tefl teaching: the pc game

Level 1 would actually be quite challenging, as you attempted to get through your Cert. course, (which I recall as like cramming a degree into four weeks, in Barcelona, with after-school refreshments in a bar called Antibiotica).  As you progressed through the levels you'd meet a whole range of bad guys, such as the chiselling school owners who'd do their damnedest each month to lighten your meagre wage packet of a few Euros or Turkish Lira.  There were the drunken DoSs.  And there'd be a whole level devoted to the residential school in Great Malvern owned and "run" by a family of psychopaths.

I found that as I reached the 10th level it had all got a bit dull, the actual teaching had become like falling off a log, and the best amusement was found in the games additional features, academic research and teaching management.  But then I found a hidden level.  If, as you progress, you pick up enough materials and test writing skills, qualifications, and abilities to work with data and do research...  you one day find that you've gained access to what looks like being a whole new game in itself: language testing.

There'll no doubt be plenty of drunks and fruitcakes along the way, but it's otherwise only tangentially related to actual tefl teaching: there's travel, conferences, academic papers, and number crunching.  You get more cash rewards as you go, and might actually be able to save something.  It looks like a lot of fun.  

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