Job Discussion Forums

[spycatcher reincarnated]

These are higher scores than a caucasian NES not lower scores.

My logic is that they might find it harder to get work so might be more in to the school that has employed them. However, as I said this is just an example of how a school could think.

I realize what I have written may be regarded as highly controversial and am not planning to defend what I have written on this occasion. It was just "food for thought".

[Snaff]

^ I understand.

I wasn't referring to you, but the industry as a whole.

[spycatcher reincarnated]

Here is more food for thought:

Suppose a school has Caucasian NES's and Non Caucasian NES's as teachers and the Non Caucasian NES's caused the school many issues because of student complaints and lower reenrollment rates.

It is obvious to the school that Non Caucasian NES's are worth less to them than Caucasian NES's.

They deicde that the teacher competence that is most important to them is having the ability to keep students reenrolling.

The school could:

Reduce the salary of the Non Caucasian NES's
Not employ anymore Non Caucasian NES's

If the schools did either of the above they would run the risk of appearing racist.

They decide to change their remuneration policy. From now on the policy is:

No salaries are paid to anyone
Bonuses are paid to teachers solely based on the number of students that they get to reenrol
This policy applies to all

The result of this is that Non Caucasian NES's get paid less than Caucasian NES's.

Is this policy racist?

[Snaff]

[Le Snak]

Again.... I think the point is being missed.

Granted the general Vietnamese public have misguided impressions of what a good Enligh teacher might look like, but this is were the schools need to play the active role.

Presume you walk into a Japenese restuarant, order your meal, and dine away. At the end of your meal, you want to meet the chief who cooked the magnificient feast. To your suprise, the gentleman who walks out from the kitchen is a caucasian. He explains that he grew up in Japan and learnt the art of cooking at a young age.......

So what is your reaction?.. Do you dismiss the food because he is a caucasian, and you think the food is not authentic Japanese, and do you tell your friends that this is not a worthy restuarant?.... Or do you appreciate the meal even more, due to the adversity and uniqueness of the feat.

The schools need to lead the way. Only the schools and staff (including Caucasian Staff) can reverse these ignorant attitudes. You cannot justify the rascist views by hiding behind wallets.

You say that it's business, but the schools are in the business of education. Education goes beyond grammer and spelling....

As caucasian english teachers, does it feel right to know that guy in the next room, teaching the same syllabus, having gone through the same education, receives half your pay?...

Now, try to convince me that it is not due to ignorant views/attitudes....

[spycatcher reincarnated]

I wish to start this by saying am not racist in any way and I do not condone what happened to you. I also admit that I have taken this thread off in another direction, but I do feel that remuneration policies are misunderstood and ill thought out and this is a chance for me to get a few people thinking about it a bit more.

Reading your first posting on this thread seems unfair at first sight, but I want to dig a little further.

In your first posting you never mention competencies apart from the reference to your education.

You don�t seem to think it is racist that a foreigner and a Vietnamese are paid hugely different rates. However, when you are offered the Vietnamese rate you suddenly think it is racism against you. Even after this you are still moaning about your situation and still don�t seem to realize that the whole remuneration scale of the school is racist against Vietnamese, unless it can be justified through competencies.

I don�t see many people on this site complaining they are paid more than Vietnamese and this is really the racism issue here, unless, as I have said earlier, it can be justified through competencies.

P.S. I did send you a private message about a week ago where I was a lot less agressive. Not sure if you have read it?

[junkmail]

spycatcher reincarnated, you make some very good points especially about Vietnamese being payed much less.
I think therefore the question is, what are the schools paying for? If it's for a native speaker then race shouldn't come into it. If it's for English language ability and teaching ability then nationality shouldn't even enter into it. If it's purely for image then I guess it makes a shallow kind of sense.

[Le Snak]

mmmmmm....... Spycatcher....


The point is that I have lived in Austrlia my whole life. Did 6 years of high school, 4 years of University... I'm practically as Australian as any fellow Caucasian Australian.

When I walk into this Enlish school, holding an Australian Passport (exactly the same as the Caucasian fellow next to me), I would expect to get treated the same as him.

So when this lady tells me: we can only offer you a local Vietnamese position; despite being equally as qualified, despite having good pronunciation, despite meeting all their educational requirements... it gets me mad.

The only difference between him and I, is skin colour....

It gets me mad, that I'm not asessed according to my ability rather my apperance. I agree, should a local Vietnamese have sufficient ability, then they should also get paid a fair wage.

The issue is not that the vietnamese get paid too low (granted they do), but rather the fact that you and I would get paid differently, just becuase your white and I'm not.

The Vietnamese do get paid low wages, but that's a local wage issue. Your a Foriegner, so am I.

So once again, tell me why it is fair that there is wage disparity between you and I?....

[spycatcher reincarnated]

Sorry to have a go at you and not answer your question, but I was enjoying this thread and didn�t want to respond directly to your questions as I thought it might kill the thread.

I am not sure if anything here will answer any of your questions, but here is more of a brain dump.

This is the private email I sent you a few days ago:

�Unfortunately this happens in Vietnam a lot. The only positive thing I can say is that the position is slowly improving. Ten years ago most schools would have shied away from employing a foreigner who was bald as they deemed that the students would react negatively to this, and they did! Now, this is no longer the case and I believe it can now even be a positive.

I believe one should always try and consider the other party's reasoning when one is unhappy with a decision. In my opinion if an employer has thought it out it could be something like this:

If I employ a person of Asian appearance to teach a class that I advertise as being taught be a foreigner, even if the teacher is qualified and are a good teacher, I will almost certainly receive: complaints from students, students asking to change the teacher, students asking to move to another class, a reduced number of the students reenrolling for the next course, and are also less likely to receive positive recommendations from those students.

Looking at it like this an employer could try and justify their policy/decisions on a commercial basis and say that it isn't a racist decision. The customer is king!!

Saying this, however, I do believe the time has come foreign owned schools here to take the moral high ground. They are in education they should employ whoever is best qualified for the position and if this person is of Asian appearance they are then educating the students that the teacher being of Asian appearance is a non issue.

IMHO there are very few schools in HCM City that take this view. They may say the do, but how many do in reality?

It is not just people of Asian appearance that are discriminated against it is also disabled people, people not dressed as a teacher should be dressed, v.v.

I understand your situation is difficult to accept, but I assure you the situation is slowly getting better here.

I know one school here that promise to their students that they will have a native English speaker. They have an internal definition (not published for the outside world to see at the moment), but it is something like this:
A person whose level of English is that of an educated native English speaker in always, including: written, spoken, listening, reading and pronunciation.

They do employ people of Asian appearance as native English speakers as long as they fit their internal definition and they are itching to employ a Vietnamese national/passport holder who fits the above description. They realize that when this day comes they will get a lot of student backlash, but regard it as part of the whole education process and say that they are here to teach culture and not just language.

NB; they already get the backlash that I described above in the third paragraph.

Unfortunately I can�t divulge the name of this school as this information is officially confidential, but wish you the best with your job search.�


Since then I have written this, but not posted it:

Ideally a school should assess the candidate�s competencies and see how these match that of the school. Unfortunately it appears that with some schools give too much weighting on the second and third competencies that I gave in my example.

Schools may be broken down as follows:

1) philanthropic, non profit making, externally sponsored
2) financially oriented, but also aim to contribute to society
3) in it for the money only

Ideally all schools should give less/no weighting to competencies 2 and 3, but in reality if school 3) is only here for the money I can�t see them in a hurry to do this, so the responsibility falls on schools 1) and 2) to lead the way on this one.

Schools could also be broken down as follows:

4) established with a good reputation
5) new / low quality / living hand to mouth /other

It should also be noted that a school that has no reputation is largely selling their teacher, whereas a school that has a good reputation is primarily selling their reputation and prestige, and the teacher is a considerably smaller part of the package they are selling. This makes it easier for them to explain and convince the students that complain when they don�t have a Caucasian teacher that this is in fact a non issue.

Schools 4) should be leading the way here.

As more and more schools do this, this should become more palatable to their customers and the �appearance factor� that is incorporated in competencies 2 and 3 should reduce.

Food for thought

I have seen people complaining about racism and discrimination on this site, but I don�t see them complaining that their salaries are usually higher than Vietnamese nationals even though their own overall competencies may be lower than that of Vietnamese nationals.

Many native English speakers seem to think that the only competence necessary to justify having higher remuneration than Vietnamese nationals is competence 1). I believe many think this as this is the competence that they have and Vietnamese lack.

I believe that in some ways this is as bad as just focusing on competencies 2) and 3) which many people regard as discrimination.

Still not sure if this answers any of your questions, but have to dash out now and will reread your posting later.

[Snaff]

....

[spycatcher reincarnated]

A lot worse things used to be the norm in the West so I don't see this culture as being any more "crude and abusive" than ours. I just see them as being behind the times in some ways.

We are here to teach English. With English comes culture, but I also believe we have to be careful not to impose our Western beliefs too much.

There are many things that we consider to be correct today which when we look back on in 20 years' time will think of them as being wrong.

[Gluestick]

So does anyone actually know someone that is Vietnamese but born in an English speaking country and is also teaching in Vietnam for a non-Vietnamese teacher wage?

[spycatcher reincarnated]

I know people of Vietnamese ethnicity:

that left Vietnam when they were very young, have a foreign passport, speak virtually no Vietnamese and are being regarded as foreigners and are thus paid the same salary.

that really are Vietnamese and have never left Vietnam who because they have the three required compencies: speak excellent English, are very good treachers, and also speak Vietnamese, who earn on average over 15 usd per hour. In fact up to 50 usd per hour.

[Snaff]

....

[deessell2]

I would like to approach this from a different perspective. I worked in Hanoi for two years at Language Link. During my time there the school employed two people that were not "caucasion looking". There were never any complaints from any students that I am aware of.

Also I myself have used the supplimentary activity from the ESL Cookbook, on this site, about Choose the new ESL teacher. In this activity (from memory) there is one candidate who was originally born in China but has near native proficiency. This candidate always ranked high in my students choices. They selected her because of her knowledge of the subject she was teaching and she had a PHD. Vietnamese students are very impressed with educational achievements. This lead to a discussion on non caucasion teachers. All students felt that it was not a problem. The students that I taught were mostly university students or working professionals.

I personally think that the schools attitude reflects their own prejudices and it doesn't sound like a good place to work. Also maybe things are a bit different in Saigon. It's a little more "bling".