English in difficult circumstances - British Council English in Iraq meeting report

I recently met Iraq ministry of education officials at British Council "English in Iraq" meeting in London. There were plenty of euphemisms to describe the state of English language teaching in Iraq, and everyone was putting a brave face on a very difficult - and delicate - set of circumstances. A report co-authored by Claudia Civinini and myself for trade magazine EL Gazette is here.

Some of the euphemisms to describe the delicate situation in Iraq that didn't make it into the report (spece did not permit) included:

The internet in most Iraqi classrooms was said to be "partially available."

Daphne Laing University of Wolverhampton complained that one of the biggest problems was that "our people are risk averse." The University of Wolverhampton has had to pull out "due to current issues."

On the positive side, Basra - Iraq's second city, in the majority Shia South of the country – is now officially as safe as the Kurdistan Regional Government area in the North. Amir Razman, British Council director Iraq, said the Foreign Office advice has changed, the KRG is now "orange... same as Basra." Orange means "advise against all but essential travel" slightly better than red, which is "advise against all travel". Basra's sudden relative safety is a reflection of the KRG being downgraded to less safe, on account of the Islamic State being just down the road.(The KRG enjoyed a more safe rating from the FCO for many years, including when I visited in 2004.)




Two UK publishers reported extensive problems with piracy of their English language textbooks (one shown above) in both Iraq - "CSI" (Central and Southern Iraq, the part of Iraq that's not in the Kurdistan Regional Government) - and within the Kurdistan Regional Government education system, which is completely autonomous from Baghdad. More will follow on this in EL Gazette later, but at the moment there is a reluctance to talk about this issue on the record.



The meeting was in the spectacularly grand surrounding of 10 Carlton House Terrace, about the poshest address you can get in London SW1 (it used to call itself The British Academy). Watching over the meeting was a magnificent portrait (above)by the artist Head depicting Admiral Lord Nelson receiving the French colours after defeating the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. We noted that the red, white and blue of the French colours held by (presumably) a French cabin boy appear to have been leached out by the cruel sun of the Eastern Mediterranean.

See also: New rector of Kurdistan university was victor of Battle of Basra (he's since left)

Radical reforms empower Kurdistan's universities (interview with Kurdistan higher education minister)

Angry Language Brigade brighten the day of an education correspondent

English language teaching is not a glamourous industry, there very few freebies or glamorous parties to which we at industry publication EL Gazette get invited (I'm it's news editor). It's quite unexciting. There are very few occasions when you have to write your emergency NUJ legal helpline number on your arms with a permanent marker before going out on assignment.

However, in recent months there have been a couple of these. In contrast to most private sector Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (Teflers) who just whinge and tut about their working conditions and put up with them, Angry Language Brigade (ALB) have a preferred tactic of office invasions of the receptions of employees who commit "wage theft" (have issues around outstanding payment of wages). Other ALB tactics include getting all their anarchist mates to harass said employers via Twitter and Facebook.

ALB invited me along to observe and report on one of their "actions" recently, in which they charged into the reception of a language school on Oxford Street. Management apparently held the door of their office closed in an attempt to keep them out. There was a chorus of the hymn of the radical syndicalist union Industrial Workers of the World (some ALB are members, some are not) before they retired to the pub, where an email reportedly followed from management basically saying, "What do you want?" It's all here, with a suitably punk soundtrack.

What was particularly bizarre for me was that the ALB had got the wrong building on their first attempt, and it was the SAME BUILDING WHERE I USED TO TEACH ENGLISH back in 1998, when it was the premises of the Mayfair School of English! Spooky! (Mayfair moved out some time ago.) While a confidentiality agreement between an employee and management prevented ALB from naming the school, they did point out that their gagging order on the Tefler was "fairly pointless considering the English Language Gazette had got a hold of it". (See also here.)

ALB were then part of the crew then went on to occupy the premises of the Leicester Square School of English over the Christmas holidays, as they hadn't been paid. One of the teachers (one of them, not all of them) then got a letter over the holidays saying the school had closed. The occupiers found what appeared to be an attempt to cover some evidence trails - phone lines at the school had been cut, hard drives had been removed from computers, and there was a mysterious invoice from a shredding company in Manchester for "shredding services", seen by the Gazette. (Space did not permit us from mentioning it in our short article, here.)

And ALB's campaign against the school's owner, Craig Tallents, continued relentlessly. Soon he had wound up his bizarrely-named marketing company, Asparagus, and resigned as governor of Bancroft School. There were pickets outside the Drapers' Guild, where he is a apparently a liveryman, and social media attacks on his local residents' association, where he holds some kind of office. Teflers are an extraordinary timid workforce, so when managers find themselves up against the loud and relentless ALB, they don't know what's hit them.

ALB say they've also come across a proliferating phenomenon of English language teachers on "self-employed contracts," which would appear to be illegal. While the position was recently liberalised a little bit, I understand that it is only occasional lecturers and trainers who do things like take money directly from students, hire the classroom themselves, or give "occasional lectures" who can be self-employed. Teachers who do regular "timetabled hours" must be employed on PAYE contracts.

This is under the HMRC's "Work Status" rules, although after initially agreeing to help us on this story, HMRC's press changed their mind and decided they were going to be less helpful, saying they couldn't comment on either a specific case or a hypothetical situation, which pretty much rules out everything that they might be able to comment on.

They did say that teachers who believe their "self-employed contract" is illegal should contact them - in confidence - via their Reporting Tax Evasion helpline. Good luck! We think that in practice, HMRC will go after the easier-to-recover employer's contribution National Insurance that's unpaid, and probably won't bother coming after small amounts of National Insurance Class 2 contributions from teachers.

ALB and EL Gazette's editorial team would love to hear from you if you are a Tefl teacher working on "self-employed contract" (current or recent), as would Katie Grant, an education journalist writing for The Independent on "self-employed contracts" among Teflers in London, on k.grant@independent.co.uk. (EL Gazette's web people warned us that the website's email was down at the time of writing, but assured us it would be back up soon.)

Rise of the Korean English-teaching robots?

An update on an article that first appeared in EL Gazette in April 2011

Matt Salusbury reports on Korea's next generation of EFL educators

Rough sketch of a Roti teaching robot, by the author


South Korea has set itself up as a global centre of excellence in robotics, with the government funding robot research. Machine-gun-equipped robot guards patrol the demilitarized zone, the tense border with North Korea. At 14.6 billion won (£8.12 million) each, robot border guards can identify whether a soldier is a North Korean infiltrator and whether they're surrendering. Somewhat less terrifyingly, EFL teaching robots are now infiltrating the country's classrooms.

As with most new education technology, finding appropriate ways to use the technology is more important than the hardware itself. (Many EFL teachers will recall being told, 'You have to use the interactive whiteboard in your lesson because the inspector's coming.') Current EFL robot trials suggest Korea's educators have found a workable application for teaching robots - allowing a native-speaker teacher in an office somewhere to 'visit' EFL classrooms to support non-native teachers. One aim is to provide remote support to teachers in provincial cities, drawing on the wider base of teaching skills in Seoul.

The latest Korean robo-teacher is Roti, a Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Kaist)-developed 'telepresence unit' deployed in schools in the cities of Masan and Daejon. A video of Roti at work seen by the Gazette shows what is basically a TV monitor on the end of a pole, borne around n a set of wheels. The TV monitor can swivel around to face students, and on the screen is the face of the native speaker EFL teacher, who converses with the class while the robot walks around interacting wit the students, a Korean teacher and the classroom whiteboard.

As well as Roti there's the small penguin-shaped Engkey robot, another Kaist product. Some 36 of these were deployed in Korean schools last year. There's also a stand-alone version of Engkey with no human controller, which instead uses voice recognition to help students practise English pronunciation, particularly useful for that boring reinforcement work that language learning requires. Engkey comes ith optional male or female voices - thoug the female proven more effective in teaching. In one lesson demonstrated to Korea Times, Engkey told a student, 'Not good this time! You need to focus more on your accent. Let's try again.' Shy youn learners often find robots easier to talk to than daunting native speaker teachers.

Robots such as Engkey and iRobi (which takes the class register, leads nursery school children in songs and reads to them) will be in every Korean kindergarten by 2013 and every Korean school by 2018. Kaist's roboticists caution against leaving the robots to look after the kids for too long because the children may develop 'attachment disorders'.

Korea seems to have got it right by using robots as an add-on teaching assistant to enhance the effectiveness of native speaker teachers - in short supply - collaborating with real-life Korean Teflers. The nightmare of a Terminator-style rise of the machines in EFL is still a long way off, but teachers should perhaps be alarmed by claims for the next phase.

The Hyundai Research Institute's Kim Shin-kwan predicted last year in the New York Times that robo-Teflers will eventually 'evolve into stand-alone teachers which do not need human guidance', possibly putting the estimated 30,000 native-speaker Teflers in Korea out of a job. Kaist's Engkey team leader added that Engkey will 'mature' enough to completely replace English teachers in 'three to five years'.

Kent Holiday, CEO of Eleutian, a company that teaches via internet video-conferencing links to classes in China, Korea and Japan using state certified US public school teachers, corresponded with me in January 2013. In Holiday's view, the English-teaching 'robots' that glide around Korean classrooms are 'a great marketing story for Korea but in reality it is not working'. Instead, 'students - and more so parents - want their children studying when possible with a US teacher.' An article based on an interview with Holiday will appear in the forthcoming (April 2013 IATEFL conference special) EL Gazette.

Teaching English in Cuba

Cuba heals the language rift - Matt Salusbury and Mark Krzanowski on teacher training and teacher development in Cuban EFL, based on Mark's interviews, with questions that I gave him to put to Cuban teflers.

As one teacher put it, "Our commander in chief Fidel Castro has has always recognised the importance of knowing English and studying English."

While burn-out and cycles of lay-offs in the the capitalist world mean that EFL teaching is rarely a job for life, some of Krzanowski's interviewees are redeployed Russian teachers retrained to teach English in the 1970s and still happily in post. From the July 2012 EL Gazette.

When Teflers want to take Tesol to the next level…

Matt Salusbury asks academics about the motivation and choices behind taking an ELT-related doctorate

(From the April 2012 EL Gazette)

Why take a doctorate in ELT, Tesol or a related subject? We asked ELT/Tesol academics what motivates Teflers to take a doctorate, what influences their choice of university and how they go about seeking and getting on a PhD programme.

Dr Nick Andon, programme director for MA ELT and applied linguistics at King’s College London (KCL, part of the University of London) and his colleague Dr Martin Dewey say that both the proportion of international students and of students choosing ELT-related topics are increasing. There are between thirty and forty PhD students in ELT and linguistics; of these probably about half are ‘related to ELT’. About half of its PhD cohort are international students. KCL’s PhD programme includes extensive training in research methodology and academic writing for native speakers as well as non-natives.

Many PhD students know how to apply for a PhD, having done an MA, often at the same university they have in mind for a PhD. But for students coming from a different university system, it can be confusing. Andon and Dewey argue that it is essential to find supervisors who are experts in the student’s chosen field. They concede that finding information on lecturers’ expertise is not easy as there are ‘lots of ways to get information. Making this information more accessible is something we’re working on,’ says Andon. In practice, most enquiries about PhD courses come in the form of emails to individual academics – ‘Students contact us because they have heard of our work.’

One ELT and applied linguistics student at KCL surveyed fellow PhD students’ motivations for embarking on a PhD. These included ‘to pursue their own academic interests, to use the gained knowledge practically in their own contexts, and finally to further their careers’. Current PhD students commonly mention their enjoyment of learning and a PhD’s ‘value for their career advancement’. One international student cited ‘increased competitiveness’.

Doctoral candidates in EFL and linguistics choose a university for the ‘expertise of the staff members … close relationship with the staff members, supportiveness of staff’ as well as location and ‘availability of funding’, while international students ‘commonly mentioned international ranking’, according to the same survey.

English literature lecturer Leigh Wilson supervises all twenty PhD students in the University of Westminster’s Department of English, Linguistics and Cultural Studies. Of these, between a third and a half are ‘international’ and ‘probably two’ are doing PhDs directly related to ELT; English literature PhDs account for a far bigger proportion of the intake.

Westminster PhD students start their course registered for an MPhil. After about a year and a half working on their doctor ate, there’s an interview which, if successful, transfers them to the full PhD programme.

A PhD supervisor won’t necessarily know how their student’s chosen area of research fits into a particular subject. ‘You don’t do a doctorate in a particular subject,’ says Leigh, while her colleague Andrew Caink, a linguist, says of PhDs, ‘Whether it is called linguistics or something more specific, each PhD will be focused on both a very specific issue and the wider implications for the wider field.’

A UK PhD differs from one taken at a continental European university in that ‘you’re not inserted into a programme, it’s about the topic … and your relationship with your supervisor. In other countries you are much more inserting yourself into an existing programme.’ This difference is an attraction to those coming to the UK from overseas, says Wilson.

After about four years of work, PhDs in the UK end with a viva, with the candidate having to defend their work verbally to university staff and an external examiner. In continental Europe vivas are in front of an audience, but in the UK they’re always behind closed doors.

KCL offers both a PhD and an Education Doctorate (EdD). Andon says the EdD is ‘considered more professional … the EdD in King’s is more structured: students submit a number of papers, their thesis is half of the degree’, while in a PhD there is only one thesis.

Dr Indika Livange, senior lecturer at the School of Education of Griffith University in Australia, said its EdD ‘is structured and has coursework which leads to a writing of the thesis later on (practitioners such as teachers who don’t have a background in research find it more conducive), while a PhD is entirely research-based. Both qualifications are equal.’

Brett Baker of the research programmes team at the University of Melbourne’s applied linguistics department said of students’ motivation to do a PhD, ‘The main reason is professional advancement. Nearly all candidates are experienced language teachers – usually, but not exclusively, in Tesol.’ Melbourne’s arts faculty now has a first-year ‘compulsory coursework component of two subjects’ after which students have to defend a 10,000-word research proposal before they are ‘confirmed’.

After that, explains Barker, candidates are ‘expected to complete their dissertation in the following two years, though it is common to take three years’. Australia’s PhDs are ‘fast by international standards’, typically done and dusted within four years, due to restrictions on students extending their PhD candidature if they’re not finished by year three.

Michelle Plaisance of the English Language Training Institute at the University of North Carolina in the US said of their Tesl doctorate candidates, ‘Many want to pursue teacher education at the university level, while others wish to assume leadership roles’ in public-sector schools or ‘positions in global education networks and government organisations. I only know of one student in our programme who is not a native speaker. He was planning to open a bilingual charter school in a neighbouring country.’

Gulf State goes for gold

Matt Salusbury on why the EFL industry is keeping an eye on Qatar

(First appeared in EL Gazette, February 2012)

The small State of Qatar, a peninsula jutting from the side of Saudi Arabia into the Arabian Gulf, is gaining a reputation for punching well above its weight in several fields, and education in English is no exception.

Qatar is best known for its Al Jazeera news channel, with over 30 million viewers worldwide. Al Jazeera’s reputation was enough to attract the Chicago-based Northwestern University to set up an English-medium journalism school in Qatar in 2009, joining the numerous English-medium universities that now have campuses on the vast Education City complex just outside the capital Doha. Many institutions in Education City are supported by the Qatar Foundation – set up by the consort of the ruling Emir with the stated aim of ‘democratising’ the countries of the Arab world, a project which is likely to become increasingly important in the post-Arab-Spring Middle East.

Qatar is also increasingly important in global diplomacy. It was the world’s first state to recognise Libya’s Transitional National Congress, and was crucial in galvanising other Arab League countries to take tough action against Syria. Thanks to vast oil and gas reserves, Qatar has the world’s fastest-rising economic growth rate, with projected US dollar investment in the energy industry expected to be in the tens of billions. It is also hosting the 2022 football World Cup. Qatar is definitely one to watch.

According to the census in 2008, of around one and a half million people resident in Qatar, only a fifth are Qatari citizens. There are about as many nationals of other Arab states there as there are Qataris. Qatar’s English-medium universities cater increasingly to citizens of other Arab countries.

Derrick Moloney, PR director of English teachers’ association Qatar Tesol, teaches at the Academic Bridge Program (ABP), a co-educational English language ‘preparatory school’ (preparing for university admission) and part of Hamad bin Khalifa University at their campus in Education City.

ABP has a small intake (about 300 a year) and only admits ‘students who meet the stringent admission requirements and successfully pass the placement tests’ including a high Toefl or equivalent score. ABP’s students are, according to Moloney, from thirty countries, nearly all Arabic speakers and mostly from ‘Arabian Gulf, Middle East and North African regions’.

Moloney describes the ABP curriculum as a ‘nine-month, highly intensive English-language foundation programme’ for EFL/academic English, maths, science and computer science. Its teaching staff are drawn from ‘over twenty different countries’ and all have at least five years’ teaching experience. Many students graduate to one of the English-medium university annexes nearby on the Education City campus – US universities such as Georgetown and Cornell Medical College, University College London and HEC international business school Paris all have a presence there.

Mark Moulding of the British Council told the Gazette that the BC provides a lot of training in Qatar for government school teachers, from kindergarten through to secondary school, via the BC’s English Language Teachers’ Network and through tailor-made courses, which include ‘trainer training and training to teach Ielts’. The BC in Qater also runs Celta and Young Learners Extension training.

Of the private language school sector in Qatar, the BC said, ‘The range is very broad and includes … vocational and soft skills.’

According to the BC, ‘Qatar has prioritised English for work and this is reflected in the education reform programme, which involves English-medium education in schools. There are some [English-medium] vocational colleges, including College of the North Atlantic, the Community College and Qatar Skills Academy.’

Some Qataris receive funding for study on English-medium courses abroad from potential employers, the government and the nation’s Higher Education Institute. These students ‘go primarily to the USA, UK, Australia and Canada’, according to the BC.

A taxing question – can EFL teachers freelance legally?

Update - 11/07/12 - The HMRC ruling that Teflers cannot in most circumstances be self-employment seems to have been repealed in April 2012. See the HMRC's ruling on this here. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/esmmanual/esm4503.htm - Thanks to Sue-Lyon Jones for the update (@esolcourses on Twitter) via the EL Gazette's twitter feed.

I hope to follow up on this ruling, unscramble what it means in English, and work out its implications for EFL teachers, in a future EL Gazette article.

EL Gazette has recently heard of two more cases of EFL teachers being engaged by language schools on a self-employed basis - completely illegal in the UK as we at EL Gazette understand it. This feature - which first appeared in the EL Gazette of April 2011 - explains why.

A taxing question – can EFL teachers freelance legally?

Matt Salusbury investigates how the law governing self-employment varies considerably across Europe

An EL Gazette correspondent forwarded us details of teaching work offered by a central London language school, asking, ‘Is this sort of thing legal – treating teachers as “self-employed” and paying them in cash?’

Engaging EFL teachers as self-employed and paying them fees without deducting tax or National Insurance (NI) contributions towards unemployment benefits is unusual enough in the UK to raise eyebrows. Can language schools hire teachers as freelances or does the law force them to take on teachers as salaried staff and make statutory deductions up front? And what about EFL teachers in other EU countries?

Under the UK tax system both employer and employee pay NI contributions. Freelances are supposed to pay their own tax and (lower rate) NI. While it may be convenient for schools to have freelances on their books – no holiday or sick pay or unfair dismissal cases to worry about – if Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs find out about this arrangement and the school can’t prove to HMRC that all its freelance teachers have paid tax, the school will be liable.

The key document determining whether UK-based ‘teachers, lecturers and tutors’ have to be employees or can freelance is HMRC’s ESM 4503. This clearly states that anyone teaching ‘in the presence of their students’ in ‘an educational establishment’ or ‘anywhere indoors and outdoors where instruction is given’ must be an employee and can’t freelance. ESM 4503 allows lecturers to be self-employed only if they teach less than ‘three days in three consecutive months’ or give lectures only to the general public.

EFL teachers who arrange private lessons and charge students directly can freelance. ‘Trainers’ aren’t included in ESM 4503 and there may be cases where freelance business English trainers are paid directly by the company whose students they teach, with the school taking a finder’s fee, or arrangements where teaching co-ops hire classrooms from another school and are paid by their students. Otherwise, forget EFL freelancing.

The Inland Revenue (precursor to HMRC) raided Oxford Street’s language schools, once in the late 1980s and again in 1997. Every school we’ve heard of has lost such cases against HMRC.

And in other countries? In Ireland, where employee deduc tions are for Pay Related Social Insurance, it’s generally hard to engage freelances. Courts have ruled that contracts stating ‘you are responsible for your own tax affairs’ have ‘little validity’.

In Spain salaries are quoted net of tax except for a small proportion of NI. Employers are responsible for all other taxes. Tax is complicated enough for many Teflers in Spain to sign up to companies such as Sapic, which charge annual fees for handling all the invoicing, tax and social security affairs of teachers on its books. It’s worth being an autonomo if you earn €20,000 (£16,900) or more a year.

While being a freelance is comparatively more advantageous in Spain, Aiden O’Toole, director of Spainwise.net, told the Gazette, ‘It’s difficult for schools to get away with having freelancers, except where a lot of the teaching involves business English and the classes are given in the workplace. Madrid and Barcelona are two places where teachers’ pay is almost always quoted as an hourly rate (whereas it’s usually given as a monthly salary in most of the rest of Spain), and these hourly rates are a sure indicator that freelancers are being used widely.’

It’s hard to freelance in France, where the default setting is to be a pigiste, paid a kind of pro-rata salary for work for clients with a hefty chunk deducted towards social security.

The Netherlands seems relatively easier to freelance in. Much of its private-sector EFL is in-company business English training with hours, supervision and equipment determined by the client more than the language institute.

Matt Salusbury is an employee with EL Gazette New Media Ltd and a self-employed freelance for numerous other publications

How to hold on to your lifeline

Matt Salusbury on why keeping your passport in the Middle East is more vital than ever

(This first appeared in EL Gazette, May 2011.)

It has long been common practice in some Middle Eastern countries for employers to retain the passports of expatriate teachers. Back in the days when falling out with your boss or being refused a holiday were the worst things that could happen, EFL teachers put up with it.

In the last six months, however, a wave of protests has swept across the Middle East. Expat EFL teachers left Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in droves, though they're now mostly back in Egypt. One British Tefler escaped from Tripoli courtesy of a lift from the South African armed forces, while another hitched a ride with Portuguese diplomats.

Both these teachers - and those who boarded Royal Air Force cargo planes and a Royal Navy warship - only got on board because they had proof of their nationality to hand. Estimates vary for the number of migrant workers stranded in Libya without passports – mostly African, Bengali or Egyptian. There could be almost a million. Meanwhile the US State Department and the British Foreign Office have instructed all nationals to leave both Yemen and Bahrain. Suddenly we’re in an unpredictable Middle East where your passport being locked in the office for 'safekeeping' is very bad news.

The UK and US advise talking employers out of keeping passports if at all possible. The UK says that if you can’t avoid handing in your passport you should make a full, colour copy before you do so and keep it somewhere safe. It’s enough to get you onto a Royal Navy helicopter.

Teachers should also register with their embassies. Canada recently said that because so few of their nationals in the Japan earthquake zone had done so they had no idea how many were there.

Under the laws of most Middle Eastern countries, it is illegal for bosses to retain passports. When expat workers go to court in the Gulf states to get their passports returned, they usually win. Teachers who want their passports back can also say that the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) has declared retaining passports 'forced labour', a form of slavery. Even Saudi Arabia has adopted the ILO conventions.

Saudi employers will briefly need to hold on to the passports of expats to obtain an iqbal (alien registration card and residency permit) for them, but beyond that there is no reason to retain them. Visas that allow expats in Saudi to go on holiday are complicated, though recent reports suggest that getting a temporary exit and re-entry visa is becoming much easier, with payment and paperwork available via an ATM.

The retention of passports continues to be quite common in Saudi Arabia and has in the past led to teachers being put at risk. Back in the Gulf War of 1991 BAE Systems (British Aerospace at the time) retained teachers' passports after classifying them as 'essential personnel'. Many chose to break their contracts rather than live under threat from Iraqi missiles, while reports suggested some were redeployed to undertake 'security duties'.

Saudi courts seem to take a dim view of employers retaining passports. To everybody's surprise, an Indian oil worker who was recently denied his passport by his boss went to the Saudi courts and won. Arab News reported that in January the Jubail and Damman courts ordered the return of the unnamed expatriate’s documents, along with his family's passports, stamped with (eventually) the correct exit visas.

Passport retention seems to be a problem in Kuwait. The US State Department website says, 'There are cases where employers retain passports of foreign nationals resident in Kuwait. You should try to avoid this where possible, but you should always keep a copy of your passport.'

In Oman, employers 'often ask that expatriate employees deposit their passports with the company as a condition of employment - this practice is contrary to Omani law', according to the State Department. While a 2006 Omani Ministry of Manpower circular upholds the employee’s right to retain their passport, it doesn't stipulate penalties for employers, making enforcement difficult. The UK Foreign Office reminds its nationals in Oman that they need their passport (or a copy) at all times to show as ID.

In Qatar a 2009 law forbids bosses from retaining passports 'except for visa and immigration processing'. Labour laws are likely to be tightened due to the international attention focused on the country as its vast expatriate workforce prepares for the football World Cup 2020.

In the UAE it's also against the law for an employer to keep passports. Only a 'competent judge' can do so. This has been upheld by a 2008 Ministry of Labour ruling that companies retaining passports 'will not be tolerated'. A 2002 law imposes fines of 20,000 dhirams (£3,300) or three months' prison for employers who do so. A bigger risk than revolution in the UAE (in the boom-bust Emirate of Dubai, specifically) is your employer suddenly going out of business with your passport still locked in the safe.

Teachers on work visas will need some form of exit visa to get on the plane out of Saudi (a 'letter of no objection' releasing you from employment), Qatar and 'in certain situations' Yemen. But when revolution starts and your country's (or another country’s) armed forces arrive to evacuate you, they couldn't care less about any exit visa, they just want to see your passport in your hand, or at least a copy of it.
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Update: Since the article appeared, the British consulate in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) has started issuing 'Emergency Travel Documents' for its nationals who need such documents in order to return to the UK. Reading between the lines, this could be as a result of passports not being released by employers.

I have also recently come across an unconfirmed story of a teacher in an international school 'held hostage' in Qatar. The lack of an exit visa was allegely involved.

This feature was inspired by a source (a teacher who I won't name) who contacted the Gazette about passport retention issues with their employer in Saudi. As they haven't got back to us, we assume it's been sorted and they have their passport. They reported to us that a group of female Egyptian colleagues who went to the manager's office to demand their passports. They got them.

Cream of the crop

Arguably the best deals for summer school teachers in the UK are at universities

From EL Gazette, February 2009

UK University EAP programmes are generally regarded as a much better deal for suitably-qualified teachers than the traditional private summer school EFL market, and EFL teachers who want to aim higher should look into teaching on a higher education English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme. EAP providers, especially in the public sector, where the workforce is unionised and the contracts are regulated, are much clearer than the traditional ‘straight’ English language summer schools onthe actual number of hours you will end up working for your money. This reputation for clarity in stating the deal up-front is confirmed below.

Jonathan White, deputy head of campaigns at the University and College Union (UCU), which represents higher education lecturers, told the Gazette that ‘salaries are obviously important, but we would advise anyone looking to work in the university sector to also consider the full range of terms and conditions, including… the place of EAP courses within the overall academic programme of an institution… Our view would be that once all this is considered, there is no question that you would be far better off working as an employee of a university rather than of a private company.’

Although our questions were specific to summer course employment, most respondents’ replies didn’t restrict themselves to summer courses, and told us about year-round EAP programmes or teaching Applied Linguistics. The lecturer’s trade union sent comments that were aimed more at comparing permanent posts in the public sector with the private sector. While all universities that replied still have EAP summer school vacancies every year, this pre-occupation with year-round, permanent posts may mean that there’s more reliance on permanent staff and less call for temporary teachers for the summer. (We noticed a flurry of activity on job sites for permanent UK EAP lecturing jobs in December, at the time of writing.)

The Gazette emailed 19 full BALEAP members as well as a random selection of our existing EAP contacts, and contacted the press offices of the big private sector EAP providers. At the time of writing, only six providers had responded, all in the public sector. Several others, including Kaplan, had promised to get back to us, but no reply was with us come the deadline. To be fair, several universities excused themselves for being too busy preparing for marketing visits in the run-up to Christmas.

Two universities, both in the Russell Group, agreed to respond on the basis that replies were not attributed to them. Such coyness about salaries, terms and conditions seems a little odd, given that that the details mostly don’t vary too much from those already published for last years’ summer schools, providers are mostly planning to put comprehensive details of their vacancies up on job sites and on their own websites within the next couple of months.

One university asked for an ‘internationally recognised TELF diploma,’ we think they meant to type ‘Tefl diploma.’ There are some universities that offer a way into EAP for the newly qualified.

Several universities asked for a Delta and an MA, which given the global shortage of Dip (DELTA)-qualified teachers and the expense of getting either qualification, never mind both, is pushing their luck. More than one university mentioned a disparity in what qualifications they wanted by way of qualifications, and what they actually got.

Teachers abroad who are returning to the UK to teach EAP in the summer should note that only two out of six respondents did offer subsidised on-campus accommodation at half the normal rent, with one other saying accommodation was available, but at market rents. One anonymous campus university said ‘accommodation is provided if teachers live beyond commuting distance,’ rent was not mentioned.


All universities say that responding to ads on their own website’s vacancies page, as well as jobs.ac.uk and the Education Guardian newspaper (out every Tuesday) is the way to apply for EAP summer jobs. Some of these, of course, will also be advertised on the jobs listing on the EL Gazette website. One respondent told us they ‘wouldn't necessarily discourage well-qualified applicants from sending in their CV at any time of the year, though: we sometimes need extra staff in January.’ Prospective summer EAP teachers should keep an eye out, as vacancies are announced from January all the way through to April.

Tim Marr and Janet Enever, senior lecturers in Applied Linguistics London Metropolitan University said their minimum qualifications were an MA Tesol or similar plus Delta, although they ‘believe that currently a university is able to 'carry' a small percentage of Celta qualified staff.’ Hours are 35 hours a week full-time, of which 15-18 are contact teaching hours. Short term, long term or permanent contracts are available.

Some London Met part-time posts are paid hourly-rate, full-time ones are as per their annual contract. The lecturers we contacted were ‘not aware of current rates’ of pay, and forwarded our enquiry on this to English Language Services. London Met did say that holiday pay a legal requirement.

A Russell Group university that preferred not to be named, said they advertise summer vacancies ‘if they need to in March and April.’. The university’s minimum qualifications were a Degree (‘foreign languages preferred’)and Delta or equivalent – Celta plus a relevant MA being regarded as Delta equivalent. They also need three years’ experience, preferably with some of this in EAP. Hours for their summer courses are ‘up to 18 a week,’ (presumably this means 18 contact teaching hours), with contracts of seven or 11 weeks to cover six-week and 10-week pre-sessional courses. Accommodation is not part of the deal, but university halls of residence are available at around £80 a week. Rates are ‘expected to be £650 a week in 2009,’ including holiday pay.

Liz Austin, pre-sessional programme leader at Essex University, says her programme requires a Delta or equivalent, with an MA ‘desirable’. Essex requires ‘extensive Tefl experience’ and prefers EAP teaching experience in ‘a British HE setting.’ Contracts are 10-11 weeks from mid-July to mid-September. There 24 contact hours a week, including
‘class, tutorials, attendance at lectures, long assignment marking.’ They expect teachers to do ‘class preparation and homework marking’ on top of that.

Essex’s 2008 salary was £5,350 (presumably for the 10-11 weeks) plus 8 per cent holiday pay and a bonus paid to tutors who’ve taught there before. The package includes several days’ induction and workshops during the course as part of salaried hours, and teachers can on free course trips and attend course social events if they want to. Liz describes the Essex pre-sessional as a ‘good starting point for experienced TEFL tutors looking to move across to EAP teaching.. Tutors with less experience in EAP are well-supported by senior staff.’

Another Russell Group university that didn’t want to be named said their minimum requirement is a Celta, though they’ve only ever taken on teachers with a Dip or an MA in ELT and at least three years’ experience in EAP. ‘We pay for 20 hours per week but in fact teachers have 15-17 hours of classroom contact.’ Rates are £3032 per five week phase (including holiday pay).

Ros Richards, Director of the the school of languages and European studies at the University of Reading said advertising starts in February, and advised that ‘quite a few institutions use the jobs section of the BALEAP website.’ Reading needs at least a Dip Tefl or equivalent, ‘but we seek to appoint with relevant MA plus EAP teaching experience.’ Reading’s contracted teaching hours ‘average 19 per week.’ Depending on the nature of the pre-sessional block they’re engaged to teach on, Reading have 11-week, 8-week and five-week courses. They offer 50 per cent off specified University hall accommodation. Their rates for 2008 were £542.55 to new teachers and £558.81 to returning teachers, and these will go up by 5 per cent next summer. An extra 9.21 per cent is paid out in holiday pay.

Euro helps UK EFL buck doom and gloom trend

Not all language schools in the UK are doing so well. This one, at 145 Oxford Street, London W1, appeared to be locked, with mail piling up in the doorway. A notice of eviction served by the property's owners, Prudential, was sellotaped to the door as of early March.


From EL Gazette, February 2009

Mario Rinvolucri, founder of Pilgrims School of English - in Canterbury in the South East of England - told that Gazette that Pilgrims’ own latest figures, and the intelligence he’s getting from across the UK EFL industry, show that ‘receipts are extremely good’ in the UK industry as a result of the record rise in the value of the Euro against the pound. Pilgrims has been picking up a lot of end of season executive courses from the Eurozone (the 15 EU states currently using the Euro currency) in a development which is bucking the general trend towards ‘doom and gloom’ in the recession-bound UK economy.

Mr Rinvolucri conceded that corporate clients were still on 2008 budgets, and it remains to be seen whether the 2009 budgets of corporations will maintain that level of spending in the current global economic climate. The success in recruiting from the Eurozone is also helped by the increasing use of ‘teacher agents, ’ according to Mr Rinvolucri. These are practising teachers in, for example, large comprehensive schools in Germany, who persuade some of their colleagues to come on Comenius courses, or teachers in private EFL schools that offer free taster courses for summer schools at Pilgrims. Teacher agents have all been on Pilgrims summer courses, and ‘are much more teachers and much less agents.’

Own Brand of teaching

BRITAIN'S most controversial stand-up comedian Russell Brand is currently best known for a recent scandal involving a ‘prank’ phone call in which he left obscene phone messages on the answering machine of a well-known veteran actor. The incident forced his resignation from his BBC Radio 2 show and cost the jobs of several senior BBC executives. Brand’s lower profile in the US didn’t stop him putting a lot of backs up in a rare US appearance at the MTV Video Awards last September, where he taunted the celibate lifestyle of clean-cut teen pop act the Jonas Brothers (from High School Musical).

More of interest to Teflers though, is Brand’s recent revelation on his Russell Brand’s Ponderland TV show that he was previously an EFL teacher on London’s Oxford Street for a year. Using a four-letter scatological reference to describe the quality of his teaching, he admitted that he was the ‘cool, popular teacher’ who, following a time-honoured Oxford Street private EFL sector practice, would occasionally take his students for lessons in a nearby park on sunny days. When Brand started passing a ‘joint’ (marihuana cigarette) among his students, however, he was betrayed by ‘some evil student who actually wanted to learn English!’ The management came to question Brand’s class about this, and Brand recalled desperately preparing his class by getting them to collectively agree an alibi for him. This stratagem failed however, because in Brand’s own words, ‘I was such a s*** teacher that none of them understood me.’