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Comments

Paul Grady

Dear Mr. Blackie,

I just read the top two blogs. Well written, informative, and entertaining. The lads at the BC must be delighted every time a new one comes out. I typed in David Blackie on Google and your blog comes up first. (I started out by typing in study in california on google and found it to be listed as number three but then it could be that google can determine that I check the thing myself.)

Happy Palm Sunday!

Yours truly,

Mr. Boll (the American and not the Chermin one with the umlaut)

IAN JOSEPHS

Not everybody,and indeed not many bodies admire the British Council inspection system with its insistence on "tefl teachers" trained to make lesson plans and to teach in a rigid stylised manner.
I have been running language teaching schools and organisations for 50 years and the tefl "certificate "is obtainable after one month by anyone, even those with an excruciatingly heavy foreign or regional British accent ! It is in my opinion valueless and no more than a racket for the British Council and others to make money !
One person staying with a well educated but unqualified British family can probably make more progress through simple unstructured conversation than a student receiving formal lessons in a class of 15 or more with mixed nationalities in an "accredited language school" Would the unqualified family be arrested under the proposed new scheme?Innovation and radical new teaching ideas would be stifled under the dead hand of government bureaucracy.
When the State intervenes in the private sector, entrprise is inevitably stifled and standards gradually deteriorate.
I am sure the language industry will be no exception !

IAN JOSEPHS

At last the tax fiddling British Council have been rumbled,in Russia of all places!
They are supposed to be independent of the government and like any other British business operating abroad should not be supported by the british government when caught breaking the tax laws of their host country in the same way that they have been doing for years in the UK !

Mr Hyperlink checker

Rather trivial this one:

Your "doubt in government" link doesn't appear to work. An extra "%20" appears to be the cause.

Enjoy the blog

David

Thank you Mr HC. The piece is 4 years old (and quite a lot of water has since flowed under the accreditation bridge) so I'm sorry you didn't visit earlier!

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