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Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

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Is it just me or does "Staggers" sound like a really public school nickname?

I thought that it was something that Guido Fawkes had made up when he was talking about them auctioning off internships at a charity fundraiser, but no... it's a self-description.
 
Tefl has made going abroad and being able to earn a living far more likely nowadays than 20 years ago. But tefl costs too, and you have to be educated to the point where that's even a possibility.

Yup.

On the other hand it's harder to just rock up in a place and land a job etc. on the basis that your an English speaking Brit. A lot more competition these days, partly from the increase in qualified TEFL teachers.
 
Tefl has made going abroad and being able to earn a living far more likely nowadays than 20 years ago. But tefl costs too, and you have to be educated to the point where that's even a possibility.

Depends where you're going too, much harder to do tefl in Western Europe now. I have some friends teaching in Spanish schools but they can only get by because they are doing it through the British Council and have had trouble getting paid even so..
 
Generations of Irish people have traversed the globe looking for work, most of them starting with fuck all. Its not a choice for many, its a necessity.

To add to this. A debate I viewed on-line sometime last year and what was being put forward is that movement flows of populations migrating is now small. The speaker went further and despite cheaper travel and connectivity the barriers to migration have got higher. Migration has always been the way that people escaped poverty and persecution. 1850 - 1900 a third of Ireland, Sweden and Italy populations migrated due to famine, poverty and persecution. A decision made of last resort, often against an individuals will - a decision by the group. One way to survive. That is still the case today. Poor people don't have the resources to leave. Most move to neighbouring countries.
 
Depends where you're going too, much harder to do tefl in Western Europe now. I have some friends teaching in Spanish schools but they can only get by because they are doing it through the British Council and have had trouble getting paid even so..
Aye. Tbh I wasn't even thinking Western Europe. It's hard to learn other languages in Western Europe because often (well in urban areas) they speak English very well (even if with a slight seppoe twang) and mainly use the Brits as an opportunity to hone their own English language skills not impart their own.
 
I wouldn't mind doing TEFL but I don't really want to go all the way to East Asia.


Whats not to like? you get a decent wage, respect as a teacher and every day systemic poverty is shoved in your face till the point you are numbed to it. Happy days.
 
I wouldn't mind doing TEFL but I don't really want to go all the way to East Asia.

I know about 6 people who have done a TEFL. Four of them are now alcoholics (they even admit it) and one of them is now a lecturer at a university teaching Modern English Literature - well jealous (of her, not the alcoholics obviously). I think you need to have right charachter to stick it out without succumbing to cheap alcohol and loneliness.
 
I went to Moldova on a fully funded scheme which was funded by the European Union, we got accommodation and flights paid for plus some spending money. We were told anyway that we were expected to work, some volunteers worked with children for several months in what was a pretty gruelling role. Some people actually didn't do work despite being funded to be there, towards the end I got slightly pissed off when I went to parties and social events which were largely or entirely attended by expats and people working in the country and encountered a fair degree of casual racism towards the moldovan population. Looking back on it in hindsight, we were living in tower blocks in moldova where our rent was paid by the charity, some people used to have parties all the time and some of the residents of the tower blocks would for example threaten to call the police when the music was too loud and there were too many people coming and going. People used to get annoyed with it but to be honest by the end I could see their point of view, especially when a small minority of people that I met (not generally the volunteers on the scheme I was on) tended to look down on them, and make racist comments.

I am still eligible for a short term project in some of the other countries they do their projects of 1-3 months, I'd like to do it at some point, but I suspect that being somewhat older I might get a bit impatient, there was a divide between the younger volunteers who were there to have fun and have essentially a bit of a gap year, and those of us who were there to work.
 
A lot of them were there on schemes which were funded by the german government, which funds people go abroad as part of a sort of civilian service.

It certainly gave me an opportunity to see another part of the world, and the charity did try to give priority to people who were disadvantaged in some way, and it makes me sad that with the cuts and austerity across europe a lot of people will who would not have the money to pay to go to other "volunteering" things where you have to pay, will be deprived of this opportunity (of course its a fucking shame its not more widely available in the first place)
 
I didn't know that! Maybe another question I should ask my dad, being as I was born there in the early 60s :D He was out on the searches on the moors after the murders, maybe he knows loads more shit I haven't asked him about.

It's true about the bunkers - The city father's didn't want the populace to know what was going on but coz the work was being done in the city centre people couldn't fail to notice sumat was up so a rumour was put about that gold had been struck. So I got told anyway.

http://www.atomica.co.uk/guardian/
 
and yet on cif today a breath-takingly honest and complete unaware statement from someone in her class speaking for us and explaining what they think of us



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/11/benefits-claimants-other-research

wow it really is like the zoo animals thing

can they not just see people as people. i work in an office where we come into contact with some pretty privileged people from the upper classes and i have no trouble seeing them as human beings, i dont gawp at them like something from a zoo
 
I found that bit of it fucking bizarre but at least the Guardian is talking about this Othering of benefit claimants, something that until now seems to have been ignored.

Yes, once that happens it really is downhill all the way, just look at the U.S where to be on benefits is looked on as shameful, total strangers tut tutting at claimants using vouchers etc at shopping check outs.
 
Above the threshold everyone will have to be an enterprise for himself or for
his family. A society formalized on the model of the enterprise, of the
competitive enterprise, will be possible above the threshold, and there
will be simply a minimum security, that is to say, the nullification of
certain risks on the basis of a low level threshold. That is to say, there
will be a population which, from the point of view of the economic
baseline, will be constantly moving between, on the one hand, assistance
provided in certain eventualities when it falls below the threshold and,
on the other, both its use and its availability for use according to economic
needs and possibilities. It will therefore be a kind of infra- and
supra-liminal floating population, a liminal population which, for an
economy that has abandoned the objective of full employment, will be a
constant reserve of manpower which can be drawn on if need be, but
which can also be returned to its assisted status if necessary."

Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics


Apparently, Foucault predicted this process
 
...movement flows of populations migrating is now small...
I'm not sure this is true, is it? So far this is all I have found:

"...There are far more international migrants in the world today than ever previously recorded – 214 million according to UN DESA (2009) – and their number has increased rapidly over the last few decades, up from 191 million in 2005. If the migrant population continues to increase at the same pace as the last 20 years, the stock of international migrants worldwide by 2050 could be as high as 405 million..."

source: http://publications.iom.int/booksto...uct_info&cPath=37&products_id=665&language=en

"...International migration, which includes both voluntary migration for economic or other reasons as well as the involuntary movement of refugees, is on the rise. Data are uncertain and trends are difficult to track, but, according to the U.N., at least 120 million people (excluding refugees) lived or worked outside of their own country in 1990, an increase from about 75 million in 1965..."

source: http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8397

Compare this with the number of Europeans who migrated to North and South America between 1820 and 1920 being around 50 million.
 
I'm not sure this is true, is it? So far this is all I have found:

"...There are far more international migrants in the world today than ever previously recorded – 214 million according to UN DESA (2009) – and their number has increased rapidly over the last few decades, up from 191 million in 2005. If the migrant population continues to increase at the same pace as the last 20 years, the stock of international migrants worldwide by 2050 could be as high as 405 million..."

source: http://publications.iom.int/booksto...uct_info&cPath=37&products_id=665&language=en

"...International migration, which includes both voluntary migration for economic or other reasons as well as the involuntary movement of refugees, is on the rise. Data are uncertain and trends are difficult to track, but, according to the U.N., at least 120 million people (excluding refugees) lived or worked outside of their own country in 1990, an increase from about 75 million in 1965..."

source: http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8397

Compare this with the number of Europeans who migrated to North and South America between 1820 and 1920 being around 50 million.

You need to compare as proportion of population rather than raw numbers though really. Not that I've any idea how those figures compare.
 
I'm not sure this is true, is it? So far this is all I have found:

"...There are far more international migrants in the world today than ever previously recorded – 214 million according to UN DESA (2009) – and their number has increased rapidly over the last few decades, up from 191 million in 2005. If the migrant population continues to increase at the same pace as the last 20 years, the stock of international migrants worldwide by 2050 could be as high as 405 million..."

source: http://publications.iom.int/booksto...uct_info&cPath=37&products_id=665&language=en

"...International migration, which includes both voluntary migration for economic or other reasons as well as the involuntary movement of refugees, is on the rise. Data are uncertain and trends are difficult to track, but, according to the U.N., at least 120 million people (excluding refugees) lived or worked outside of their own country in 1990, an increase from about 75 million in 1965..."

source: http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8397

Compare this with the number of Europeans who migrated to North and South America between 1820 and 1920 being around 50 million.

Obviously the population has massively increased since the period between 1820 and 1920 so %'s would be more useful than numbers.

However what audiotech seemed to be talking about was migration from to and within Western Europe which may well have declined by some indicators - however migration from to and within the developing world does seem to have increased drastically and perhaps unsurprisingly and I think that's what the figures about refer to.
 
Yes, once that happens it really is downhill all the way, just look at the U.S where to be on benefits is looked on as shameful, total strangers tut tutting at claimants using vouchers etc at shopping check outs.

That already happens here. Or it did 4 years ago when I got Milk Tokens.
 
I know about 6 people who have done a TEFL. Four of them are now alcoholics (they even admit it) and one of them is now a lecturer at a university teaching Modern English Literature - well jealous (of her, not the alcoholics obviously). I think you need to have right charachter to stick it out without succumbing to cheap alcohol and loneliness.

I'll second this. I think it's something that's fine as a short term career, but if you're in it for the long term you have to be a certain type of person.

With only a few exceptions, the teaching ex-pats I used to hang out with were quite an odd bunch and after a year I was glad to return to the UK.
 
It's called language teaching. Quite popular I hear. I best most Polish people could spell tree better than you can these days.


How can you teach something without being able to explain what you're doing in the language that the rest of the class speaks?

I spoke more Polish than this girl and I was shit. I wouldn't have even considered trying to teach a Pole English.
 
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