Job Discussion Forums

[Brian Caulfield]

These students actually are more fluent than the students that stay in China, but they have a hard time passing the Chinese exams here. They don't get the grammar they need in the communicative classrooms in the west. I noticed this in Korea. I could talk freely with the students who had been abroad , but they confessed that they were not doing well on their English exams in Korea.
It is normal that they will seek out other Chinese to socialize with. The psychs call it the comfort zone. I think this is the biggest hurdle we have here is that the Chinese system really makes the students too comfortable. A good English teacher here only provides translations and tries to teach the students to talk and not listen. Don't make them uncomfortable or they will complain. Feed them and feed them the answers. Have you noticed how they are not tested on things like definite and indefinite articles? This is because the Chinese English teacher doesn't understand it either. It's not on the test so don't teach it is their philosophy.

[Fiskadoro]

Once taught a girl who had done her A-Levels and undergrad degree in the UK, and was going back to do an MSc - so, to be fair, she was a maths/science student, but still her English wasn't that good at all.

Being from Guangzhou, she half-jokingly said that her Mandarin had improved more than her English in England, due to hanging out with other Chinese students all the time.

[BTSskytrain]

[Fiskadoro]

I don't have a B.Ed. I do have a DELTA and an MA in Applied Linguistics. Please tell me if I am a professional teacher or not.

[eslstudies]

The above examples are very clearcut. This isn't the case with teaching. University lecturers in many countries only require qualifications in their field of expertise, and not teaching. You can generally work in an English college without a teaching degree, but will need tertiary qualifications in App Ling/TESOL.
Most TEFLers in China would fall into the categories of lecturers, trainers, instructors and language assistants: all of those in many cases! "Laoshi" in China is used very loosely to describe everyone from a department head with a Ph.D to a library assistant, so should not be taken too literally.

However, back home, to teach school kids in the [roughly] 5-18 age group you'll need a minimum B.Ed, or another degree plus a PGCE as a base qualification, not to mention other professional add-ons, in order to become registered.


I think the OP's thread title refers to the fact that it is this latter group - and specifically those with experience in ESL in a secondary school setting - that would be most likely to provide knowledgeable replies to his query. That's why I got involved in the discussion.

[powderfinger303]

The problem with the jobs mentioned above is that they all take many years (often 4 or more) of hard work/study in fields that are both competitive and demanding. A B.Ed on the other hand can be done in some places, in Ontario Canada for example, in 1 year. Not very demanding is it? On top of this, as you know from having done them, education courses are not renown for being highly demanding. I also know this because I too am a teacher with a B.Ed and I would never, ever, compare my education classes to my math, science, or humanities courses. Take a look at some of the other professions that require 1 year of training and lets see if you want to be lumped together with them. As any other teacher will probably tell you, they learned most of what they know while in the classroom, and not at school�even though they likely referred to their studies and theory.

Having said that though, and having taught both back home and in several countries in Asia doing ESL, teaching back home is a totally different ballgame than ESL in Asia and teachers who believe that their years of experience here means that they could (without any further experience or training) do a teacher�s job back home are misguided. Even International schools, which often ask for applicants to have a minimum of 2 years experience, will often not count years of language school or local public school work experience from Asian countries.

People should also be wary of falling into the trap of assuming that extra or higher degrees make for better teaching. I�m sure many of us have had the experience of taking classes with a PhD and thought them to be poor teachers. The same of course can be the case with highly educated ESL teachers.

Maybe distinctions can be made between teacher, professionally trained teacher, and certified teacher.

[arioch36]

ESL

[eslstudies]

The worst example I saw was in a university ELICOS centre. The students had a cafeteria, but the mainland Chinese took themselves off at lunchtime to an empty classroom and shut the door. They had to be banned from doing this!
On the other hand, adult migrants in another place were all wonderful. Africans, Latinos, Asians, Middle Easterners all mixed brilliantly both in and out of class. I guess being migrants, the importance of becoming as English competent as possible, and mixing as much as possible, made sense to them. Students, both high school and college age, don't have this understanding.

[Duboshi]

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

Good post duboshi. BTS skytrain is way off the mark in his posts.

Some people are born teachers, just like others are born leaders. Certificates on the wall don't always determine the best individual for a profession.

BTW, as a side note, the Minister of Education in my home province back in the 1990s was a high school dropout. But he was also a successful businessman and self-made millionaire.

[mike w]

Several years ago, when I was DoE in a language mill, I had the pleasure of working with possibly the best oral English teacher I have ever come across in China. His qualification? He was an ex-US army paramedic.
I also had the misfortune to work with possibly the worst of the worst. His qualifications? B.Ed and MA in linguistics (and an ego bigger than the Great Wall)

The difference between them? One could relate to his students, and the other couldn't. Do I need to tell you which?

Qualifications do not necessarily make a good teacher.

[Duboshi]

An 'unqualified' teacher might ask himself, "How can I be a great teacher? What can I do.?" A qualified teacher might say, "I'm a great teacher. It says so here on this piece of paper. I don't need to improve." Someone who accepts that he knows little is not only willing to learn, but also willing to actually look at what needs to be done. Someone who thinks he knows everything already, indeed, knows nothing.

Many people might have different definitions for what it is that makes a great teacher. I don't know myself what that is. All I can do is try to espouse those qualities I would look for in a teacher. My list would include some of the following things: 1. Ability to reach the students (helpful if one takes the time to understand the students and can relate to them - some humility might be required on that front.) 2.Appreciation of the fact that one is merely a guide. A teacher cannot do the learning for the students. 3. Ability to awaken and inspire, as this increases students' potential for learning. It also heightens the respect and admiration students have for the teacher, which in turn tends to make them more attentive. 4. Ability to adapt at all times to changing needs and circumstances. 5. Willingness to always try new things and abandon things that don't work well. (My way is not the perfect way - I can always learn something from other teachers, including high school dropouts. All of my students are also my teachers - I am blessed with many teachers. 6. Ability to connect new knowledge to students' existing knowledge. 7. Ability to increase the value of what needs to be learned.

That's a good start. I'm sure the good posters here could add hundreds of other things to this list, but everyone has their own priority as well as strengths.

And thanks to poster above for compliment. I am usually ready to read insults pointed at me for posting anything.

[Molson]

[Duboshi]

I was trying to offend anyone. Again don't take everything so seriously. I like to draw pictures of extremes in order to better quantify the gray areas. It's wonderful that you got yourself a certificate that states that you completed a B.Ed. program, especially if you did give you a good foundation and guidance. I am, however, in agreement with a great number of other people who would say that there are an infinite number of ways to get that foundation and guidance. It is not always necessary to get it from one source, one that has it's own idea put forward as to what constitutes the ideal way to educate. There are thousands of different ways to teach and millions of people using those methods. A B.Ed. program might introduce you to a few a those. Those few methods are considered the best by those offering the programs. I am heartened to see someone who is continually improving, as I believe that it is a necessity of human nature to do just that. It, in my mind, at least equates to survival of the species.
Again, please, I beg of you, accept my most humble apologies for that which was not intended. I sincerely hope you can forgive me for my misstep. Sometimes, my foot wanders where my mind didn't intend to go (my hands do that, too, sometimes.) Alas, I am not perfect and always have room for improvement.

One might argue that people aren't perfect. If that is so, we would also need to accept that anything created by man is not perfect, and this would include the B.Ed. It is my opinion, which I hold and am free to hold and express, that a B.Ed. is a reward of a student who believes that what he/she is studying is of value to him or her. This student, furthermore, is being taught by teachers (I sure hope they have Beds themselves) who believe it is of value. There are a whole lot of other people that believe that it offers a lesser value to them.

I see an ad that says, "Urgently needed - qualified teachers - must have blue eyes". Wouldn't you know it - I am a qualified teacher now, at least to someone. I might even get someone to attest to the fact that my eyes are blue and put it in writing. Now, I am not only qualified, but also certified. Whether or not I am effective teacher is still another matter.

[JGC458]

Some thoughts:

I think the OP should have known better than to write a post that could easily alienate/offend many of the members on here. To me it seems clear that an experienced, unqualified teacher could have a lot to say about the situation the OP experienced.

Currently this thread seems be questioning whether elitists ("We're better than you coz we've got this piece of paper") are better than pragmatists ("We're better than you coz we can do the job"). Thing is, this is China. Here you don't need that piece of paper, and you don't need to be able to do the job. If you're breathing, awake, and can speak better English than any of the students, that's all that matters most of the time. So why is what China wants, being compared to what the West wants?

I think there are 4 basic types of teachers:
- qualified
- unqualified
- good
- bad
If you could be only 1 of those types, which would you be?
Only if you could have 2 types would you choose qualified.

In China, a good teacher doesn't need to be qualified.
In the West, a good teacher does need to be qualified.

Oversimplifications? At this time of night, I don't think so