Travels of a TEFL teacher
David Westgate offers his thoughts on a rewarding read
Pat Stapleton’s name will be familiar to many Friends, as she and her husband were the first representatives at the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) Brussels office from 1979 to 1983. Her internationalist outlook goes back further in her life, however, and is fully evident in the delightful book Travels of a TEFL Teacher: Learning through teaching in China, Hungary, Vietnam, Palestine and France, providing it with a clear theme. Its sub-title indicates another: that there is nothing like teaching for learning.
This latter idea might seem a mere truism, but not if you take account of the range of countries involved, their varied cultures and the timing of the work Pat Stapleton did in each. All the countries of which she writes were either emerging from fundamental political change or suffering (as in Palestine) distressing and often violent tensions. In every case she arrived at a time of transition or upheaval. Her learning thus extended well beyond matters of language teaching. Her social-cum-historical insights are always complimented by accounts of personal relationships, examples of which bring these vividly to life.
Pat Stapleton’s first ventures abroad were to France and Austria during a pre-university gap year in 1947-48. She was well aware that her host countries were coming to terms with recent occupation, but she was also already alert to their charms. However, it was only on retirement from full-time Quaker work that circumstances allowed her to take an intensive Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) training course, which enabled her to build on earlier experiences and to pursue her determined course as a fully professional TEFL teacher.
Things Chinese had always intrigued her. Acting on impulse, she followed a lead given to her by a Quaker colleague and offered her services to the University of Medical Sciences in Chengdu. Surprised to receive a positive reply, she grasped the opportunity and took up what was to be her first official teaching post. She hugely enjoyed both the work and the friendly welcome she received. Travel was a bonus and an enlightening one, soon shared with her husband, who joined her. Her account of their eventual return to France ‘by five trains’ is worth a read in itself.
Pat Stapleton’s next adventure took her to Hungary, just after the fall of the communist government, in 1990. Her ability to make enduring friendships, and to appreciate what change meant at a personal level, made for further deepened understanding. What she describes as her ‘richest experience’, however, was to follow in 1993 when she accepted an invitation to organise a pilot TEFL project at a university in Vietnam.
Her boldness paid off again; she was made very welcome, although few westerners had until then been allowed to visit that newly united country. However, 1993 was also the year French president François Mitterrand broke the isolation with an official visit to Hanoi, so once again the time was right for more exploration and discovery. Her continuing affection for that country and its people is evident.
Perhaps most challenging of all was her 2007-08 period in Palestine. She had originally thought of joining the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) scheme, but, being by this time a widow in her late seventies, she offered her services instead to the Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association, who were looking for a teacher of English. Her accounts of successful teaching, of attending the Quaker Meeting at Ramallah, and of many friendly contacts, are dramatically punctuated by descriptions of violent events initiated by the Israeli military and of the general ‘horrors of an occupied territory’. Nothing daunted her.
Pat Stapleton’s TEFL career is still not over. Now in her late eighties, she continues with active contributions to a scheme she first joined in 1989: Active Learning reciprocal courses, whereby English and French students visit and study in each other’s countries. She concludes that the best teaching and learning gets beyond formalities to a real ‘sharing of views and experiences’. It is that perspective, and the sense of hearing the author’s authentic voice, which helps to make this book such a rewarding read.
Travels of a TEFL Teacher by Pat Stapleton is published by BELL Books and is available from lulu.com
