Job Discussion Forums

[Curtinca]

[Mutronik]

[Curtinca]

Old saying: When you ASSUME something, you just make an ASS out of U and ME.

Beware of sweeping generalizations about countries you have never visited, let alone lived in. What Mutronik says above is like saying "I just assumed that all Chinese living in Guangdong speak Cantonese and everyone else speaks Mandarin."

Many university-educated Canadians are bilingual, the francophones (French-speakers) more so than the anglophones (English-speakers), which is what happens when your mother tongue is a "minority language" (like Welsh). The current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, speaks both languages without a trace of "the other" accent.

[Mutronik]

Ah don't be ridiculous. Making assumptions is how humans function. And going off my experiences with French speaking Canadians, they all had a noticeable accent and it was clear that English wasn't their first language. I'm sure there are French speaking Canadians that are fully bilingual too. But in the context of this thread, with the possibility of China dropping 2 countries from the native speakers list, it's worth bringing up for comparison.

[Curtinca]

Perhaps the real problem is designating an entire country as English-speaking or non-English-speaking. Surely the criterion should be an individual's mother tongue. Consider, for instance, the absurdity of disqualifying the child of two English-speaking Brits or Americans who happened to have been born in, say, China, where the parents were missionaries.

The question they ask in the Canadian census is "What language did you first speak and understand?"

[jimpellow]

A possible solution would be to require that an applicant submit scores from a testing service such as IELTS proving native speaker ability. Of course, that would place further expense and effort upon the applicant, although that does not apparently concern them in the least as shown with the recent requirement changes.

It does seem though that they are concerned about the accent too.

[RiverMystic]

[wangdaning]

[asiannationmc]

come on .. it is quite normal on Dave's to bash nations and nationalities. Usually it is the Chinese, but ever once and a while someone varies from the party line. Perhaps it is the Wumao's revenge which is like Montezuma's revenge but more verbal.... .

[rioux]

I haven't heard anything about South Africans not being accepted. Just a few moments ago I received an email about this position and there was no mention about South Africans being accepted.
http://www.findworkabroad.com/direct-employers/122?t=107

On a lighter and perhaps stranger note:
I saw a video of a Chinese female university student interviewing a guy from South Africa in what looked like to be in a park. She asked him where he was from and he told her "South Africa". At the end of the talk she asked him that since he was from South Africa then why wasn't he black.

[bagua8]

[max71081]

[Hatcher]

Not sure about the details here in China but in Korea, the recruiters needed teachers in the country side... they had lists... in other words, the easiest ones to get... to go to the country side, NZers were tops... then South Africans... Irish after that.

When changes took place in SA, they had white flight... when the Irish economy fell, they arrived by the plane loads in Korea...

In the KSA, South Africans are not considered natives because many are among the 90% whom arent native. But the natives including some from Botswana take a much lower salary.

I do wish Canadians were added to the list since 20% are French.

[Non Sequitur]

[creeper1]

Any of this matter at all?

I'm sure we all have colleagues from Europe and elsewhere that are not native speakers yet have the same jobs (and presumably the correct paperwork)that we do.