Job Discussion Forums

[guatetaliana]

Wow, interesting thread. Two comments:

1) I taught for several years in the US. There, as well as here in Mexico, I was most definitely responsible for all aspects of my teaching, including entering grades. It would be supremely unprofessional to expect someone else to enter grades into a computer after all that I put into getting those grades out of the students. Plus, many teachers find it easiest to maintain their own ongoing computer records of grades, so entering them for the institute's official system is the easiest part of the process. In summary, expecting teachers to do their own grade-entering seems like a natural part of the process, and certainly not specific to Mexico!

2) Despite the fact that I possess a bachelor's degree in education, a TEFL certificate, a US passport, and native English and Spanish fluency, I have come to the conclusion that my Mexican husband (whose entire university training is in medicine!) is a much better English teacher than I am. I do not agree that a native-speaker TEFLer is automatically a more in-demand and more employable teacher than a Mexican teacher. jillford gave an excellent take on this phenomenon.

My husband learned English minimally in secundaria, and then spent 15 years in the US learning English by rapid immersion at high school, college, and on the job. He understands by experience the challenges faced by adult English-language learners from Mexico, yet has attained a near-native fluency, in-depth understanding of pronunciation, and an unbelievable familiarity with the cultural nuances and regional usage of English in the US. On top of this, he has gained conversational ability in several popular European languages (Italian, German, French), which makes him very successful at explaining grammar structures to those students who are coming to English as a third or fourth language (quite common in Monterrey at least, for some reason). Not only this, but he's just plain gifted as a teacher.

He is not unique - there are three or four other Mexican citizens with similar experience at his institute, and they are the most in-demand teachers onsite, more than the native-speaking TEFLers who come through.

Just something to think about before we all assume that being certified and a native speaker makes us the most in-demand English teachers in the republic.

[Prof.Gringo]

It seems that in Mexico and Latin America for that matter, education just isn't the priority that it is in other countries/cultures. That extends to ESL as well. At one time I looked into going to Asia to teach. The salaries that I saw in places like Thailand or Vietnam seemed to compare favorable to Mexico and those countries have much smaller populations, lower GDP and personal incomes. Yet, in those places, they pay more.

It's nice to be a professional and get paid a professional salary. It's also nice to be treated as a professional and in Mexico all too often that is not the case.

Mexico just isn't the cream of the ESL world. Because it's near the USA and Canada it does seem to have a steady stream of TEFL teachers from those countries. That helps to keep the market supplied with native speakers as well as from other places a bit more distant.

And Yes, I think that native speakers should get paid better. Many if not most local ESL teachers just can't cut it. There are exceptions, but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

[Phil_K]

[PlayadelSoul]

I pay my teachers based on merit. Be they native speakers or not, if they do more than the bare minimum and their students show progress, they will earn more. Paying someone more, simply based on the language spoken in the country of their birth shouldn't have a thing to do with it. Results are the bottom line. If you are a native speaker and your students don't learn, why should I pay you more than the minimum?

[Phil_K]

I agree with PlayaDelSoul about paying on merit, and I have employed certain Mexican teachers, simply because I want the best teachers, and I have worked with them and I know how good they are, but I stand by what I say about supply and demand. If I know a native is good and that's what the client wants, then I have to pay the going rate. That is why schools should be more demanding in their selection policy. Many just give a simple English teat - or nothing at all. Personally, I rarely employ strangers. i.e. I employ people I know will deliver results.

[Dragonlady]

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[jfurgers]