Category — Featured Articles

In our forums, one of our moderators has embarked on an ambitious plan to create a huge resource area for teachers. It is quite significant at this stage and it is growing every day. Where else can you get a free lesson plan for an EFL math or science class? (If you know where else, add a comment or a link! The more resources the better!)

If you would like to add your lesson plans, ideas and activities, please do. This is a free resource and can turn into something that we as teachers can use on a daily basis. Check out our resource room for teachers.

First off, I am not endorsing any candidate or any political party, just giving info.

You’ve got a chance to vote in the Democrats Abroad Global Presidential Primary on Feb 5th to 12th. It’s your chance to make your voice heard. You can vote by email, mail, fax, the internet or even in person.
[Read more →]

One thing that always concerns me on the internet is who has access to my personal information. TEFLWatch is a site where keeping personal information private is extremely important. Schools would like nothing better to do than try to unmask who you are. Any little tidbit of information can help them out in this quest. Once they find out who you are, they will put the screws on you in an attempt to hurt you. In some countries, like Thailand, laws are such that even if your claims against the school are truthful, they can still have you jailed.

From day 1, I have made it my utmost priority to protect your personal information. For example, I have modified our rules and registration agreement on the forum to make it even clearer that we will only divulge information to a legal authority and since the server is in the US, that means US authorities. Why? Schools have no advantages under US law.

I have continued to work to protect the private information of teachers by allowing only me access to hidden personal information. I’m the only one with access.This site is run on a VPS and I am the only one with root access. This is in sharp contrast with other teaching sites that use shared hosting. Still, shared hosting is adequate because if hosted in the states, odds are the system administrators are not going to be concerned too much on the private hidden information.

The more insidious type of hosting is the hosting that YY uses. They appear to be hosted by the owner of XX. It is very simple for the owner of Teakdoor, a user by the name of DirtyDog, to access all of your hidden information on YY Forum. He can read your personal messages, he can read your IP address and other uniquely identifiable information. For those who know about Teakdoor, this is a worrying situation indeed. *EDIT 1/20/08: Nothing here should be construed or even suggested that LDMA aka Louis is knowingly giving access to the database to anyone. I know Louis and I know that he would NEVER do such a thing. My point is that I believe the opportunity does exist, though in the comments you can see that LDMA says otherwise. LDMA has also provided me further information that seems to support what he is saying. My info shows otherwise. I have added this edit in because some have taken to twisting the information to use against a website and that is not my intention. I think people are already adequately warned. *

But that kind of problem is not limited to a site like YY. Even we have had a particularly bad attempt at gaining access to personal information. I asked a user to be a moderator on our forum who was not well vetted. I didn’t choose someone who was pro-teacher. Instead, I chose someone who said a lot of nice platitudes. I allowed him to continue to be a moderator after it was clear that he was not pro-teacher. Worst of all, I ignored advice from some of my mods to remove him.

He spent most of his 7 weeks as a mod trying to pressure me into providing him with admin rights so that he could save the forum. In fact, you can see that he is still posting on many different forums about how he could be a better administrator of this site. The sad truth is that I finally decided enough was enough when the trail became very clear that connected him to Pan Asia International School and The Confab Agency, our newest entrants into the Hall of Shame.

Topper, the removed moderator, was making posts from the same internet connection that the purported school/agency admins were using. It would have been quite all right if he hadn’t have taken sides in the threads and belittled his co-teachers. It was certainly not appropriate actions for a moderator of a pro teacher forum to take. Our policy is that moderators should exclude themselves from moderating threads where they might have a conflict of interest, namely supporting the school administration. We are a pro-teacher site so if a mod has information that supports a complaint against a school we will try to make it known to the readers of the thread. Topper knowingly lied to cover up his involvement in the school.

Once, his actions were discovered, I sat back looking through all of his back posts. This brought to light a nexus with another problem that had been plaguing TEFLWatch Forum. I had to remove a moderator named Sadly Confused after it came to light that he was using multiple accounts to attacks users. The attack that precipitated the removal was an attack against a user who was posting complaints about Pan Asia International School and the Confab Agency. Yes, the same place where Topper shares the IP address with administrators. During this time, I received an email alleging that one of my mods was taking money from Confab to find out the personal information about the users. I assumed it was Sadly Confused and didn’t investigate further.

Over the next 7 weeks, I dealt with a barrage of email attacks from the user known as Sadly Confused, even to the point of threatening my children with very heinous acts. On a daily basis, I would received at least 5 to 10 emails imploring me to turn over the forum to someone else who could manage it better. Unknown to me at the time, Topper was also emailing other people in an attempt to attack the forum.

I am still left with many unanswered questions at this point. Why did Topper want to take over the site so badly? Why was he trying to attack his co-workers? Was he the one taking money from the Confab Agency to attack the teachers and the site? Did Sadly Confused attack the user as a proxy fight for Topper? Why did Topper manipulate Sadly Confused to do what he did? I feel very sorry for the user Sadly Confused for being manipulated by that man and I have forgiven him for the disgusting emails he sent to me.

The answers to those questions really doesn’t matter. I messed up in having moderators who weren’t pro-teacher and I have taken precautions to prevent a repeat. Firstly, they are now former mods and they never gained access to the information they coveted. Secondly, I know what to expect and I have changed my criteria for all new moderators. For this point forward, all new moderators will be from geographically diverse areas. Thirdly, I am giving advice to everyone on some simple methods to keep your privacy online. First off, use a nickname that you don’t use on other forums. Number two, make a separate email account for your online dealings. Thirdly use an anonymous proxy like tor to protect your private information.

TEFLWatch is looking out for you and now is the time to also look out for yourself. Bad schools will do anything they can to attack you and anything they can to attack this site. As I’ve always said, I am in this for the long haul. 2008 is shaping up to be a banner year.

A midnight run, a midnight flit, pulling a runner or just plain quitting without notice, whatever you choose to call it, it means just one thing, quitting your job abruptly. Since our visas are tied to schools, quitting your TEFL job sometimes entails leaving the country on short notice. Sometimes with draconian contract provisions and the fear of living in a foreign country as a TEFL teacher, it can seem like the only option is to leave your TEFL job abruptly.

Is it ever acceptable to pull a midnight run on a school? Have you ever pulled a midnight run on a school? Under what circumstances do you think it is acceptable? Check out our poll this month and leave your comments here.

 Loading …

We have a new comment policy here. We haven’t had one listed before, but it is probably time to come up with a policy and begin enforcing it, both on new comments and previous comments. Over the next few weeks, I will be reviewing all left comments to ensure that they conform to these new rules. No new comments will be approved that do not meet these requirements. If the comment is otherwise acceptable, I may edit to remove items that violate the rules.
[Read more →]

We are back to our monthly TEFL polls and this one revolves around our future in TEFL. Is there a future in TEFL? Is this a career that we can work at for years to come or will we all reach a dead end eventually? What do you think? I want to hear from you.

 Loading …