Huge Arse's Letter Archived Here
Quote:
Learning English from backpackers
I agree with Rachel Hadley's letter regarding the ajarn.com forum. I have spoken with many colleagues over the past few months and we all agree that the standard in the forum has gone down. The only people posting messages on the forum are mainly Khao San backpackers with a rudimentary knowledge of English and a TEFL certificate. These people are supposed to be teaching English but their postings are littered with spelling and grammar mistakes.
One popular thread was about TEFL milestones _ including such educational gems as "When was the first time you had sex with a student?" and "When was the first time you went to a lesson drunk?" Other threads are very insulting to the Thai people and culture. Are these the people that we want to teach our language to the Thais? These so-called teachers should pack all their belongings in their backpacks and leave Thailand as soon as possible.
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I did respond to this and the other letter from Rachel Hadley, and we'll see whether it gets published. The TEFL Milestones, was not actually written by members of this forum, as it was copied and pasted to numerous places...was it from English Teacher X originally? If so that's Eastern Europe.
I agree that sex with students is a dicey topic, and on reflection maybe TEFL milestones was in poor taste, however at the time we received no complaints about it, and I can't honestly say I read much of it, though what I did read was so ludicrously over the top and tongue in cheek that you would be pushing it to suggest that we we condoning anything discussed there.
Still who actually pays any attention to mailbag blowhards anyway? Far more important is that the Learning Post chose to give Ajarn prominence on it's front page, and it pissed a couple of haters right off...what did we honestly expect?
I too am amazed that the Bangkok Post would fall for such an obvious trolling name like Hugh Jarze...sounds vaguely similar to a username I banned not too long ago as well, for trolling and abuse.