|
Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
YakTamer
Joined: 29 Mar 2004
Posts: 86
Location: Warszawa, Polska
|
 Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:20 am Post subject: Re: Respect |
 |
|
| cwc wrote: |
The occupations seen by the fewest people as having very great prestige were: real-estate brokers (6%), stockbrokers (11%), business executives (11%), actors (12%), union leaders (12%) and journalists (12%).
|
From those figures, I'm guessing that at least 6% of those polled were real-estate brokers. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Chancellor
Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 1337
Location: Ji'an, China - if you're willing to send me cigars, I accept donations :)
|
| Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 1:05 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Gregor wrote: |
MOD EDIT
I don't know what those of you who don't think of yourself as a real teacher actually do in class, but if I describe my job honestly to the man-on-the-street pretty much anywhere in America, I would likely get MORE respect than a public school teacher would. I've been a student in American grammar and high schools and university. I know what teachers have to deal with. It's pretty similar to my job, plus the fact that I'm a foreigner, and I'm peacefully spreading a pertty significant portion of my culture to other places and doing it in such a way as to have the people I am teaching glad that I'm doing it.
The OP very much pertains to me, and I appreciate reading it.
MOD EDIT |
I wonder if what some of these posters are trying to say is that unless you're teaching in an American, Canadian or European public school some subject other than English as a foreign language you're not a "real" teacher? Is that like saying those who teach Spanish or French as a foreign language in American schools aren't "real" teachers? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
|
| Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 5:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
In US public high schools, ESL teachers and their students are lumped in, not the Foreign Langauges Dept, where they should be, but together with Special Education (Special Ed). At staff meetings - "English Dept, over here, Foreign Languages, you gather over here, ESL and Special Ed, over there..." The teachers get the same pay but there is a perception in the US that only immigrants and refugees study English there, and I encountered occasional snobbishness from 'regular' English teachers. "Oh! You teach...them..."
It really ticked me off, but people who think that way won't think differently until they're put into a situation where they're the foreigner. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
|
| Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 3:12 am Post subject: Closed- and open-mindedness |
|
|
| rusmeister wrote: |
| It really ticked me off, but people who think that way won't think differently until they're put into a situation where they're the foreigner. |
I think that that's pretty unlikely. People with such prejudicial attitudes would never knowingly want to put themselves in that situation because they delude themselves into believing that they are "superior" merely because they are fortunate in being from a land where the English language happens to be the language of education, whether it is the (or "an") official language of the country or not.
I can barely imagine some - and I mean "some" - teachers, having been through the state system for 30 years or more, wanting to go out to teach in other countries - until and unless they are very enthusiastic about the world outside their own backyard. I have encountered some former teachers who are officially retired but have come to China to pursue something new and experience what it is like here rather than just read and hear about it. Such open-mindedness obviously helps.
Unfortunately, you will always get the few who never leave their neck of the woods and think that they know everything... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gregor
Joined: 06 Jan 2005
Posts: 842
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
|
| Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 6:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
rusmeister wrote:
| Quote: |
| The teachers get the same pay but there is a perception in the US that only immigrants and refugees study English there, and I encountered occasional snobbishness from 'regular' English teachers. "Oh! You teach...them..." |
I never encountered that. I've also never taught ESL at a public school - in California, they are still just tossing the immigrant students into the native speaker classes and hoping for the best. Some do fine - the younger ones. Most don't.
In Oregon, parents who can afford it hire a private ESL tutor, and the Department of Education in that state it aware of the problem and they're at least talking about what they can do to change the system for the ESL students.
In any case, I always ran into a good deal of respect - at least from individuals - when they found out what I did for a living.
Institutionalized disrespect may be rampant, but until they change the regulations regarding qualifications, I neither can nor want to work in a public school. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 8:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Gregor wrote: |
I never encountered that. I've also never taught ESL at a public school - in California, they are still just tossing the immigrant students into the native speaker classes and hoping for the best. Some do fine - the younger ones. Most don't.
In Oregon, parents who can afford it hire a private ESL tutor, and the Department of Education in that state it aware of the problem and they're at least talking about what they can do to change the system for the ESL students.
In any case, I always ran into a good deal of respect - at least from individuals - when they found out what I did for a living.
Institutionalized disrespect may be rampant, but until they change the regulations regarding qualifications, I neither can nor want to work in a public school. |
Of course you didn't encounter it if you haven't taught in public school - that is where most non-English speaking students, who in the US ARE immigrants and refugees, go. Most of them can afford neither tutors nor private schools. I taught in California, and I can assure you that many public schools have ESL classes, the rest run bilingual programs, and the only kids thrown into native speaker classes are ones with some competency in English, even if poor competency, they know something. The states have standard language assessments. Not very good ones by the standards of any experienced overseas ESL teacher, but most states use them to classify students as beginning or intermediate ESL, or 'SDAIE" classes. I was ESL department head at my school. I had to know what they are doing there.
There will be no changes to requirements except to add more and more.
And there will be nothing more than talk (and expenditures doing nothing for students, but putting lots of money into administrative pockets) about changing the system to make it better for ESL students. Haven't you read (John Taylor) Gatto?
Gatto's quite right on most points, but I think only someone who has seen what we teachers who have been on the inside have seen, and then left could acknowledge any truth in what he says. The end run is that public schools need to be eliminated as such and replaced with small, completely local, completely non-government schools. That's a threat to all PS teachers and administrators' jobs, so they will reject Gatto out of hand, as will parents who need PS for a babysitter. I wouldn't believe him if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
khmerhit
Joined: 31 May 2003
Posts: 1874
Location: Reverse Culture Shock Unit
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 12:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I was gratifed to see that self-important journos are near the bottom of the list; I don't believe they should be ranked quite so low, but I'm glad to see them there, along with actors... if yu catch my drift.
Polls are useful but they are not very scientific, so I don't see why you are taking this so seriously! Besides, is it really sound to defer to the great unwashed in matters like education---I mean, reason tells us that teachers are important, nuff said, perhaps. But what are the implications of a trend that shows teachers (in general) to be rising in the esteem of their fellow citizens? Discuss.
Interestingly, we telephone pollsters are not included in the list.
No respect!! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 3:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
| rusmeister wrote: |
In US public high schools, ESL teachers and their students are lumped in, not the Foreign Langauges Dept, where they should be, but together with Special Education (Special Ed). At staff meetings - "English Dept, over here, Foreign Languages, you gather over here, ESL and Special Ed, over there..." The teachers get the same pay but there is a perception in the US that only immigrants and refugees study English there, and I encountered occasional snobbishness from 'regular' English teachers. "Oh! You teach...them..."
It really ticked me off, but people who think that way won't think differently until they're put into a situation where they're the foreigner. |
1. Most of us are properly described as EFL teachers because we are not in the US or Canada, but are overseas.
2. Everybody respects a German teacher in Canada who came from Germany, even moreso than the guy who majored in German at university and then got a B.Ed and started teaching the language. But not the ESL teacher. Why? Because the other teachers think they already know everything that we teach them. They respect each other for their disciplines because deep down they are sure that the other teacher knows more about that subject than they do (unless they are teaching the same subject). And also because...
3. IMO A big part of why so many people seem to not respect ESL/EFL teachers is because the credentials to doso vary so widely and so many people who 'teach' have none whatsoever, except maybe a weekend or month long certificate in which they were to busy to actually absorb any information and didn't learn the kind of thing that many of the students really feel they need to learn from their teachers- pronounciation (phonetics and phonemes) and grammar (prescriptive with elements of descriptive).
3. The fact that US educators see teaching English to people who need to know it as teaching 'them' says a lot about what needs to change in peoples' attitudes in the US, not about teaching ESL- something that people need to know being taught to those people who need to know it.
One solution would be to change 'foreign language' departments to 'language departments' (as it is in Canada because French is not a foreign language- although that often doesn't include ESL either).
It takes a year to learn how to teach French through a B.ed programme in Ontario, after you are already fluent in the language. It also takes a year to learn to teach ESL through a university TESL certificate in the same province. Why does it only take a month elsewhere? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gregor
Joined: 06 Jan 2005
Posts: 842
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:23 am Post subject: |
|
|
I am never going to understand why so many people - a lot of those here in this forum, but also out in the real world - put so much stress on formal teacher education. That is almost irrelevant to the job of teaching. Teaching - the actual job that needs to be done, day to day - should NEVER have required more than a trade qualification and then evaluation to see that the teacher is connecting to the students. I don't know how a university education got attached to teaching jobs in the first place. That has to have been a political decision. Or maybe coming from an earlier time when it was assumed that anyone who KNOWS something can teach it, so that if a teacher knows a LOT of stuff, he or she can TEACH a lot of stuff.
Oh, I suppose it sets a good example for the kids, but so does self-education. Showing students that the teacher is intelligent and aware of the changing world around him is not the product of a formal university program, and in fact has, more than once, STIFLED such awareness, which makes for a POOR teacher.
Almost every one of us here, or at least those of us with a couple years' experience, knows full well that education has almost no connection to the quality of a teacher's class. I had a guy with an MA in TESOL who I would have sacked had he not done a runner the very day I planned to do it, and on the other end of the scale, one of the best teachers I have ever had, one I would hire again without hesitation, had no training whatsoever. He was able to take his understanding of the subject and his own human empathy and that combination made him a wonder. His students really learned a lot from him.
And as a student myself, some of the best music teachers I had were experienced but formally uneducated musicians. Self-taught guys who taught me to think for myself. Guys who taught me long enough to make sure I understood how to find further education on my own. In other words, to paraphrase the old saying, taught me how to fish rather than hand me a fish.
Again, this has nothing to do with education. All a prospective teacher needs to learn is some techniques, perhaps different points of view about teaching, and some naming of the parts (difference, say, between a participle and a gerund, for example). Then watch them teach and see if they've got the empathy it takes to relate to the students.
Hell, an over-educated ego is almost a stereotype of the worst kind of teacher.
I'll never understand this formal education thing. An experienced teacher with minimal requirements and some strong references beats the hell out of a master's degree any day, in my opinion. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 6:07 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Gregor wrote: |
| I am never going to understand why so many people - a lot of those here in this forum, but also out in the real world - put so much stress on formal teacher education. That is almost irrelevant to the job of teaching. Teaching - the actual job that needs to be done, day to day - should NEVER have required more than a trade qualification and then evaluation to see that the teacher is connecting to the students. I don't know how a university education got attached to teaching jobs in the first place. That has to have been a political decision. |
A trade qualification to teach is one year at a university or college. Where I'm from, it's the same if you want to teach elementary school, high school, ESL, ECE (Early Chilhood Education), Artist in the Community (Piano Teacher, Visual Arts teacher etc) or to do a bunch of other things beside teaching (Corporate Communications, Marketing, HR, Administration, Publishing, Desktop Publishing etc etc etc). The qulification to get into those programmes is a (relevant) university degree. The competition on the GPA and required related experience varies according to how many people apply to get in.
A university degree is nothing except proof that someone knows how to think. In the past, the jobs available to someone with a high school education are now available only with a BA. The jobs available in the past with a BA are quickly becoming available only to people with a BA and a university/college certificate or, increasingly, an MA. It probably comes just due to competition.
| Gregor wrote: |
Or maybe coming from an earlier time when it was assumed that anyone who KNOWS something can teach it, so that if a teacher knows a LOT of stuff, he or she can TEACH a lot of stuff.
. |
Part of the problem with attitudes of others concerning teaching ESL/EFL is that this attitude continues. It's used by 40hour certificates in TESOL in Canada as a way to drive customers in "Anybody who can speak English, can teach it". If that were actually true, then anybody could teach any language they spoke. But if you ask people who speak Polish, for example, they are likely to tell you "Oh, it's too hard, don't even bother." without being able to explain why it's too hard. I'm not saying that teaching English is particularly hard, but consider that in order to teach/be a lecterer for a university first year introduction to Linguistics or any other First year Introduction course for a subject not convered in high school, you normally need a PhD in the subject. People are being taught how to read IPA (although there is a description of basically how to do it at the front of most dictionaries) by people with PhD's in Phonemic Structures. You need a PhD to teach Japanese, but first year Japanese starts off by learning how to write hiragana just like learning how to write the alphabet in grade 1 or kindergarten.
I agree that formal education doesn't mean that you are good at the job, It just means that you have education in it. Sometimes people with good intentions just start off by getting training in an area totally unsuited for them. People who are primarily concerned with knoweldge and not with imparting it, should not be teachers, but people who are primarly concerned with knowledge are the ones who often get into the teacher's colleges because their grades are very high. Then they burn out after a couple of years, because giving classes and taking them are not the same thing at all. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Chancellor
Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 1337
Location: Ji'an, China - if you're willing to send me cigars, I accept donations :)
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 1:05 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| GambateBingBangBOOM wrote: |
| Gregor wrote: |
| I am never going to understand why so many people - a lot of those here in this forum, but also out in the real world - put so much stress on formal teacher education. That is almost irrelevant to the job of teaching. Teaching - the actual job that needs to be done, day to day - should NEVER have required more than a trade qualification and then evaluation to see that the teacher is connecting to the students. I don't know how a university education got attached to teaching jobs in the first place. That has to have been a political decision. |
A trade qualification to teach is one year at a university or college. Where I'm from, it's the same if you want to teach elementary school, high school, ESL, ECE (Early Chilhood Education), Artist in the Community (Piano Teacher, Visual Arts teacher etc) or to do a bunch of other things beside teaching (Corporate Communications, Marketing, HR, Administration, Publishing, Desktop Publishing etc etc etc). The qulification to get into those programmes is a (relevant) university degree. The competition on the GPA and required related experience varies according to how many people apply to get in.
A university degree is nothing except proof that someone knows how to think. In the past, the jobs available to someone with a high school education are now available only with a BA. The jobs available in the past with a BA are quickly becoming available only to people with a BA and a university/college certificate or, increasingly, an MA. It probably comes just due to competition.
| Gregor wrote: |
Or maybe coming from an earlier time when it was assumed that anyone who KNOWS something can teach it, so that if a teacher knows a LOT of stuff, he or she can TEACH a lot of stuff.
. |
Part of the problem with attitudes of others concerning teaching ESL/EFL is that this attitude continues. It's used by 40hour certificates in TESOL in Canada as a way to drive customers in "Anybody who can speak English, can teach it". If that were actually true, then anybody could teach any language they spoke. But if you ask people who speak Polish, for example, they are likely to tell you "Oh, it's too hard, don't even bother." without being able to explain why it's too hard. I'm not saying that teaching English is particularly hard, but consider that in order to teach/be a lecterer for a university first year introduction to Linguistics or any other First year Introduction course for a subject not convered in high school, you normally need a PhD in the subject. People are being taught how to read IPA (although there is a description of basically how to do it at the front of most dictionaries) by people with PhD's in Phonemic Structures. You need a PhD to teach Japanese, but first year Japanese starts off by learning how to write hiragana just like learning how to write the alphabet in grade 1 or kindergarten.
I agree that formal education doesn't mean that you are good at the job, It just means that you have education in it. Sometimes people with good intentions just start off by getting training in an area totally unsuited for them. People who are primarily concerned with knoweldge and not with imparting it, should not be teachers, but people who are primarly concerned with knowledge are the ones who often get into the teacher's colleges because their grades are very high. Then they burn out after a couple of years, because giving classes and taking them are not the same thing at all. |
Having a lot of "book learning" doesn't mean one necessarily has much common sense or that one can necessarily think well beyond the confines of academia. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
denise
Joined: 23 Apr 2003
Posts: 3419
Location: finally home-ish
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 1:16 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Agreed, but "book learning" and degrees also do not necessarily imply a lack of common sense or classroom know-how! Whether degrees and qualifications are just little bits of paper or actual representations of acquired knowledge that can be transferred into skill depends on the person, NOT on the degree.
It seems like discussions on the value of degrees and qualifications use extremes as examples--people who have BAs/MAs/PhDs/TEFL certificates/ publications/etc..., but can't teach and have no rapport with their students vs. people who haven't set foot in a classroom (as students) in years and don't want to but were somehow born with "the gift" of teaching.
I'd bet most of us fall somewhere in the middle. I do have a few little bits of paper, but from the feedback I've gotten, I'm also a decent teacher. All of those years of studying didn't make me unapproachable, unable to establish rapport with students, etc.
d |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 3:06 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| A university degree is nothing except proof that someone knows how to think. |
I think we've talked about this concept here on this board before. I wish it were true. I think it should be true. But I know it actually isn't true.
Some people use, refine, polish, and even acquire thinking skills while doing their degrees. Some, regrettably, do not. And I've never seen a university yet where thinking skills are one hundred percent necessary in order to get a degree. There are a whole lot of degree holders out there who are as dumb as road gravel. A lot of smart degree holders, too, but it's not proof, if you see what I mean.
I prefer for teachers I hire to have a degree. It tells me that they are at least somewhat serious about their own education, which increases the odds that they'll take education in general seriously. It shows me that they can stick to something that isn't easy. The ability to make a 3 to 5 year commitment to a goal, and achieve it, is a sign of many things that are positive. It also increases the odds of having refined, sophisticated language skills.
But it doesn't prove anything. Certainly not that you can think.
Just as not having a degree doesn't prove anything either.
All in all, I come down in favour of all education- degree, trade school, professional training, and informal, non-traditional studies.
But the link between having a degree and thinking ability is, to me, offensively elitist. And unprovable. But it's not a link that I personally have seen much evidence for...
Best,
Justin |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Chancellor
Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 1337
Location: Ji'an, China - if you're willing to send me cigars, I accept donations :)
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:12 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| denise wrote: |
Agreed, but "book learning" and degrees also do not necessarily imply a lack of common sense or classroom know-how! Whether degrees and qualifications are just little bits of paper or actual representations of acquired knowledge that can be transferred into skill depends on the person, NOT on the degree.
It seems like discussions on the value of degrees and qualifications use extremes as examples--people who have BAs/MAs/PhDs/TEFL certificates/ publications/etc..., but can't teach and have no rapport with their students vs. people who haven't set foot in a classroom (as students) in years and don't want to but were somehow born with "the gift" of teaching.
I'd bet most of us fall somewhere in the middle. I do have a few little bits of paper, but from the feedback I've gotten, I'm also a decent teacher. All of those years of studying didn't make me unapproachable, unable to establish rapport with students, etc.
d |
Well, I was thinking more along the lines of acquiring knowledge about something through formal education ("book learning") vs. acquiring the skills through other means, e.g. work experience. As for "the gift" of teaching, a natural talent for teaching might improve one's potential for success in that field but the field still, to an extent, requires one to acquire at least some knowledge of teaching (whether through formal education or through experience, such as being part of an employer's national training cadre or teaching specific skills such as photocopier repair), and a lot of subject matter knowledge.
Classroom "know-how" is not necessarily real world "know-how." |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Craig!
Joined: 23 Jan 2005
Posts: 202
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 1:09 am Post subject: |
|
|
This could be useful info, in a classroom discussion on jobs - 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' But, we must be sensitive not to embarass the students whose parents are workers or farmers, nor downplay their importance.
" Teachers best regarded in China: survey
Teachers are the most respected group of people in China, followed by scientists, doctors, soldiers, policemen, public servants, engineers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, farmers, athletes, artists, correspondents and workers, a national survey has found...."
from People' Daily On-line, Sept. 10, 2004. if you can believe it.
http://english.people.com.cn/200409/10/eng20040910_156641.html |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
