Computers - ggrrrrr - don't you just hate them!

by TEFL mama - 23:13 on 24 October 2008

I wrote a really interesting, fascinating and witty blog on here the other evening after work. It was full of tales daring do and misdeeds from my former life as a TEFL teacher abroad.  It was fantastic even if I do say so myself, maybe not quite Man Booker stuff but definitely Pullitzer journalism.

So where is it?  Bloody computer swallowed it -ate it - or something.  Just pressed a button (the right one) and then it wasn't there anymore. Gone.  Vanished. Disappeared for ever more.   Now, I don't get computer rage, I don't want to hit it or even anything quite so violent as drop the damn laptop on the floor and jump on it.  I'm quite a peaceable person really but it did get me vexed.

It also got me thinking.  When I left initially to go tefling it was '96.  The internet was just beginning to be used by the general public and I have vague recollections of looking up lesson plans on sites that took a day to  download and everything would frequently crash under the weight of it all.  But it was marvellous.  I was panicking a  couple of days before going out to Greece over lesson planning and being inventive in the classroom.  I had my books 'Teaching Tenses', Jeremy Harmer and Murphy were coming with me too but I didn't have anything giving me straight forward lessons. Hence the dash to my dad's PC and the wonderous internet.

A couple of years later a TEFL teacher appeared in Greece with a laptop. It was amazing to behold him tapping away and producing nicely typed up vocab sheets and lesson plans. (Though it seemed to hurt him in some way as there were frequent strangled cat sounds and malaka became his favourite Greek word).But it was still mostly him and not the internet that was producing the lessons.

10 years later and the proliferation of TEFL sites is amazing, everyone and his dog is at it(myself included).  Some are very good, some are rubbish and some seem just a tad stale and cynical.  Unfortunately a lot of the people out there in forums and blogs relating to TFEL just seem very unhappy with their lot.  And to be honest that has not been my experience of being a TEFL teacher.  I loved every minute of my time teaching in Greece, France and the UK  - ok maybe not every minute but more minutes of it than the equivalent time spent working in the bank or Civil Service.  Jobs can be rubbish anywhere, people can treat you like crap anywhere but what you can experience teaching and living abroad beats a boring desk job any day.  It really can be life-changing - particularly if you don't have to deal with these blooming computers!

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