Job Discussion Forums

[PlayadelSoul]

If a person has a good level and a decent personality, you can make him/her into a good teacher. The rest of it is fluff. I have had more than a few highly qualified native speakers pass through the door. Some of them know it all, but don't get results. They are so consumed by their qualifications that their students go unnoticed. Hire enough of them, and you might as well shut the doors. There are also highly qualified native speakers who realize that their students are their number 1 priority. Hire enough of them, and you can start building new classrooms.

[MO39]

Another way to consider this question is to ask yourself, "Would I want to learn Spanish from a non-native speaker whose command of Spanish is adequate but nowhere near native quality in terms of accent and knowledge of the nuances of the language?"

[PlayadelSoul]

As teachers, we give our students the tools. How sharp they get doesn't really depend so much on us, but rather how much they are exposed to the language in their lives. If a student reads, listens and speaks English on a regular basis, they are going to improve. Who gave them the tools doesn't really matter.

[ls650]

[gordogringo]

[gordogringo]

[ls650]

[gordogringo]

[M@tt]

well this thread has quickly strayed from its promising title.
i still feel like it depends on the teacher. no point in closing off the option of hiring a great teacher due to their NS/NNS status.
since most NS teachers expect to be paid more, economics will be the final deciding factor.

i quit reading some of the posts due to bad mechanics (heard about the space bar? first invented to separate words, it has now been cleared for use after punctuation marks).
several of the statements were too ridiculous to merit response, and you are certainly the first person any of us has heard refer to tennessee as a western state. i guesss florida is also the west, being west of maine and all.

[Like a Rolling Stone]

[Perpetual Traveller]

Nope, I'm an Aussie, we don't do that 'fewer' thang!

PT

[some waygug-in]

Whether or not we as teachers have an accent, we do have a responsibility to expose our students to different accents at some point. I'm not saying you should do it at a begginner level, but you should do it sometime.

I can recall my time in Mexico, I was giving private tutorials to a manager of a large company. He had studied English for years, but his listening skills were very weak.

One day, during our lesson he received a phone call from America and someone with a very thick Texas drawl was speaking to him. (I believe this guy was his boss)
He turned to me almost in tears because he couldn't understand anything the guy was saying. I had to try and "translate" for him and in subsequent lessons I tried to find listening examples that would help him.

You have to keep in mind why your students are learning English and who they will be trying to communicate with.


Regarding the original topic, of course it depends upon the individuals involved. I do feel that Native Speakers can learn the local culture and learn to empathize with their students, but this takes time and it really depends which culture ........ I have been in Korea for 4 years and I still feel quite helpless with some classes. Not that I don't know what should be done and I do try to accomplish those things, but the way schools are operated here ..........I feel my hands are tied most of the time and much of what I do feels like wasted effort. I think that students who don't want to learn should not be forced to sit in classrooms hour after hour with a foreign teacher. They would be far better served to study with a Korean teacher until such time as they show some desire to learn and are willing to put forth at least a minimal amount of effort.

Why? Because they listen to the Korean teacher, they won't listen to me.

They see classes with a foreign teacher as a chance to "screw around" and there is very little that I can do to change that attitude.

They have to decide for themselves if and when they really want to learn English and until that happens they are just wasting theirs, mine and everyone else's time.

And I am not just talking about kids here either. I have had quite a few adult students who have had no real desire to learn. They are doing it because they are told they have to.........to get a better job etc, but they really don't want to learn.


Sorry for the whine and I didn't bring any cheese to go with it.

I do miss the teaching in Mexico. At least I felt like I was really teaching there.

[FreddyM]

Well, I had an interesting experience a couple of weeks ago. Part of my job is to do an English speaking assessment with an interview for a couple of grade levels (this is elementary we're talking about). Fair enough, I started the individual assessments...and then a couple of days later one of the parents comes in to complain to the school because her child could not understand the person who interviewed him, and claimed that the teacher did not know any English. Hmm...I get called into the coordinator's office, meet the mom in question (although at the time I did not know what I was being called in for). Without really explaining anything to me, the coordinator asks me to relate my background to this parent, in English. Okay, so I tell her my educational background and we're I've lived (graduate degree from the U.S. and almost 30 yrs living in the U.S.) in a relaxed manner. I then had a lovely conversation with her about the purpose of the interviews, the way they were conducted, etc. It was only later that I learned why she was there...which made me wonder, what on earth she could have been thinking? She thought she'd find a teacher that knew very little English and ends up talking to the only native speaker in the primary school.
I talked to the coordinator later, and it was an odd conversation. The kids are not used to hearing native speakers, and although I don't have a thick accent or anything, the manner of speech does sound much different than than other English teachers on campus, most speak with a thick Mexican accent. It almost felt like he was criticizing me for *being* a native English speaker, this despite the politics of the school that they want to increase the proficiency level of the students and expose them to more authentic English.

I'm working on acquiring a legitimate chilango accent so I can blend in more with everybody else. This whole native speaker business is not all it's supposed to be.

[Polly0607]

I understand Freddy. I�m a native speaker with a Masters in Education, trying to find my place in this business where there are more non-native speakers.

I was treated well by the others as a newcomer, but as soon as they seen me climbing the ladder and saw the administrators consulting me on curriculum issues, everything changed.

I am now basically treated like the devil who has come to ruin all their lives. I am quite tired of it and have decided to throw in the towel at the end of December. You can only bang your head against the wall so long.

[M@tt]

that happens between mexicans too, don't feel bad.