Job Discussion Forums

[naturegirl321]

HOw important do you think teaching qualifications are?

Many jobs simply require you to be a native speaker and have a TEFL Certificate.

In America, if you want to teach at a kindergarten you need to have a BEd in Early Childhood. If you want to teach in a primary school you need a BEd in Primary Ed. If you want to teach in a secondary school you need a BEd in Secondary Ed and a concentration in the area which you want to teach. For University jobs you will most likely need a MA and some experience working in the field that you are teaching. I'm not really sure about language schools.

Why should teaching English be different? Just because you can balance a check book doesn't mean that you can be an accountant. Just becuase you can change a light bulb doesn't make you an electirician. In America many people speak Spanish as a first language and aren't teachers because they haven't studied how to teach.

Do you think schools should require a degree in Education or in the subject that you are teaching? I think it would get rid of the backpackers image and make teaching English more professional. But I'm sure a lot of fake degrees would surface.

Some people have a gift for teaching. I've meet people with Master's of Ed who can't teach. My music teacher in middle school comes to mind. And I've meet people with no BA or TEFL Cert who are good teachers.

I, for one, hope that someday language schools and schools that hire English teachers have higher standards. BUt I hope that they wait until I go back to school and get an MA or PGCE.

I love teaching, I teach kindergarten at an English school. NOt a school that teaches English, but an English school. Everything except Chinese and math are in English. I couldn't do this in the States, because I didn't study teaching.

[Atlas]

It's a pertinent question. Teachers should, after all, have something of value to impart, and should know something about the profession!

If the schools I worked for (Shanghai) required these credentials they would be desperate to fill a lot of slots.

Furthermore, frankly it would sometimes be waste of the teacher's qualification (and hard-earned education). In my private training center, the levels of English I see are usually rudimentary. I believe a more important quality the teacher should possess is good grammar, not nec. imparted by higher learning. In my vocational college, after 7 years of English study, the majority (in my classes 80%) of students are still quite helpless to express anything beyond "I am student, I study, I by bike go to school," and in fact don't listen to 99% of what the teacher says anyway!

Naturegirl, I think your job is secure!

[Wolf]

Properly teaching EFL isn't all that different from other, similar teaching jobs.

Formal training/certification is a good idea even for those with natural teaching talent. There are also people who don't have much aptitude for teaching no matter how much they study, but that's another issue.

Many privately owned EFL schools are only interested in making a fast buck at the expense of their students and staff. In brief, they play upon the ignorance of the students ("foreinger" + bum in seat = instant English without any of that icky studying or learning for yourself or anything), the ignrance of the techers (uh, sure that's a good salry. And, um, you have to give me your passport because, um, of the "give me your passport" law. Yeah. He'll buy that. Heh heh heh, sucker. Oh, wait, I said that out loud... .)

From what I can gather, many governments seem profoundly indifferent to how effective their EFL classes really are.

Because the quality of education doesn't seem to be high on the list of priorities for the consumer (or the government), the current state of affairs has been allowed to flourish.

[Cleopatra]

In the Gulf countries, all EFL teachers in educational institutes have to have an MA in Applied Linguistics of TESOL. I've heard that unis in some countries require EFL teachers to have PhDs!

All this just to teach the Present Perfect Continuous!


While I do think some qualification is neccessary - een for the 'natural born teachers' - I think other things, such as personality, a feel for language (which no degree can give you) and rapport with your students are at least as important.

[Roger]

I think the backpackers and amateur teachers don't care about the intermediate to long-term impact of their presence on the English of their learners; with a degree they would likely show some loyalty to their employer and their students and see what happens thanks to their guidance. You just wouldn't see so many disappear after a couple of months in one place!

[struelle]

[august03]

I have a degree (business), no teaching qualifications, and at present only 4 months experience - should I be allowed to teach - shit yeah!

Why, because I enjoy it, because the school where I teach is a different place with 3 foreign teachers walking the grounds. None of us have formal teaching qualifications but that doesn't mean we do a terrible job, inflicting long-term damage onto these kids. Quite the opposite in fact: their eyes brighten up when they see us; they enjoy our unusual classes (no repetition and chanting here); they like that we are young enough to have fun with them, in and outside of class; we teach them to think for themselves; and most of all they love learning. No Masters or PhD can give you that, and sure I'm not going to be here forever, but who gives a rat's ass, they're having and we're having a good time now.

I see more damage being inflicted by the local Chinese English teachers trying to teach them English, the pronunciation is most often wrong, their teaching style is stiff and standardised, and it's all Chinglish here in China, it's not correct English, it's more of a strange version they believe is correct and we can't tell them otherwise, no, no, no, even if they aren’t fluent and have never been to an English speaking country, let alone out of their own Province.

Enthusiasm should be the number one qualification for teaching English, with that everything else will follow.

[Glenski]

[nomadic]

I've been somewhat hesitant to leap into this sort of discussion, but I feel not doing so simply let's a (small?) minority of us appear even smaller!

I do not have an undergraduate degree, nor any experience teaching english, but I'm adamant that I can do a very, very good job in this profession. My lack of a degree is just that - a lack of formal recognition in a course of study. It does not imply that I'm uneducated or, more to the point, less informed than my degree-bearing counterparts when it comes to grammar, teaching methodology, creative ideas, etc.

It would indeed be nice if there were some metric by which to measure one's overall ability to teach, but the simple fact of the matter is that there isn't, so why not be less cynical and give people the benefit of the doubt? The way I see it, if you're willing to tackle the difficulties of China so that you can be a teacher, surely you've got at least some desire to make a difference. And, even if not, and you're merely a 'backpacker' travelling through, well, at the very least you may have some interesting experiences to share.

Contrast this with back home - and I'm purposely choosing a particularly bad example! - where in Massachusetts several years back, a test was given to weed out unqualified teachers for public schools. This was a basic skills test, geared to an 8th grade level of competency, and 59% failed!

Now, to switch gears slightly, I feel exposure to different teachers is a good thing - sure, it'd be nice for any particular group of students to keep an exceptional teacher, but a greater good seems to be accomplished if that teacher's abilities are spread out over various groups of kids. Then they learn how they like to learn, and can apply that in the future, no?

Best wishes,
- nomadic

[august03]

Glenski

[Glenski]

[Mike_2003]

Doesn't having a degree prove you are a good student rather than a good teacher?

[Atlas]

Enthusiasm--the component sorely lacking in my own school and uni experience. I remember being taught everything except how to enjoy learning and doing.

University (etc) qualifications in no way guarantee quality, and lacking them in no way reflects lack of intelligence or capability--or more importantly, motivation and goals.

It's nice to have the papers, it makes the way a lot smoother; but these papers didn't give me what I had before I returned to college: a professional attitude, and even competence. I'm just sorry I was so quick to believe that I hadn't been qualified or legitimate before I had them. I was as good as any of my peers, but wasn't allowed to believe it.

"Qualifications" can't make you believe in yourself.

All sorts of professions are full of people who invalidate "amateurs" at every turn, citing so-called rules of the game and threatening ridicule for the newbies who break them again and again. Here's a thought: you don't have to be good or right to succeed. But you do have to have a measure of audacity, such as the type which brought you abroad in the first place!

Again:
Yes, there are incompetent backpackers out there; but credentials are no guarantee of quality!

[Glenski]

Yes, yes, I agree that some unqualified people teach better than qualified people. You're preaching to the choir here. People don't often realize that my own background is not in education.

I also agree that (following the same logic) having a degree doesn't necessarily make one a good/better teacher. I have met and replaced my share of degreed people who couldn't teach their way out of a paper bag.

But, doesn't it just make sense that there are more good teachers out there that ARE qualified than those who have no qualifications? I mean, those who went in for the teaching credentials generally have some desire/enthusiasm/intent/goal to be in the game primarily in order to teach. In my opinion, you just can't say that for the majority of unqualified people. They are usually in the game (in my experience) primarily for a variety of reasons other than teaching:

travel and sightseeing
absorbing the culture
meeting members of the opposite sex
funding their overseas party attitudes
paying off student loans
escaping a career back home that is somehow failing them

Having qualifications means SOMEthing, doesn't it (to paraphrase august)?

[denise]

Honestly, I am getting a wee bit tired of some of the credentials-bashing that has been going on in recent threads. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly that simply having a degree, or having the right degree, does not make one a good teacher. There are certainly other factors to consider: empathy, patience, general people skills, an ability to cope in a foreign environment, etc., etc., etc. If I had to choose between two job candidates, both of whom had all these traits but only one of whom had a degree (be it a BA, MA, TESOL, Chemistry, Peace Studies, Wine Making, etc.), I'd go for the degreed person. Why? Because, to me, having completed some sort of education indicates a) a degree of intellectual maturity, and b) a connection to/respect for/understanding of educational environments.

Of course, if the non-degreed person had all of the other skills while the degreed person was a social misfit, I would overlook the lack of formal education.

Believe me, not all degreed people have lost their ability to have fun with students. Going through years of schooling does not necessarily make one into a robot. I never do drill & repeat exercises, and my professors might go so far as to revoke my degree if I did!

d