about 10 years ago for Shane. More on them in another post. All I could remember was rolling around on a tatami mat up on the 4th floor of some nondescript grey building in Chiba prefecture, surrounded by plastic bananas and flash cards. Ah it’s all coming back. Read more »

It would be good to get a discussion going on this blog about split shifts. In my view they are the pits of the earth…. Read more »

Occurred to me recently that in many ways some of my EFL colleagues down the years can be likened unto footballer types - see if you can recognise any of these:

The David Ginola/Matt Le Tissier

So talented the sod could saw it off in spades. Effortless classroom management skills and has the students rapt in awe. The guys love him, the birds fancy him and mere mortal TEFlers are constantly narked by the squeals of laughter from his classroom. Lazy bugger though, doesn’t do a stick of prep. Everything’s internalised and slick. On form, he’s a dazzler. On an off day, or confronted by a squad of unamused Swiss students, you’d have to wipe him up off the floor when the laughter stops…

The Gary Neville

Completely the opposite of Le Diveur or Le Tiss. CELTA or DELTA hard earned by graft and relentless masochistic dedication. Complete personality bypass compensated for by rigorous prep and has the photocopier burnmarks to prove it. Few complaints from the students though, unless he has the misfortune to follow on from a course delivered by the flair players like those above.

The George Best

Slight variation of Le Ginola when he turns up. Brilliant in the classroom, the life and soul down the pub and chatter-upper of gorgeous women par excellence. Just make sure your cover teacher is on red alert…

The Bryan Robson

DoS’s wet dream. All Gary’s industry and a fair bit of Davide’s charisma. Your school is just a stepping stone to greater things. Enjoy all those positive feedback sheets while you can and hope he’ll give you an honourable mention in the first of his many publications.

The Jean Alain Boumsong

Slipped through the net, this one. Good refs, nice CV and talks a good game but hopelessly crap and must be a friend of a friend of the Boss..

For anybody who read one of my earlier posts about Sandy McManus and tried to click on what are now dead links both to his former site and also his hilarious post on summer schools, I am happy to report that the ace blogger is back and back on form! You can find the address below.

He has reposted the article I mentioned on his new site and does me the honour of inverting my last post on how to do DoS observations (cheeky sod!) to illustrate how these obs sessions are actually performed by many! Having been given a few scorchings in my time, reading this brings back a few painful memories….

Sandy’s New site:

http://tefltradesman.blogspot.com. Or just click on Sandy McManus on the blogroll down a bit and on the right of my blog.

Here are some tips for feeding back to a teacher following an observed lesson. I’ve been on both sides of it down the years! < Read more »

Everyone in EFL wings it from time to time. You didn’t have time to prepare or even think about your lesson, so you go in with the textbook and a cassette or a bunch of photocopies and fly by the seat of yer pants. With experience, you’ll even have some lessons so internalised that you can teach them, and maybe only need the whiteboard and a pen. Maybe not even those…

Be careful not to become a career winger though! In my opinion this is when you keep rolling out activity based lessons day after day.< Read more »

These Korean managers I have at my new school in Daegu are amazing. Got to give them credit as some entries in this blog give the impression that all EFL life in Korea is gruesome. Big flat, nice area, nice students, reasonable managers, decent money and…I’m impressed! So it is possible!< Read more »

One of the funniest EFL blogs out there is Sandy McManus. A really gifted comic with a sharp insight into the murky world of this business. Who knows how long this blog will be available to read now that he’s packed it in, but if you want a laugh, go back through his archives and enjoy. Can’t stop going on there and reading these little gems. Here’s an example of his writing on TEFL Summer schools:

http://tefltrade.blog-city.com/summer_schools__a_masochist_writes.htm

Only fair to mention an employer who offers good pay and reasonable working conditions - have to be balanced, don’t we? Big up to this school in Daegu - you can find it here on Dave’s: http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/korea/index.cgi?read=30279

I made hay while the sun was shining. Got my boss to buy a good old one-armed bandit paper cutter and a laminator for those supplementary materials you get in the Inside Out /Reward Resource Packs/NEF Teacher’s books etc. Can’t believe they’d survived without these essential pieces of kit!

After I left London and arrived in Daegu, I scoffed at the old one-armed bandit in my first school and demanded a proper rotary paper cutter like we had back home.

Problem was, when I finally got it, it was a small A4 job where you had to lock down every piece of paper with a locking device before you could start swipin’. Read more »

I finally persuaded my Korean boss to invest in an overhead projector which he bought from an online auction. Dunno what you think, but laptop beamers and projectors take a long time to set up and for me, you just can’t beat yer old OHP. Here are the advantages: Read more »

Why can’t the Korean goverment sort out the mess of the teaching of English in this country? First of all, the new president and his team announce a plan for all English classes in high schools to be taught exclusively in English by their Korean English teachers (immersion) by 2010. Then it changes to 2013 and now the idea has been dropped completely. Read more »

Browsing through the foreign community pages on the online Joongang Daily, I got what could be a kind of hint of an answer to a longstanding question I’ve had since someone tried to walk through me as I left a pharmacy in downtown Daegu. Read more »

Here’s a little phrase sheet I made to give to your students Read more »

You don’t need a teaching qualification to be an English Teacher to work in Korea. Not even in the universities! Read more »

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, and perhaps if only to get new teachers started on thinking about the structure of a lesson, the oft derided PPP method is something that all TEFL teachers should try to master. Read more »

At your local bookstore, you’ll find hundreds of them. Some focus on American English and some on British so it’s a good idea to check this out, especially if your school has a preference. What I look for, is as follows: Read more »

Do you use a textbook in your lessons? Read more »

One of the key skills in EFL/ESL teaching is using a textbook effectively - and it’s not easy! Most of the lessons we have to teach are of 45-60 minute duration and relatively few textbooks are designed with this reality in mind. If getting your students to speak well is your goal, then read on… Read more »

Recently I’ve been using some clips from favourite tv shows in the classroom like Friends and The X-Files. Unfortunately parent power has raised its ugly head once more.. Read more »

Hi and thanks for checking out my blog! I’ll do my best to add an entry regularly here in South Korea and hope that I’ll get a response from someone out there!

The name’s Mike Long (from Carrickfergus) and I live here in Daegu. I’ve been in the EFL business for 12 years now and I’d love to hear from anyone out there with thoughts to share on EFL. I used to work for The London School Of English in Kensington, London and then their branch in Daegu. Now I have moved on to enjoy the benefits of a single shift…

I have been an EFL teacher, Course Director, Teacher’s Representative and traveller for over 12 years! I graduated with BA(Hons) in English Lit/Biblical Studies from Queen’s University in Belfast, UK and took the Postgraduate Diploma in TESOL at the University of Ulster at Coleraine in N.Ireland. I have worked in Hungary, Paris, Japan, London and now Korea.