SURPRISE, SURPRISE

      THIS IS AN UPDATE FROM THE ORIGINAL POSTING OF THE SITE DUE TO A COMMENT.

DELLAR'S EMOTIONAL REALITIES, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS LIES, ALL PROVEN TO BE FICTION IN THE FOLLOWING EXCHANGE OF EMAILS BETWEEN MYSELF AND KEN OUR MANAGER AT THE TIME IN 2001.

A BIG SURPRISE, A COMMENT ON THE WEBSITE FROM THE MANAGER MENTIONED ON THE WEBSITE, WHICH I DID NOT DISPLAY ON THE SITE. A DIALOGUE THEN TOOK PLACE VIA EMAIL WHICH I AM NOW DISPLAYING SINCE HIS WORDS DISPUTE DELLAR’S ACCUSATIONS IN HIS POST ON THE TEFL WORKERS UNION GROUP PROFILE ON X (TWITTER). IT WAS DELLAR;S POST WHICH INSPIRED THE WEBSITE AND MY INTENTION TO EXPOSE DELLAR FOR WHAT HE IS, A LIAR. NOW PROVEN YET AGAIN BY THE MANAGER WHO WAS IN CHARGE OF THE UNIT WE BOTH WORKED FOR, AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER. 

ALL SURNAMES ARE REDACTED EXCEPT THOSE RELEVANT TO THE REVEAL. THE COMMENT:

 Dear Russell Please take this website down. If you still wish to give a public description of these events, I am happy for you to repurpose your material and direct it at me, as the manager responsible for setting up the primary event, rather than Hugh, and giving the website the address, ‘www.ken-paterson-’ … however you wish to continue. You can contact me by the email address that I have supplied when submitting this comment. Best wishes Ken 

THERE NOW FOLLOWS THE EMAILS WE EXCHANGED AND PEOPLE CAN DRAW THEIR OWN C0NCLUSIONS. 

MY CONCLUSIONS ARE, KEN PROVES I WAS NOT A TEACHER STUDENTS COMPLAINED ABOUT, YET ANOTHER DELLAR LIE. 

KEN ALSO ADMITS HE DID NOT HANDLE THE SITUATION AS WELL IT OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN HANDLED.  AT NO POINT DOES HE CHALLENGE THE FACTS AS PRESENTED ON THE SITE. 


  

Hi Ken,

Surprise, surprise. Fascinating. Two questions before I answer your comment in full.

1. You were not at IATEFL 2024 in Brighton where I handed out a few leaflets advertising the website after clearing it with an IATEFL executive. Hence I would like to know how you came to learn about the site.

2. I would like an intellectual professional explanation why Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley are so important that your emotional loyalty to them means you are willing to place yourself at risk.

Best regards,
Russ

KEN’S RESPONSE: 

Mon, 13 May, 10:46 

Hi Russ Thanks very much for getting in touch. Apologies for the length of my message, but it’s the only way I can address the issues raised around my discovery of the site, my loyalty to staff members, my role in the dispute, and my aim in contacting you via your site. Hugh told me about your website. I think he was right to do this, since I am mentioned throughout the text on the site. On the same day that Hugh contacted me, I was separately contacted by another member of the ELT community (not part of our EFL unit at Westminster), so I suppose I would have found out about the site anyway. My response, the message I posted on the site, was entirely my own. If Hugh had launched a website with an address such as ‘www.russell-crew-gee-the (derogatory term).net’ as a vehicle for personal criticism of you, and you had drawn it to my attention, I can assure you I would have asked him to take it down. My loyalty to you as a teacher and high regard for your classroom skills cannot be in doubt. I expressed it over the years by timetabling you across the provision with confidence that you would do the job well. In my time, I was and am loyal to all the teaching staff, and not a ‘new manager’ with a ‘clique’ promoting a specific idea of teaching, and disrespecting the longer-serving members of the unit and their more traditional pedagogical approaches. I joined the unit in 1987 and was steeped in its history and traditions. I supported MF, for example, and her love of teaching through literature. I encouraged DH, who would certainly have regarded himself as a traditionalist, to continue teaching in the unit after his retirement. I assisted MS in setting up his accredited business modules; Mike remembered this when he was dying and asked a close friend to invite me to attend his funeral, which I did, of course. I made JP the mainstay of our Cambridge Proficiency courses. My deputy, DG, was one of the longest-serving members of the unit. I even broke university rules to keep our old hand PN teaching into his eighties on the summer school! Outside the teaching sphere, I kept PS and EM within the fold, after my appointment, by advocating for their new positions as Blue Badge guide and counsellor respectively. These are not the actions of a new broom, determined to sweep aside the eclectic mix of teaching styles in favour of a ‘clique’.  This whole affair began more than twenty years ago, but I’ll do my best to remember what happened. It began with my feeling we needed to be able to show to ourselves and to inspectors how the language laboratory sessions, only one aspect of your teaching, Russ, were integrated into the students’ overall course. I thought that if I made provision for your peers to observe one of your sessions and then brought us together to exchange ideas, we might all benefit. Clearly, that didn’t work. My point here is that the painful relationship between you and Hugh originated inadvertently in a process that I set up and that therefore it might be better to make me the subject of your comments rather than Hugh. The sad aftermath was exacerbated, in my view, by the University’s underwhelming complaints procedure. These procedures, even if effective, tend not to work unless you are able to remove one of the two parties from the local area. If you can’t, then normal interactions are impossible: the person lodging the complaint still feels aggrieved, and the person complained against, already fearful of the damage to their reputation should the complaint be upheld, is aware that anything they say or do, or even a gesture, can be added to the original complaint or be the source of a new complaint. Meanwhile, the local manager, in a system that is less than robust, rather than being offered support in complaint resolution, is given conflicting advice often within the space of a week, on whether they should intervene or not. All I’m asking is that you consider taking down this website since it is, I think, a needless continuation of old animosities, or that you edit it so that it becomes an account from your point of view of the relevant events, accompanied, as you will, by your criticism of the people involved and a description of the stress that all this has obviously caused you, rather than a specific attack on Hugh. In my opinion, such a new piece should be hosted on a site of your own, rather than one labelled ‘Hugh Dellar, the bully’. Your record of events would still be a public one, which is what you want. I may give Hugh a copy of this reply in the interests of transparency, but not a copy of your messages to me, which are at your disposal. If you feel able to follow one of my suggestions above, I will assure you, as far as it is within my power, that Hugh will not make any further public reference to these matters. As things stand, it is unsurprising that he would want to defend himself, as you or I would in similar circumstances. 

All the best Ken           

KEN’S EMAIL BECAUSE I WAS SLOW IN REPLYING:   

 Hi Russ You haven’t replied to my message of 13 May, so I’m writing to give you some peace of mind in knowing that I will make no further attempts to persuade you to take down or change the site in question. I was very sorry to read on the site of your continuing distress and hope that, as far as this matter is concerned, life will now be easier for you. Best wishes Ken Ken 

I REPLIED;   

 Hi Ken Will be replying shortly. Russ.  

KEN REPLIED;   

Thanks, Russ. Best, Ken

MY REPLY;  

Hi Ken, (I am using brackets as this is in response to your second email. Everything after the bracket I can assure you was written before your email although some points have been added or changed in the proof reading, nothing however connected to your second email. I must say it was a pleasant surprise to know you are not contesting the site anymore. It was also nice to read your humane response as well, something which had been lacking in your comment on the site and your first email. It made me wonder what had caused the total change of heart. The reason it has taken time to respond is the time it has taken to consider the best response to the points you raised and bring an even greater clarity to what happened. Also, a need to consult with others. Thank you for your kind comments and I hope you do not think I have been too harsh on you.) 

Thanks for the response. This could be quite lengthy as well. I would like to say also that I am sorry if some of the things I have to say may seem a little unkind however you are no longer my manager and I do not have to play the employment game, and be constrained in what I wish to say. Which brings me to my first point. I received notification of your comment via email and opened it on my phone and the first words I saw were, “Please take this site down”. My first thought was, “Or else what”. No introduction, no explanation, no expression of sympathy. It came across as an order was my emotional interpretation.
Then I was surprised to read you wanted me to direct the story at you as the protagonist, surprise at your suggestion and that you had contacted me, hence my first question.
I also thought it a good opportunity to see if you could define why you hold Hugh and Andrew in such high regard that you would believe anything they said without question and would act as Hugh’s standard bearer. You did not provide any criticism in relation to anything said on the site, instead the only criticism was one about my comments regarding a clique. Not a word about anything else which presumable means there is nothing else which can be challenged. Which would be difficult since the written evidence is clear. It is an honest and clear explanation of the Factual Reality of the bullying events which led to my career being cut short. As for your point about a clique, it was not about you, I said “their clique” not “his clique” and later on the clique becomes clear as it is related to Hugh. I have a memory which I am not sure about, some people including Hugh who came in had worked together at another school, you could probably confirm this. I have no complaint about you and your character, and I can fully appreciate how you were loyal to other members of staff, however this did not apply to me on a professional level with regard to the Language Laboratory since the criticism I have of your actions is a certain level of weakness where Hugh and Andrew were concerned, who were very definitely not steeped in the unit’s history and tradition. They did not involve themselves in the team ethos from the very beginning refusing point blank to liaise with me regarding the LL. Hugh and Andrew and their group of friends were the ones who were the new broom determined to change the ethos of the unit not you. Sad to hear of Mike's death, we always got on well together, as I recall, both of us having similar criticisms of the DELTA course we did at Hammersmith. Before continuing I would like to apologise for anything which might offend you since I always felt at heart you are a very decent human being. Now to the crux. As I recall and according to the paperwork still in my possession, the British Council had never raised any question as to the Language Laboratories use in the scheme of teaching over the years. It had always seemed perfectly obvious the lower level of classes utilize the obvious advantages of a LL which had been established over decades of their use in language schools around the world. As exemplified by Brita Haycraft’s analysis which is reproduced on the website. I also recall it was a join decision to help people have a clearer idea of the advantages of the weekly sessions. Where you were at fault as the manager was not notifying anyone of the subject of the discussion afterwards, I remember being somewhat surprised at the reason you gave, “If we were to start from scratch with Language Laboratory sessions how would we do it”, no mention whatsoever of the “inspectors”.
I remained silent throughout everyone’s contribution, even though David encouraged me at times to contribute, as I wanted to hear what everyone had to say. As explained on the website when I started to explain from the years of experience of using LLs I was constantly interrupted and at no point did either you or David silence the interruptions. When Hugh blew a raspberry at a perfectly valid academic statement, silence. In any other professional setting the manager would have pulled the person up for such an insulting response and reprimanded them. You however allowed the negativity to flow, with accusations which were pure lies. Neither Hugh or Andrew could produce any written evidence to back up their hearsay, all inadmissible in a court of law.

Why do you think I got every student in every class to fill in a survey asking for their ideas on the Language Laboratory? I was already more than aware of the negative feelings towards myself and undefined objections to the Language Laboratory and knew, having been teaching the students for quite some time they were in no way hostile towards me. Also shown by the three students who were more than happy to sign the statements contradicting the bizarre accusations of me being like a Sergeant Major and Primary school teacher. Not one student replied in the negative, examples from 3 students from each class are shown on the website. I have all the others in my possession. I will repeat it again here, at the point where I said I had these surveys Hugh and Andrew made excuses to leave, as they always do when challenged. How is it none of the negatives expressed had ever been brought up before, a point I was unable to point out due to the constant interruptions.

This is the crux in relation to yourself since it is your poor or biased management which is at fault. The website is about Hugh and Andrew’s character and not about your poor management in not censuring them for lying, as clearly shown by the survey of students.
Furthermore if we want to discuss the usage of Language Laboratories in the learning environment surely the one group we need to hear from is the students themselves. As I recall you did not ask to see the surveys. I am also going to attach a file regarding a survey I carried out in consultation with Jack Lonergan at the University. I’ll let you guess which teachers were uncooperative. I am going to tell you what happened when I worked individually with a student who was having a problem in repeating the sound they were hearing and was getting frustrated. I would ask them to listen to me. I would turn my head away from them and repeat the sound and what I found interesting the student always managed to repeat the sound and come to understand the word after a maximum of 2/3 repetitions. The majority of problems which were prominent throughout the years were precisely the grammar words which were contracted at highspeed. Something Andrew found difficult to understand. Shame he did not have the respect towards someone of far greater experience and learnt something new about student problems. Dellar and Walkley’s problem then and today, the devastating emotion of, arrogance. As for the University’s complaints procedure this could have been avoided by you giving Hugh and Andrew a written warning, since every independent person I have shown the evidence to has said if it had happened in their school with the written evidence contradicting his claim of students being belittled and persuaded they all had bad pronunciation and in particular Hugh’s disgraceful patronising raspberry they would both have been in big trouble. Colleagues just do not act in this way when best professional practise is observed. Do you honestly believe I told each student their pronunciation was bad let alone stood in front of them and told them? The only person being belittled in that meeting was Russell Crew-Gee.

You could also have demanded the two of them attended a meeting whereby they were shown the results of the survey and challenged as to why they had lied and been asked to apologise. Furthermore, bearing in mind, Caroline, the only truly independent person there, particularly in light of David not reporting Andrew’s change of story in an email to him, had quite clearly said it got too personal and even yourself admitted it as well. David also was not an innocent recorder with some very biased and misleading reporting. People who have read the minutes have asked me what I had done to deserve such an onslaught of personal attack. At least 3 people in that meeting were not willing to listen to 30 years of LL experience.

Your fault in this was during and after the meeting and as far as I am concerned very poor or biased and weak management decisions.

I would be interested to know what conflicting advice you were given and at what stage. I still have most of the paperwork and I have to say at the end where I was being told I could no longer say good morning to Hugh and you were believing the Emotional Realities he was creating, the lies where I was even being condemned for gathering evidence which exonerated me, I found astounding. As for the University’s procedure I would love to know why Keith Phillips, Margaret Blunden and Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas treated me with contempt when I had never met them.

Some days I was crying going into work, I was also going to put my life at risk to have the truth revealed and even now where you have the written evidence clearly laid out you have shown no empathy for what I suffered. My life has changed out of all recognition, I lost 6 or 7 years of pension contributions a career I loved and dedicated myself to, all because of such a low level of intelligence which was incapable of showing kindness, respect and empathy towards their colleagues and basic intellectual analysis of evidence. I say colleagues because it would be interesting to know why Dr Michael Heller’s statement was not taken into account by the senior management and yourself. You had also seen comments from my students so you could have shown them to Hugh and tell him I was highly respected by students. His highly insulting email disrespecting me both as a person and a teacher as shown on the website, which you also had seen, would not have been tolerated in any well run, decent professional environment. People do not talk to their colleagues in this manner and again another example of your poor or biased management since there was no reprimand. There were also other members of staff who were not overly fond of Hugh’s attitude. He seemed to be above the law, he refused to obey your directive to observe normal social interaction.

You did not answer my question as to why you place Hugh on a pedestal. I told the story of his Brighton talk, because I believe he was having a go at me and more importantly to show his lack of teaching skill to use the opportunity to remind a student that sometimes when something does not make sense conceptually maybe they are creating the wrong words from the sound they have captured. It happens frequently in all mother tongue languages. There are other well-known people in ELT who also do not have much regard for Hugh either, so I am not alone in believing he is not the font of all EFL teaching knowledge. His talk in Brighton on listening left a lot to be desired and many points to be challenged.

I need to tell you your words come across as if you still think you are my manager and also it seems you did not read the story with any depth of analysis or for that matter empathy. We are just independent human beings with loyalty solely to ourselves now, this is between Dellar and myself. Also, if Hugh had launched a website with my name, first I would not have contacted you, I fight my own battles as you ought to know by now and secondly there is nothing negative he could prove with any evidence against me.
Hugh Dellar is driven by Emotional Reality in regard to me and hence his use of misrepresentation, to put it mildly, which is exemplified by his response to my comments on the TEFL Workers Union where he said I had more complaints made against me than any other teacher, you could maybe put him right on this and anything he says is hearsay. I have clear written evidence he has lied at least once about his students. Incidentally I have never in the whole of my teaching career ever told a single student they had bad pronunciation let alone a whole class. Maybe in your response to this you can assure me I was subject to no more complaints than any other teacher. There were certainly no complaints about any of my General English classes, my Speaking Skills classes, or my evening FCE classes. In fact I have a letter to you signed by a whole class saying how much they respected me and were unhappy I was leaving. He also acted like a childish bully in laughing, enjoying my accusation as opposed to denying it, and revelling in what he thought was my defeat. Quite the reverse, money is quite strong admittance of wrong doing and it was unfinished business for me, hence a certain sentence I insisted should be in the agreement I signed with the University and which I am now using to analyse academically the actions which took place and their relationship to the nature of bullying which occurs in the workplace.

One final point, your name is not mentioned on the website, just your first name and there are millions of Kens in the world, I was very careful regarding that aspect. You have revealed yourself. Ken, you in no way were responsible for Dellar and Walkley’s unfounded personal attack on my teaching ability and attitude towards students, that was entirely of their making and was the cause of me having to leave a career I loved and the students who appreciated my approach to teaching, plus a level of poor working practises by management in handling the situation. I cannot hold you responsible for their actions. The management decisions are ones which take place in workplaces on a regular basis, Emotional relationship in denial of Factual Reality. With regard to my classroom teaching and knowledge, I would remind you, Dellar and Walkley never witnessed it, and in any other school I have taught in, including International House, I was listened to with respect, as were other teachers. I once gave a lecture at the University of Maputo, whilst I was a Director of Studies in Mozambique. I have the advantage now of being able to consult with people who work under the auspices of Ofsted and their best working practises, and know that what happened to me would not be tolerated by Ofsted or in any truly professional environment. The website is also created in the name of the Anti-Bullying Campaign, since that was what I was subjected to day after day by the refusal to acknowledge my existence daily to tell me in their eyes I was a total waste of space and a useless teacher. You ought to be ashamed of yourself as a human being that you would support such treatment of another human being who was highly respected both as a human being and an excellent teacher by 99.8% of the students he taught as shown by their written words. After reading this I trust you will support me in exposing Dellar and Walkley for the inhuman manner in which they treated a colleague and are still willing to lie to maintain their misrepresentation of myself. However, having said all that if they can find it in their psyche to admit they were wrong and apologise profusely in a way which is genuine, it will all end and the website will be taken down. You could be the catalyst which could make it happen. I went to Brighton with 500 leaflets advertising the website, intending to flood the place with them. Freedom of Expression and to Protest and all that, luckily for all concerned circumstances conspired otherwise, there was no Q & A session after Dellar’s talk, and due to my humanity and Louise Atkins of IATEFL. The fact knowledge of it has reached you means it is being disseminated within EFL circles so I can take much satisfaction it is being seen.

Had Hugh responded differently in my accusation of him on the TEFL Workers Union twitter page plus their response to it, echoing a similar pattern to management at the University none of this would have happened. Sadly, it reflects what happens in the majority of bullying situations both at work and in schools and it is well past time society got to grips with it and stopped blaming the victims and dealt with the instigators. So these are my thoughts on your email and some general ideas on how Emotional Reality is so often accepted in denial of Factual Reality.

Finally to emphasis the Factual Reality of evidence the Language Laboratory is an excellent method of learning a language. As a result of the Internet and mobile phones we all now have a digital tape recorder in our pockets and a cheap way to learn a foreign language. Social media is awash with language learning programs based directly on a digital listening and recording process. This makes a mockery of Dellar’s, “Nothing can be taught in a LL”. Millions of people have learnt a foreign language without any face-to-face lesson with another human being, which just confirms it was not about Language Laboratories and everything to do with Russell Crew-Gee. It would be fascinating to know what exactly caused this resentment towards me since I had certainly never main any derogatory comments about previous to this meeting. In the scheme of team teaching a highly experienced dedicated teacher devoting 40 minutes to a LL session followed by a general English session after the coffee break made perfect sense and had been running successfully for over 10 years. As had the summer school sessions as well. WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM

As for your comment regarding Hugh making further public reference to these matters, I would welcome them if he had the humanity (guts) to allow a response. So far the only reference he has made so far is through you. The problem he has is there is no defence to anything has to say, it would just be another Emotional Reality. I have no intention of letting the matter drop and will be exploiting any opportunity to let the world of EFL know the character of Dellar and Walkley and fight to have recognised the bullying aspects involved. His contribution to language learning and the subtleties of language has produced nothing new nor increased the speed of retention. You might like to explore my website on Emolinguistics, which in this day and age of Emotional upheaval has much to offer all societies in recognising ‘The Emotional Being’. In reference to your original comment and emails, I would like to thank you for your contribution to the site. Look forward to hearing your thoughts. 
Best wishes,
Russ. 

KEN’S REPLY:   

 Thank you very much for your message, Russ, and for taking the time to make a comprehensive description of your position. Once again, I would like to express my heartfelt sympathy for you. The stress, anxiety and pain that you describe must have been very difficult for you to bear. I tried to deal with the situation between you and Hugh as well as I could within my own limitations as a manager. It is a source of regret to me that I was unable to resolve the dispute. Please be assured that I had no malicious or underhand intent. I valued you as a colleague and as a person. My blunt comment on your website can be explained by the distress I felt by what I saw as an escalation of a situation that has already caused so much pain. My first email message was an attempt to answer your two questions, to comment briefly on the original source of the dispute and to repeat, less bluntly, my original request for you to take down or reframe your website. While I was waiting for your reply, it occurred to me that you might be thinking that I would pursue this matter further in a way that you might find stressful, and so I wrote my second email to address this. The website in question worried me and it seemed wrong to me not to say this, and to make a request, which still stands, for you to reconsider its publication. You’re right to point out that I am no longer your line manager, and to make it clear that you are well able to fight your own battles. I don’t believe, as a private citizen, I can have any further helpful role in this matter. I worked my way through your Emolinguistics website. It is a fascinating area and you have done well, in my opinion, to describe your contribution to it. You may remember that I offered you an opportunity to present a paper on the subject at a small conference held at the School of Languages, and that I made extensive comments on the written material that you produced at the time. The survey which you carried out in consultation with Jack Lonergan, who has sadly passed away, is a very useful contribution to the debate on the role of the teacher and technology in the language learning process. It should give you some satisfaction that the pendulum has swung somewhat the other way, and the case for teacher-centred classroom practice has been more strongly made in recent times than it was when you were an advocate. As for the use of language laboratories, you might remember that I made specific provision for you to train our teaching staff. Take-up was negatively affected, as ever, in my opinion, by a simple fear of technology. With the best will in the world, I would prefer not to take up the other points in your message. They all seem to me to be geared towards the continuation of your dispute with Hugh. You will probably disagree but I think it is time, if you can possibly do so, to draw this matter to a close, for your sake as much as anyone else’s. Your commitment to the wider anti-bullying cause is commendable, but should not, perhaps, revolve solely around one individual. 

Best wishes as ever Ken  

MY REPLY WAS IN TWO PARTS, THE EMAIL AND A WORD ATTACHMENT SINCE I HAD WRITTEN THE REPLY WITH KEN’S EMAIL FOR REFERENCE IN WORD. 

EMAIL: 

Hi Ken. Sorry it's taken time again, however as explained in my last email I consult with others and also I take time in considering the best way to respond and everything is factual. 

My response is attached as a word file so you can see the references relating to your email. I would love as much as you for this to all to end and it is a very simple process, however I think Hugh and Andrew are tow arrogant to admit their lies. 

I feel confident your humanity would have no problem in apologising, leastwise I am hoping so.

.What will be, will be. Amazing how much emotion can be carried in three wee grammar words.

Look forward to your response.

With very best wishes.

Russ.

P.S. If you believe Emolinguistics is fascinating I think we could make quite a good team in promoting the potential it has for teaching children this aspect of life and language and a highly instructive subject of academic study in universities around the world.   

THE ATTACHED WORD DOCUMENT REPLY TO KEN’S EMAIL. 

I was hoping for a sincere apology since it is clear a major mistake was made and Hugh and Andrew were lying and had you acted in the beginning to make it clear to them that academic approaches to teaching need to be discussed with respect for all ideas and not delivered with obvious venom and distortions of reality disrespecting colleagues, bearing in mind I was not the only person who was subjected to this disrespect as Dr Michael Heller made clear in his witness statement. It would not have escalated to the extent it did and their obvious acts on a day-to- day basis of ignoring social greetings were the actions associated with bullying. At no point have you challenged anything I have written so as a human being you ought not find it that difficult to say having reassessed the whole saga you could tell Hugh and Andrew that they were wrong and you ought to have handled it differently. As you admit, your limitations restricted your ability to handle it properly at the time and now with a greater insight and knowledge you can see that I deserve a heartfelt apology. I can assure you there is nothing you could say or do if you were to pursue the matter which I would have found stressful since there is nothing which you or anyone can say or do to disprove the Factual Reality of what happened. Dellar’s bullying laughing response was the escalation, if he had shown more maturity in his answer, I would not have been inspired to tell the story. Then there is the “vexatious” comment. All my complaints can be supported by clear evidence. The only vexatious complaints were all his, from the comments in the 2001 meeting to his laughable complaint about a newspaper being opened in front of him. There is sadly nothing you have said or questions you have answered which would cause me to take down the site. You said in your second email you would make no further attempts to persuade me to take down the site and yet here you repeat your request. As pointed out I believe you could play a role by informing Hugh you have apologised for your role and you are persuaded they acted in a bullying manner and their attack on my ability as a teacher were in no way backed up by Factual Reality as clearly shown in all the written evidence of the students themselves. First of all, thank you for your kind comments on Emolinguistics, other than it was not a contribution as such, it was all my own ideas which brought it into the human vocabulary. I am glad you find it a fascinating area since I am having great difficulty in having it accepted by a wider audience. The development since I was at the University is the firming up of the two concepts of Emotional Reality and Factual Reality and their relationship to truth. Also my observations have also confirmed psychology’s findings that people reveal their own mind, inner self, when they falsely accuse other people of actions which they themselves are guilty of. They actually describe perfectly the state of our world today and the past in terms of the human ability to handle Emotional Concepts, since language creates and defines a human being subject to the environment in which they inhabit. Also, my observations have also confirmed psychology’s findings people reveal their own mind, their inner self, when they falsely accuse other people of actions which they themselves are guilty of. Emolinguistics opens up a multitude of interesting areas of language and I had been hoping that my position at a university would have helped promote the concept in both the academic world and society. This was also destroyed by the LL saga. Maybe you would like to join me in promoting the concept, only too happy to go through the lecture with you. Secondly a confession, I have no memory of the opportunity to present a paper and no memory of writing any material. My memory is not as good as it used to be however where Emolinguistics is concerned my memory is normally pretty clear and I am sure I remember all the presentations I have given. Do you have any those materials in your possession as I have searched all my old files and can find no record of them. Thank you once again for positive comments regarding the survey since I believe it was possibly the first ever survey of students attitudes to all the teaching techniques teachers use in the classroom. I was also aware that Jack had passed away because I have been in contact with Peter McGee who was a close friend of his. The question on technology produced a very interesting result which possibly accounts for the success of various technologies over the years and now the rash of language learning programs which are flooding social media and can be found in any internet search. Will AI eventually see the end of face to face learning as VR is developed. The point being made is that all of Hugh and Andrews objections were based on ignorance of the advantages of Language Laboratory use and were about my competence as a teacher. This is the crux of the problem. Your unwillingness to address the main points and accept your own role and admitting that both Hugh and Andrew were lying throughout the whole saga ensures justice will never be satisfied. Ask any independent person to read all the evidence and they agree the evidence is clear. This is not just a single dispute between two people it is about the whole process which I was subjected to by a group of people with Dellar and Walkley instigating and leading the attack. Acts of daily personal abuse are matters which need to be addressed irrespective of the time passed. The latest in my admitted libelous post on the TEFL Workers Union actually confirmed my accusation in his laughing reply and slanderous comments about my reputation with students, confirming his bullying attitude, and glorifying his role. The last point you can easily dispute and correct which surely is something you ought to be pleased to do. Furthermore, what about any conference we both attend, am I going to have to listen to his lies like the Language Laboratory misrepresentation he made in his talk in Brighton. In relation to the bullying cause, it is not about one individual it is about the process and the role and actions of all the people involved since the meeting in 2001. A human process which takes place in many other working environments and therefore maybe it is time for a law insisting that in any bullying case an independent person or persons need to review the evidence in order that personal relationships and social positions within organisations play no part in determining the facts of any case. I am not a victim, I am someone who is fighting for Factual Reality to be recognised and justice to be done, so when you say for my sake, then you need to realise when you say that the best action for my sake is to admit the errors of judgment and analysis. All of Dellar’s pronouncements are personal comments without any evidence other than the Emotional Realities of his mind which are in denial of Factual Reality. A further example from the meeting is that the students had been coming to the LL for a number of weeks so how is it all his complaints had not been mentioned by the students before? Is it not time you faced up to the Reality of that meeting? I was lucky that Dr. MG joined as the new Vice-chancellor who was sympathetic to my position. I also had a two-hour meeting with the Finance Director who was also very sympathetic, expressing the view that he wished he had been advised of the situation earlier. I would still like to know why Keith P, Margaret B and Rikki M treated me with contempt when I had never met them. I left the University with people believing I was a not a good teacher, when my evening classes were packed, my afternoon classes were packed, my Language Laboratory classes were packed and students themselves were writing wonderful comments about my teaching. In one sentence you say you “express your heartfelt sympathy, the stress, anxiety and pain that you describe must have been very difficult for you to bear and then you show you don’t care enough to apologise and admit Dellar and Walkley lied and you enabled this to happen on an ongoing process. What is so special about these two men you find it beyond your human sense of justice to accept the unchallengeable evidence of their lies and bullying behaviour which Dellar finds so enjoyable. Possibly your distress at learning about the website and wanting it closed is because you are not proud about this episode in your life whereas I am very proud of my teaching and have a right to defend both my character and teaching and wish for the world to know the Factual Reality of my time at the University of Westminster and the abominable treatment I was subjected to and still am by Dellar. It needs to be disseminated. I always considered you a decent human being although this became challenging when you started criticising me for collecting evidence proving Dellar wrong in his lies and when at the end I was condemned for wishing to be able to say “Good morning” to colleagues. It’s all in written evidence. “Russell, having read all the evidence again and with the maturity of time I can confirm students did not complain about you and you did not make unfounded vexatious complaints and I would like to say I was wrong in not condemning Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley for the total distortions of reality they made in attacking your teaching and I would like to apologise unreservedly for the limitations in my management of the way you were treated by myself and everyone concerned in the attacks on your character and teaching. As I have already stated I have the greatest respect for you as a person and as a teacher and so did all your students.” Imagine all this happening to your best friend, your child, your partner, family. This is caring about the stress, anxiety and pain suffered by a human being who did nothing wrong. That is the injustice I have been fighting from the very beginning back in 2001. Do you respect a human being who takes pleasure in belittling and destroying other human careers and lives? 

KEN’S RESPONSE WHO WAS THE MANAGER OF THE UNIT AND WHO WOULD KNOW ABOUT ANY STUDENT COMPLAINTS. I HAVE HIGHLIGHTED THE RELEVANT WORDS WHICH CATCH DELLAR IN YET ANOTHER LIE. 


  

Hi Russ Thank you very much for your message. Let me say from the start of mine that I am very sorry for the format and conduct of the meeting on 7 March 2001. No-one expressed their concerns to me beforehand, but I was short-sighted in assuming that everyone would be comfortable with the arrangements. In retrospect, I appreciate that I didn’t foresee the risks of confrontation that it posed, and I agree with you that the terms of reference could have been clearer. In addition, during the meeting itself, I was insufficiently alert to the deleterious effect it was having on you. I felt that Hugh and Andrew’s vociferous criticisms were aimed at a particular technique that you were using, rather than at you as a teacher, in which capacity you were highly-valued by me and my management colleagues, as evidenced by our timetabling of you across the provision, and by the students whose positive comments you quote on the website in question. Like any manager, I made mistakes; where these affected you in the period of time after the meeting, I apologise sincerely. I always took the decisions that felt right to me at the time. Looking back, however, in the light of the suffering you describe, of course I have doubts about my own conduct. 

From this standpoint in time, I have very little recollection of specific complaints made by students about any members of our staff, including you, except in the case of the few but difficult occasions when I felt it was appropriate to arrange a formal interview with a particular member of staff. 

You were not one of these teachers. 

And my second, short email message to you was not a withdrawal of my original request, but rather a reassurance to you that I would not pursue the matter by repeating it in future or by putting any further pressure on you. You still have that reassurance. I can assure you that I would not want anyone to go through the suffering that you describe. Until last month, I had no idea that this dispute was such a continuing source of distress to you twenty years after the events at issue, and I was very sorry to hear it. In conclusion, let me just say that I did not intervene in this situation either to censure you for setting up the website in question or to condemn Hugh and Andrew. I am not in a position to do that. In asking you to remove or reframe the website, I have simply tried to do what I can on a personal level to prevent the revival of a dispute between people who were my colleagues. As far as Emolinguistics is concerned, it is kind of you to suggest a collaboration with me. However, I should point out that I retired from education and language training five years ago and turned to other things. All I do these days in TEFL is promote or edit my backlist. The conference I mentioned stays in my memory because it was the only one that I organised. I have no documentation on it, but I remember your presentation, which involved, I think, reference to a newspaper article where certain words were assigned ‘positive’, ‘negative’ or ‘neutral’ tags. Around that time, you were also contemplating the submission of an article on Emolinguistics, which you showed to me and on which I made comments. Very best wishes Ken 

MY REPLY TO KEN EXPRESSED MY MOST SINCERE THANKS FOR HIS HONESTY AND REASSURANCE I WAS NOT A TEACHER WHO HE HAD RECEIVED COMPLAINTS ABOUT FROM STUDENTS. THIS IS YET MORE WRITTEN EVIDENCE THAT DELLAR MAKES UP EMOTIONAL REALITIES WHICH BEAR NO RELATIONSHIP TO FACTUAL REALITY. RESORTING TO LIES IN ORDER TO DISCREDIT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING. WHAT COULD WELL BE CLASSED AS MENTAL RAPE SINCE HE IS RESPECTED WITHIN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING COMMUNITY AND ONE PRESUMES, HE OUGHT TO BE BEYOND REPROACH. 


 

First of all, I was putting off writing to you asking about a reply and had just started to write about half an hour before your reply arrived, and am so pleased I didn’t have to construct a message with language having to deal with perhaps the worst form of mental bullying, ignoring the existence of another human being. The process which Hugh and Andrew employ. An action which in reality confirms the bully’s inability to defend their actions. My apologies for the wait for all my replies, however I like to be sure what I have written is correct, also so often one thinks of something one ought to have said (this last sentence is the last thing I have added) and also I have it proof read by an educationalist not just for mistakes, also for logic and accuracy.

Secondly thank you so much for what my wife has described as “lovely and honest”. My thanks come from deep within since you have made it plain that Hugh’s accusation in our latest confrontation accusing me of complaints from students are totally untrue. The statement which more than anything inspired the creation of the website, plus the attitude of the TEFL Workers Union defence of him, reminded me of the same human process I was subjected to at the University.

The fact you use the word “vociferous” in describing their attitude helps in regard to the meeting since in a normal academic discussion of techniques there is no earthly reason why people need to be so animated since respect for colleagues ought to prevail. Further to this it was not just a “particular” technique, there were at least three different areas they brought up, plus Hugh blowing a raspberry is something which should never be tolerated in a professional discussion. All it was on topic in relation to your subject area for discussion. However, thank you for confirming once more I was highly-valued by yourself and your management colleagues, although I would still love to know why Ricki accused me of teaching by rote. Also, your acceptance that your conduct was possibly at fault is a major source of comfort. Although what baffles me the most is the ignoring of what the students had indicated in their written evidence, TOTALLY contradicted anything Hugh and Andrew were accusing me of, which is why it plays such a prominent role in the presentation of the website. The ‘Teacher knows best’ attitude which can apply for children, in no way applies to adults when inquiring about their feelings regarding how they are being taught. This more than anything ought to be raising your doubts and needs to be accepted as the major reason for condemning their actions. An undeniable Factual Reality underpinning the injustice I was subjected to, innocent of anything I was being accused of. All that being said, I repeat, my most sincere thanks for spending time in engaging with me and confirming I was a highly respected teacher who was not subjected to complaints as Dellar accuses me of in our interaction on the TEFL Workers Union twitter page. Regarding Emolinguistics, thank you for reminding me of the presentation. I think the reason it is not in my memory is because I referred to it as ‘The Language of Emotion’ at that point in time and I talked about the exercise I carried out analysing three newspaper articles on the death of Samora Machel, the president of Mozambique. The three newspapers being Left, Right and Centre politically and therefore predictable in the image they would paint of him emotionally. It was the Eureka moment for me. It has moved on since then to encompass all aspects of human life and not just a language exercise. I believe, (a highly emotional concept) it provides an answer to most of life’s ills, the concepts of Emotional Reality Vs Factual Reality define precisely the cause of all the negative state of the global human society and conflicts. It defines the problem which has brought us together again. I am guessing you are making a career out of fictional writing? Hugh’s emotional belief, based on no evidence he can provide whatsoever, "I am a terrible teacher", as opposed to the written Factual Reality provided by my students and his own students to the contrary plus your own contribution as the manager of the unit we both worked in. 

I would also like to thank you for confirming you are the decent honest human being I always considered you to be and why I only made passing references to your role on the website and also which may also account for why even now you are loath to condemn Hugh and Andrew’s actions in the meeting and subsequent actions not wanting to jeopardize in any way your relationship with them.

There is one other aspect which might be worth considering, I could achieve a level of social influence, I am working hard at it, which could well result in this story becoming more widely known, just a thought. There is also a very simple solution to that possibility.

There is one thing I would like to know is why the EFL unit at the University was closed down considering so many Universities have an EFL unit. One more short response and we can move on, although it has been interesting reconnecting.

Thanks.

Best wishes,

Russ. 

KEN’S RESPONSE;

 Hi Russ Thanks very much for your message and your kind remarks. Here are replies to points you raise, in the order that they occur in your message, and then, as you imply, I believe we have said all that we can on these matters. 1. I have no idea why Rikki made that comment about you. 2. I don’t, I’m afraid, believe it is my responsibility to make a judgment on whether the evidence you present contradicts what Hugh and Andrew said. 3. Yes, I’m trying to write some fiction; but whether I can make a career out of remains to be seen! 4. I don’t know why the EFL unit was closed. All I can say is that I fought for many years with diplomacy and doggedness against a view held within the University that the institution had no business offering precious classroom space to non-degree courses. Ours was the most visible because of its size. Some universities have retained their own EFL units; many have retained their EFL/EAP provision only by outsourcing it to organisations such as Kaplan or the Study Group. I am glad that we have been able to correspond with each other. Your record of events is now a public one on your website, as is your request for an apology. Even if this request isn’t satisfied, the making of it is an end in itself, in my view. Let your readers come to their own conclusion. I hope therefore that you will consider letting this dispute rest where it is and devoting your talents and energy to other matters such as your work on Emolinguistics. And, in saying this, I am not motivated at all by ‘keeping my name out of the press’. I’m too old to worry about these things! 

Very best wishes Ken

 
THIS IS MY RESPONSE:  

Hi Ken,

It takes me some time to respond since I want to be content in my own mind I have addressed all the points raised. This will be my second to last response which I would be grateful you respond to and this development serves to add to the story and we can move on. My last response being a thank you for the engagement. As you rightly say it is now in the public domain and people can come to their own conclusions and hopefully understand the mental abuse and hurt someone suffers from, over years, due to the acts of bullying. We have, as decent human beings, a responsibility to fight against all forms of abuse which take place in the workplace, no matter how long it takes.
Do not know if you were aware, I was put on anti-depression medication by the University Consultant Psychologist and ended up having a brain MRI due to pains I was experiencing. A fascinating conversation with another NHS Consultant as a result of this, revealed he saw more people from academia than any other industry, particularly in regard to academic bullying.

What has been so strange about all this is how fate has created the situation.

By sheer chance I happened upon the TEFL Worker’s Union page on Facebook where Hugh was mentioned and on the spur of the moment due to all memories and the injustice I had been subjected to, to the point where I was willing to put my life at risk to achieve justice had it not been for the new Vice Chancellor, I decided to accuse Hugh of bullying. His response accusing me of being a teacher who had many complaints against them, another outright lie, which you have disproved. Which I thank you for, since it is my reputation as a teacher I am fighting for ever since that meeting, where my ideas of teaching were not allowed to be heard. You have no idea the anger I controlled when Andrew made the accusations about the students not understanding the language. All lies and the minutes are an excellent record of the totally unprofessional attitude which would not be tolerated in a decent academic environment.

Which brings me to your use of the concept you do not have any responsibility to make a judgement. I’m sorry I have to challenge this, based on the evidence you chose to make a judgement by asking me to take down the site implying you were challenging the evidence presented. Personally, I feel the evidence from the students is quite clear and Hugh and Andrew were using their Emotional Realities which they in no way were able to support by evidence and they walked out when I said I had written evidence from the students contradicting them. Nobody who has read the story can believe anyone would support Hugh and Andrew unless through personally emotional relationship ships and power positions. I find it difficult to accept you are unable to say that on the evidence I have presented it would seem that they were totally wrong both academically and factually. I feel you do have a responsibility to make a judgement since you made the decision to intervene. Just a matter of forming the language which accepts the evidence as presented proves their uncalled-for venomous personal attack on my abilities as a teacher to be unfounded. I am no different from any other teacher, I treasure my reputation and will fight tooth and nail to protect it, particularly when lie after lie is used to attack both my teaching ability and character. Emolinguistics has much to say about the subconscious and the use of language it creates, in this case, “I’m afraid”. What is there to be afraid of?
If you respected me as you say you did then why is it so difficult to accept the written EVIDENCE of the students which totally contradict everything Hugh and Andrew accused me off. Plus, all the other situations where independent witnesses contradicted their lies. Micheal Heller confirming I was not the only one Hugh acted arrogantly towards. The EVIDENCE is overwhelming and you have created the perfect opportunity to act responsibly and put the record straight.

Another twist of fate, I joined a group on Facebook called ‘Research into Language Education’ and had a difference of opinion with someone called Steve Hirschhorn who told me he was the external for the EFL board at the University. This was something which did not exist when I was there as far as I am aware.
He turned out to be another person who runs away having personally insulted someone. A very strange coincidence. Will make a nice story to tell. What is it about the character of some human beings that they find it impossible to agree to disagree and resort to arrogant personal insult and apply the act of belittling someone by implying they are not worthy of their time and attention. 

It has indeed been good we have been able to exchange views and you are right and the website now makes the event a public record. In terms of working on Emolinguistics one of the aspects of this situation is that it is an excellent example of Emotional Reality being in denial of Factual Reality.

Truth comes in two forms, Emotional Reality and Factual Reality, the question at all times and in all situations is which one is closest to Factual Reality.

Truth is a Human right and a responsibility, particularly where desires for justice are concerned.

Best wishes Russ. 

KEN’S RESPONSE:   

Thank you very much for your message, Russ. Once again, and at the risk of repeating myself, I will try to answer the questions you raise. (My knowledge of the final period of the events in question may be affected by the fact that I took unpaid research leave from 2005 to 2007). Yes, we need to seek a resolution to all workplace disputes, particularly where abuse is alleged. We do this, however, not by private websites, but by presenting our concerns to institutions case by case and resolving them in a timely manner by agreement or, if we are still dissatisfied, by the verdict of an industrial tribunal. As I understand it, you followed this norm, closing the case in question twenty years ago by settling with the University, and accepting the compensation that you mention on your website. Your decision, therefore, to revive the dispute on the spur of the moment twenty years after it happened, after a chance encounter with Hugh on the TEFL Workers’ Union page, by means of a website labelled ‘Hugh Dellar the bully’ is not one that I can support, as you already know, though I understand, from your explanation – a resurgence of the suffering you have described – why you did it. I’m glad nevertheless that I have been able in our correspondence to apologise for my ill-advised handling of the meeting in March 2001, and to confirm the respect for you as a teacher that the EFL unit expressed by timetabling you across the provision. In the matter of making judgment on the evidence you present against Hugh and Andrew, as I have already said, my intervention was motivated by and limited to my dismay at the revival of the dispute through your website, and my hope that I could persuade you by correspondence to drop or amend the site. I apologise to you if I gave you any other impression. Adjudication on workplace disputes is the business of professional bodies, not private individuals, and must be carried out as near in time as possible to the events in question. You must have noticed how public arguments in the academic world almost always generate more heat than light, resulting in an entrenchment rather than a moderation of views and never, in my experience, reach a satisfactory resolution. I hope therefore that after this lengthy correspondence with me, you will consider letting matters rest. I wasn’t aware of the medical intervention that you mention. I am very sorry to hear it. The certificates in speaking, writing skills and business English were validated by the University, necessitating the appointment of external examiners to moderate the marks and report to the EFL board. Steve Hirschhorn was one of these examiners. I cannot remember the dates of his tenure. 

Best wishes Ken       

MY RESPONSE:   

Hi Ken, First off, my most sincere apologises for the delay in responding, I have been away on summer holidays and I cut myself off from all social media and correspondence for four weeks every year, unless I am expecting something which is urgent. This also has taken some time to construct as an overall summary of events and thoughts. This will be my last response since we have exhausted all the main points and you have summed up the overall aspects from your side. As for seeking workplace resolutions, like many workplaces I was being set up to be dismissed by Ricki and HR and but for the new vice chancellor who knows what would have happened. I have to say I was not completely satisfied with the compensation. However, for my mental health I needed to resolve the situation.

As for the website it came about as a result of Hugh’s lack of human decency plus the response from the Union. In my first employment as an Apprentice Deck Officer in the Merchant Navy I bullied a new apprentice which I regretted and apologised for and we became good friends. When I reminded Hugh of his bullying he could, as a decent human being, particularly after 20 years, have acknowledged his bullying and expressed regret for his actions and apologised. Even if that was too much, he could at least have accepted someone was still suffering from his actions. No, instead he compounds it by laughing with glee at his apparent turning of the tables, and then making a disgusting attack on my professional ability by again making up yet another lie. As for turning the tables; being paid an almost 6 figure sum of taxpayers money is hardly turning the tables, and I would posit, played a role in the closure of the unit, hence my question regarding the closure. I was not surprised to hear it had closed. So Dellar and Walkley could well be directly responsible for depriving over 15 people of livelihoods. This was my motivation for the website, plus the hypocrisy of the administrators of the TEFL Workers Union. Showing none of the humanity one would expect from Trade Union members and siding with Dellar a non-member against someone who had a valid case and had joined the Union expecting the same level of support they were showing to other workers. The actions of all bullies attempting to belittle and attack the competence of their victims. Bullying is an under-reported aspect of human life, which occurs at all ages and in all areas of life. I went through hell in my last 5 years at the University because an arrogant human being took exception to my existence and to this day, I have no idea what I ever did other than run a highly successful language laboratory, in the same way in which the vast majority of schools, which have one, organise the use of them. A dedicated teacher technician, in my case, 30 odd years. The Union acted in a similar manner to the senior management at the University. Why did certain senior managers treat me as if I had committed a crime? 

As for Dellar being the guru of foreign language learning, he can be faulted in a multitude of ways not least in the meeting, his comments on “being troubled how much was revision and how much was learning”. Revision is part and parcel of the learning process, repetition being the main process of memory retention. In a team of three teachers is it logical, let alone practical, to question one teacher who is doing a revision session? There is also the element of “recycling” language.

His example at the IATEFL conference 2024 of a language laboratory session (I believe it was a dig at myself since I am sure he recognised me, plus mention of Chinese student) and a confused student, was pathetic in its analysis. Missed a perfect teaching point, ‘a group of sounds can have more than one combination of words’. Their belief that students are not confused by the multitude of contracted grammar forms is naïve; to say the least, they are confusing in every language. Writing a book in no way gives another human being the right to go round denigrating the skills of other human beings. 

Furthermore, if you set yourself up as a trainer then you ought to be helping people not destroying them, even more so, if you have never seen the person in action. Having said all that, whilst I was concerned by your first comment on the website, I have to say it has produced a result beyond my expectations, since you have unequivocally shown that his comments regarding complaints against me in his TEFL Union response was a complete fabrication since you confirm no complaints were made against me from your position as manager of the unit. As usual he has displayed his academic cowardice, making derogatory comments about me and then running away and refusing to interact as he did in the meeting when I produced the written survey of the students. He likes to believe he is a very caring and humane human being; however, this is very far from Factual Reality since he is driven by his perverse actions towards those who have in some way or another aroused his highly Emotional ire. Also, I believe he is incapable of accepting he could ever be wrong. His ego, as shown by all his YouTube videos showing him teaching, which can so easily be critiqued, provide ample evidence he is just another average teacher. There are 1000’s of videos produced by teachers of all languages which are far superior and informative about their individual languages than anything Dellar produces, his come across as look at me. After I showed you the cards I received from students, did you ever think to tell him he was totally mistaken about myself as a teacher? No need to answer, since it probably wouldn’t have changed his perspective.

DELLAR AND WALKLEY LITERALLY DESTROYED MY LIFE. 

That is a memory I can never remove from my mind. All it takes is for both of them to sincerely admit they were totally wrong in all aspects and apologise profusely for the website to disappear. There is not a single iota of evidence which either of them can produce to back up their accusations, quite the opposite, all the evidence points towards two liars. My ideas on the use of Language Laboratory teaching have been proved correct, even more so today, since social media is awash with digital language learning applications simulating a LL and AI is probably going to enable my dream from the 70’s of immersing students in a foreign environment and interacting with AI created characters. As I have said on the site, my wife, a highly respected primary school teacher, speaks fluent French, Italian, and is now learning Spanish, is head of foreign languages at her school all without ever having had a single face to face lesson with a teacher. One aspect of learning I find very rarely mentioned is how human memory works and how to stimulate it, plus the importance the role motivation plays. All discussion in EFL seems to be what and how to teach it with no discussion on whether the how is stimulating memory, just as an aside, see the discussions between Geoff Jordan and Hugh and Andrew, someone who has little time for their ideas on learning. Another aspect ignored in EFL is the existing knowledge of language in a learner’s mother tongue experience. The Physical Memory of individuals varies enormously, from a photographic memory to a very poor memory. Repetition plus emotion where just one experience is so emotional it remains in our minds for life. Hence, we are here after 20 odd years. So, my most sincere thanks for being the Ken I remember and also for your apologies regarding the, as you put it, the “ill-advised handling” of the March meeting which goes a long way in confirming the facts as I have presented them, particularly since not a single aspect of the story can be or has been challenged. One aspect not mentioned in all this was David’s highly negative role, the quality and bias of the minutes, (making an emotional judgement as opposed to recording my comments, although when he did in relation to one of his questions, implying I was incapable of understanding English!) and his withholding of Andrew’s emails. 

Hugh and Andrew are two people whose Emotional Realities are in direct contradiction of the written Factual Reality, a classic example of Emolinguistics in action. Do not forget I was not the only person who suffered from Dellar’s actions, Professor Heller put his own experience in writing.

There is nothing difficult about being nice to another human being and all the best companies are successful because the staff are respectful of each other and as such have high EQs. I will be adding another two chapters to the website, our correspondence and Steve Hirschhorn. You might like to inform him in a month or so, since he said he is still in touch with you. I see it as a digital book recounting a story of man’s inhumanity to man. The deliberate destruction of a highly respected EFL teacher who was, at one point in his career, a personal friend of the two people who put EFL on the map, John and Brita Haycraft of International House.

Thank you, thank you for being who you are and your honesty.

Have a great life.

Russ. 

KEN REPLIED TO THIS, DUE TO ME INFORMING HIM I WAS INTENDING TO ADD OUR COMMUNICATION TO THE WEBSITE SINCE IT ADDED INFORMATION TOTALLY DISCREDITING DELLAR’S ACCUSATIONS IN HIS TEFL WORKERS UNION.   

 Thanks very much for your message, Russ. Much appreciated. It would be good if you could let me see the new section on your website that deals with our correspondence before you publish it, so that I have a chance to comment on it to you. I intervened in this matter, so I appreciate that you may wish to make my thoughts known to your readers. But I’m also a little apprehensive about the manner in which our personal correspondence becomes a public document. This is why I asked you in the initial comment that I posted on your website to contact me via my email address rather than continuing our discussion in an open forum. Sometimes I think that we can be overly focused on achieving specific results. Your website aims to produce ‘profuse apologies’ from Hugh and Andrew, but as I have already mentioned, the laying out of your concerns may be an end in itself. Similarly, the aim of our correspondence may have been to arrive at some public positions, but, more importantly to me, I think it achieved, through its personal and exploratory nature, a greater understanding of each other’s actions and views.  

MY REPLY:

Hi Ken, I have given much thought to our dialogue and have decided the best transparent and open decision will be to post our email communication on the site with an introduction and possibly a summary, I will not be posting your full name, as you can see if you go to the site, your initial comment with your full name does not appear. So, if you read through them you will see all. Let people make up their own minds plus you fully exonerate me from Dellar's slanderous lies in the TEFL Workers Union group which was the motivation for the site. Personally, I see little in anything you said which you need to worry about. I believe we were both honest and straightforward and gave a good description of the situation from our points of view. 
Hope this is helpful. 
Russ.  

Ken's response:

 Thanks, Russ. If you don’t mind, I’d still like a chance to see how our dialogue – introduction, summary (if you have one) and email communication – is represented before you publish it on the website. That seems fair to me. One thing: I think the paragraph below should be deleted from my message of 13 May, since it mentions the names of other members of staff, who have not given their permission to be included in a public forum. (Deletion is preferable in this case to using initials.) It is not anyway a paragraph that is relevant to our discussion. To maintain accuracy, you could say: [Paragraph deleted by agreement. Even though it refers to other staff members of the EFL unit in a positive light, it does so without their permission to be included in a public forum.] 

“In my time, I was and am loyal to all the teaching staff, and not a ‘new manager’ with a ‘clique’ promoting a specific idea of teaching, and disrespecting the longer-serving members of the unit and their more traditional pedagogical approaches. I joined the unit in 1987 and was steeped in its history and traditions. I supported MF, for example, and her love of teaching through literature. I encouraged DH, who would certainly have regarded himself as a traditionalist, to continue teaching in the unit after his retirement. I assisted MS in setting up his accredited business modules; Mike remembered this when he was dying and asked a close friend to invite me to attend his funeral, which I did, of course. I made JP the mainstay of our Cambridge Proficiency courses. My deputy, DG, was one of the longest-serving members of the unit. I even broke university rules to keep our old hand PN teaching into his eighties on the summer school! Outside the teaching sphere, I kept PS and EM within the fold, after my appointment, by advocating for their new positions as Blue Badge guide and counsellor respectively. These are not the actions of a new broom, determined to sweep aside the eclectic mix of teaching styles in favour of a ‘clique’.” 

Best Ken 

MY RESPONSE: 

Russell Crew-Gee 

No problem. As for deleting the paragraph I think it needs to remain since it is highly relevant to my "clique" comment. As already mentioned, I leave surnames out. Having just initials for the people in this paragraph retains complete anonymity so I see no problem in keeping it. It is also relevant to my response which makes clear "clique" was not actually aimed at you. It also shows who you are as a human being and in my opinion shows even more the despicable character of Dellar. Someone willing to engage with others to resolve differences as opposed to deliberately initiating character and professional attacks on colleagues. I did not start the hate campaign, the mental rape of another human being. Unfortunately, like so often, human society sides with the powerful and condemns the innocent. All Dellar’s attacks were and are based on Emotional Realities when the Factual Realities of each situation all prove him to be making up lie after lie. All the written evidence is quite clear. 

I have more I can produce. 

E.g.  Dellar turned me, looking at him with a smile on my face to see if he would turn to acknowledge me, as would anyone else have done in normal circumstances, into

"Staring and the silence is very intimidating and somewhat sinister!" 

Particularly difficult concept since he was not looking at me at the time in order not to acknowledge my existence, having seen it was me walking down the stairs. It was an amusing situation in some ways, however he was deliberately breaking your directions to treat colleagues with normal social courtesies. He made this the centre of a complaint he made against me after I had reported him for not observing the University's social rules.

Smiling is sinister????? 

Anyway, obviously I will send you what I intend to place on the site.

All the best,
Russ.     

My conversation with Ken reminded me of other clear evidence of the lying and hypocrisy carried out by Hugh Dellar and his clique, this report of a teacher’s meeting being yet more clear evidence of the paucity of academic pedagogic debate involving all members of staff and no consultation with the students, who I would like to remind readers were all highly intelligent ADULTS who had left their own countries to a foreign country to enhance their knowledge. 

In the Staff meeting on 17^th February 2006 the use of the language Laboratory was raised. It was suggested that students be trained to use the Language Laboratory machines in order that they can then use that knowledge in the self-access centre. It was pointed out Elizabeth  was not capable of training students to use the machines. The use of the Language Laboratory and it’s value for self learning were raised 5 years ago and training sessions were arranged which resulted in an acrimonious meeting where the use of the Language Laboratory was deemed to be unnecessary. The minutes are shown on the page headed ‘The Story’. 

Quote,  Question: “ What is there you can do in a Language Laboratory  that you cannot do in a normal classroom”  

Answer: Hugh Dellar “ Nothing” 

Furthermore Russell Crew-Gee’s teaching was called into question. He was accused of belittling students by encouraging them to listen as many times as necessary to be confident they had captured the correct pronunciation of the sounds they were hearing and from those sounds explore all the possible words the sound might be. Contacting the teacher if they were not satisfied with their interpretation. (See minutes of the 2001 meeting on the story page.)

Those people who were so dismissive of the use of the Language Laboratory are now 5 years on saying students should be trained in the use of the Language Laboratory. As a direct result of the 2001 meeting and I believe pressure from these members of staff I was stopped from taking the 5 lower levels into the Language Laboratory which had been a system which had worked highly successfully for the previous 12 years.  The debate on best practise in the Language Laboratory was never allowed to be aired and no linguistic or pedagogic debate had taken place as to what is the best way to help students to help themselves when using a Tape Recorder or other modern forms of technology. 

It still remains a mystery to me, although I have my suspicions, as to why someone who has been a Teacher Trainer in the Language Laboratory at International House, was the first person at International House, worldwide, to use video with students, and who has over 25 years of Language Laboratory experience and who is the ONLY member of staff at this present moment, to take their class into the Language Laboratory every week in order to enable students to become self-sufficient in analysing their own language learning, is totally ignored as a first resource to use in helping other members of staff to become proficient in the use of the Language Laboratory. 

It was suggested that Barry should be consulted as to how to use the machines. I pointed out that there is more to learning about how the machinery works if students are to use the machines to enhance their linguistic skills. Barry has never taught a single EFL lesson in his life and he will also readily admit that I probably know more about the machines than he does. My expertise is well known, however as far as I recall nothing actually happened. 

This comment from Ken reminded me of the above situation and the destruction of teaching sessions, which were highly regarded by the students, as shown by clear written evidence year after year.  “As for the use of language laboratories, you might remember that I made specific provision for you to train our teaching staff. Take-up was negatively affected, as ever, in my opinion, by a simple fear of technology.” 

Why on earth then did he cancel my sessions in the Language Laboratory? A sop to Dellar and Walkley ? I would like to remind readers they can also see for themselves on every social media site how they are inundated with adverts for language teaching courses of a multitude of languages, using a digital recording system to teach themselves to speak a new language.  

Could it possibly be Dellar loves his own voice so much this has driven his Emotional hatred of any system which could deny him the ability to be worshipped as the authority on second language learning. (Tongue in cheek and a big smile. :-) 

BULLYING COMES IN MANY FORMS, SEXUAL, MENTAL AND PHILOSOPHICALLY AND AT ALL AGES OF HUMAN LIFE.

I WOULD LIKE TO DRAW PEOPLE'S ATTENTION TO THE LEVEL OF DEBATE AND MUTUAL RESPECT FOR EACH OTHERS IDEAS THERE IS IN THIS COMMUNICATION SESSION BETWEEN KEN AND MYSELF AND CONTRAST IT WITH THE SAGA OF STEVE HIRSCHHORN AS OUTLINED ON THE NEXT PAGE AND THE TOTAL LACK OF RESPONSE WHICH IN ANY WAY JUSTIFIES THEIR ATTACKS FROM EITHER DELLAR OR WALKLEY AT ANY TIME BOTH IN THE PAST AND NOW.

IT IS A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF HOW EQ,EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT ASPECT OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE AND HOW THE WORDS OF PAUL WATZLAWICK A PROMINENT PSYCHOLOGIST OUTLINE THE AXIOM WHICH PROVIDES THE ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM UNDERLYING THIS WHOLE EPISODE.

IN ALL HUMAN COMMUNICATIONS THERE ARE TWO ASPECTS, (slightly updated by myself) FACTUAL REALITY AND EMOTIONAL REALITY AND IT IS THE EMOTIONAL REALITY WHICH CONTROLS THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE FACTUAL REALITY.  

WHAT ALSO STANDS OUT FOR ME IS THAT ALTHOUGH I HAVE STATED IT IS NOT A CRITICISM OF THE SENIOR MANAGEMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY, ONE HAS TO WONDER HOW THESE HIGHLY EDUCATED HUMAN BEINGS WERE NOT ABLE TO DISPASSIONATELY ANALYSE THE SITUATION AND ASK TO SEE ALL THE WRITTEN EVIDENCE AVAILABLE. EMOTIONAL LOYALTIES AND INTERPRETATIONS OVERRIDING THEIR INTELLECTUAL ABILITIES.