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Latest Developments At Cmu Thai Course


elbicho

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Some posts have been removed that have links to external websites that quote copy which could potentially be libelous, not to mention quoting obscenities.

Please refrain from such postings or comments which could be deemed libelous.

This is a very sensitive thread, so please proceed with caution

The last thread on this subject was closed because it crossed the line, this one will go the same way if some people continue to flout the forum rules

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I personally wouldn't have started this discussion here (there is a UniTEFL thread which seems more relevant), but as my blog has been mentioned several times I feel like I should reply. Apologies if this comes across as more hijacking of the thread.

In my blog post on UniTEFL I was very careful to say that I cannot compare its academic standards to Cambridge or anyone else, and in fact that I'd been involved with a non-CELTA and non-Trinity course that I personally thought provided decent training. Looking back, though, I still think our trainees were ripped off. They paid the same as a Cambridge course but then had to go through the rest of their careers having their qualifications questioned or not accepted. That is the main thing - how well will your qualification be accepted? Luckily, that is also something that people with no experience of TEFL can judge (unlike the quality of teaching they will be able to produce by the end of it). There are many job ads asking for Cambridge CELTA (and often "or equivalent"), there are other job ads asking for Cambridge CELTA or Trinity Cert TESOL (and usually "or equivalent"), but there are no ads asking for UniTEFL. Whether it will be accepted as an equivalent or not depends on the employer, but at the moment it does not even have name recognition going for it. And with all that it is more or less the same price as a CELTA.

Then there is the dubious relationship between the (whole) truth and the information given on its website...

With no connection to a university (anymore), no name recognition (presumably even in Thailand, at this early stage in its history), no monetary savings, and the dodgy marketing, why would anyone choose this course?

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Latest Developments At Cmu Thai Course is the topic not TEFL Uni TEFL Trinity or any of the other variations.

I agree CMU seems to have done the wrong thing by its students and I for one will not be studying there again. As far as UniTEFL or its thai course I probably will not consider them either though I realixw the course they ran for CMU was probably better than most and no worse than other offerings in the market.

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... Personally, I don't think that it matters if he has an unrelated BA or PhD...

He lectured post-graduate philosophy students at CMU for 6 years because he 'had' a PhD. I think it matters to those students.

Here's one of his lectures on the subject of ethics:

http://cmulectures.b...ture-three.html

I believe 100% that he did give some lectures there and have never questioned it. In my opinion, if someone is highly sought after by a certain department, then they wouldn't just teach the occasional odd course there. They would be employed by that department fulltime and not work elsewhere in a mostly non credit/ non-faculty status institution – just like 99.9% of all faculty members do.

I also think that teaching the odd class shouldn't pose a problem for someone with a BA in Philosophy. How much would people studying sustainable development or any other major outside of philosophy actually know about philosophy? Probably very little. There are a lot of university students I've met who have never read a book by Derrida, Foucault, Heidegger or any other major philosopher. Well, if you've got a BA in Philosophy, then you would at least have read something, so one would be leaps and bounds ahead of the pack. This is no surprise at all.

As for the possibility of teaching without credentials, I've got a friend working at a major university in Thailand and the only thing his boss every asked to see was a black and white copy of his highest degree. So no surprise there, either.

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BTW, the person in question has also taught an occasional English course at the Language Institute. So does he also have another PhD in English? That didn't seem to pose a problem.

Looks to me like teaching the occasional course in another department happens all the time.

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Will people interested in UniTEFL or obsessed with Matt please start separate threads on these subjects and stop putting off-topic posts here?

As far as latest developments go, my understanding is that CMU is now declaring that a large number of the receipts being presented by students are invalid and refusing to refund money. This info is from e-mails from other students, I decided it wasn't worth pursuing a partial refund on the three months of classes I was cheated out of.

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Will people interested in UniTEFL or obsessed with Matt please start separate threads on these subjects and stop putting off-topic posts here?

As far as latest developments go, my understanding is that CMU is now declaring that a large number of the receipts being presented by students are invalid and refusing to refund money. This info is from e-mails from other students, I decided it wasn't worth pursuing a partial refund on the three months of classes I was cheated out of.

HeyBruce: very sorry to hear that. Then you and others may be headed for a legal battle, should you wish to go that route. As a person who has taken others to court and won 4 out of 4 times (although I never collected on the last because the person skipped town), I can tell you that credibility is a 50% of winning a case. That means that if you are standing in front of a judge and can say that a person or organization has mislead you in any way , then it certainly isn't going look good for them. That means the issue of someone going around calling themselves Dr. when they are not , and admin knowing but turing a blind eye to it, is more central than ever. If you have any paper work signed 'Dr' you know who, hold on to that. It's a win-win no matter which side of the lagl fence you are on.

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<snip>

As far as latest developments go, my understanding is that CMU is now declaring that a large number of the receipts being presented by students are invalid and refusing to refund money. This info is from e-mails from other students, I decided it wasn't worth pursuing a partial refund on the three months of classes I was cheated out of.

A (trusted) ex-classmate I know spoke with the Director yesterday. He was told that only the carbon-copied (triplicate, each copy a different colour) receipts are valid, and that LICMU didn't have any money to refund via the other receipts because IUS kept it all.

(Yeah, I know... :-)

Edited by kawtot
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Too many posts have to be moderated in this thread and no new info is really being added other than the same people repeating the same arguments. As civil and polite discussion seems impossible so this is now closed. Do not reopen a similar thread.

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