Job Discussion Forums

[igamich]

Dear all,

My name is Iga and I am a postgraduate student at University of Edinburgh. Currently working on my master dissertation I am particularly interested in the situation of non-native English speaking teachers in China who are not Chinese nor speak Chinese (at least at the beginning of their career!).
I would like to know more about their perceptions, situations assuming that many of them face some discriminatory practices in job advertisements or interviews due to their lack of Brisith or American passports or ethnicity. As this is just a master paper, I would like to get a notion of this situation and with my project to contrbute to the understanding of the current image of the ELT world. I would like also to assure that all the private and personal information will not be disclosed and the necessary ethics forms will be provided assuming all necessary confidentiality.
This is very important to me, as I would like to push my project further for some bigger research, I would appreciate any information and contacts.
If you could help me, please write to: [email protected]

Many thanks

Iga

[Denim-Maniac]

Your question is the wrong one IMHO.

Non-native speakers and holders of passports outside of 'the big five' dont face discriminatory practices really. When you are not legally qualified to work and reside in a country with a 'foreign expert certificate', discrimination doesnt really apply. Of course exceptions are made and many non-natives do work in China, but when one of the primary qualification is to be a native speaker and hold a certain passport, you cant cry 'foul' IMO.

A far better question would be to explore the discriminatory practices faced by native speakers and holders of the big five passports according to ethnic origin. Otherwise you are basically asking if people who arent qualified to work in China feel hard done by.

Id like to teach Chinese in England ... not going to happen though. Is it discrimination? No, Im not qualified to teach Chinese in England. Can I do the job though? Yes, I believe I could ... but its certainly not discrimination.

[rtm]

[Javelin of Radiance]

[igamich]

Thank you for all your comments, they are very interesting and inspiring.

I would argue that there ARE discriminatory practices in China. You just need to check for job boards to see 'native speakers only'. There is also an interesting study done by Selvi on that subject (2010). And now comes a question- who is a native speaker actually? In some adverts you can see that the passport from the Centre countries is needed. Sometimes you can get ridiculous demands such as "not a heavy accent", "neutral accent", "only real native speakers" etc. What is the heavy or neutral accent? What does it mean? And now let's take a fluent Scandinavian speaker of English contrasted with an Irish (just an example) with a strong accent. Who would be a better teacher? This issue is tightly connected with the whole theory of 'ownership' of English and intercultural communication and development. And I would like to point out that a teacher who is not a native speaker is a model of an excellent student himself/herself.

I would also argue that in Europe it is widely acceptable to show 'native speaker' demand.
There are two documents by TESOL about discriminatory practices.
http://nnest.asu.edu/articles/TESOL_Statement[1].pdf
http://www.tesol.org/docs/pdf/5889.pdf?sfvrsn=2
And as far as I know, some of the ads, at least at TESOL jobs board, are deleted when showing some NEST vs. NNEST preferences.
This is English, the most popular lingua franca and the vast majority of students will not use it to communicate with native speakers only. They will use it for the international communication so what's the point of perfecting your accent to, let's say, American or British standard (and now distinguish if you mean accent from London, Manchester, New Castle or Glasgow!) when you can work in a environment with Indian people? or with people using Malay English?

The point about native speakers who face discriminatory practices due to ther ethnicity is another, very vast topic and issue to be researched in different studies. My study is just a master thesis, I will stick to my idea as I think it is pertinent and important for the ELT world. I think I will also indicate the issue of ethnicity but rather as a point to be studied further.

Thank you once again for this discussion

[choudoufu]

be careful. you seem to be going into this project with your
own biases. you've already determined/assumed that there
is discrimination, and have decided that discrimination is a bad
thing. you're likely to discriminatorially use only references that
support your thesis, disregarding any opposing viewpoints.

"no heavy accents" is a ridiculous demand? that be silly! you
ever try to have a conversation with a "native-speaker" from
india or coober peedy or kentucky?

[spiral78]

[igamich]

Ah no, I think I expressed myself in a bad way then.
Of course I can't claim that situation is like this or like that. There is never a clear cut and of course I cannot generalise, that's true. The thing is that I am not going to prove anything in my study. I just want to get a notion of the situation. Thus, whatever responses I get I am going to talk about them. Actually I think that contradictory answers to my own private assumptions would be interesting and I would like gladly present them. It is a study about people's views and opinions, I am not going to select these which suit my own ideology because that is not the purpose.

And again, my bad about 'heavy accents'. Maybe not ridiculous but interesting how people perceive these things. What does it mean to have a heavy accent? Or neutral? 'no accent' ?
From my own private perspective as an English student I had some listening activities with speakers with heavy accents. It was quite difficult and demanding but on the other hand much helping later on with understanding others. And, yeah, I have had conversations with people with strong Indian accents, or Scottish accents. Interesting experience actually.
So, when there's someone with a too heavy accent from Scotland let's say, then as a teacher would you be willing to hire an English teacher from Finland with fluent, 'non-accented' (there is always kind of an accent!) English?

[spiral78]

From the perspective of a sometime teacher trainer, we have occasionally not certified native speakers with strong accents outside of the (wide) range of standard. I can recall one individual from small-town Louisiana (US) and a Kiwi who were both nearly incomprehensible to the entire team of trainers, and to the students. This happens rarely in my experience, but I think it would be unfair to unleash such speakers on unsuspecting students.

Again, I've worked for over a decade with a mixture of native and non-native teachers - both bring strengths to the process. I currently have an open position at a European university, and am considering applications from both natives and non-natives, given that all have a legal right to work in my sphere and the right qualifications.

But I'm not in China.

[choudoufu]

[Zhejiang_Man]

Proposal:-

Definition of a native English speaker (NS); anyone who has undergone at least 10 years of full time education in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia or New Zealand.

New category - native speaker equivalent (NSE); any person who can achieve an IELTS score of 8 or 9.

Definition of a non-native English speaker (NNS); all other speakers of English.

The (overwhelmingly) primary cause of discrimination within the EFL industry is physical appearance. There is an abundance of anecdotal evidence on internet forums that native English speaking black Americans and native English speaking Americans of Asian appearance are discriminated against just as much as, for example, English speaking Filipinos, Kenyans and Indians.

Indeed, a check of current employment ads for Thailand (the school year is just beginning) and China will reveal many examples of discrimination against native speaking Caucasians aged above 40; which I am also certain is appearance related.

[igamich]

Thank you for your reply.

I would argue that there is such a thing as law in China that when you want a foreign language teacher, you need to hire a native speaker.
Here you go, I found nothing about that:
http://www.china-tesol.com/How_to_get_a_Job/SAFEA_Guide/_1_SAFEA_2002/_1_safea_2002.html

Besides, I know a university in China which clearly states they employ non-native speakers of English who are not Chinese. I doubt such a university would risk breaching the law.

That's true that saying 'native-speaker only' might be done in order to obtain a teacher with so-called 'good' accent. But then it's a vicious circle, because they might get a teacher with such a strong accent that it will not work actuall at all.

[spiral78]

[doogsville]

I think the 'native speakers only' rule makes sense. Of course, it shuts out those people whose English is very good but who come from the 'wrong' country, but if China opened the gates to anyone with a piece of paper that said they could speak English then I think the situation would get out of hand. I also recognise there are people from native speaking countries whose English is quite poor, I've taught some of them, but you have to have some kind of rule of guideline.

[igamich]

I would not say it is a good rule and just. I am not claiming that anyone with the paper that he or she speaks English should be enabled to work. But the point is that in China, being so-called 'native speaker' is more valued than one's experience or even qualifications. This, in turn, is not good for the future students of such teachers. Barratt and Kontra (2000) report very interesting studies, in which students (and NNS teachers from China) actually complain about that situation and discuss that being just a native speaker is not necessarily equal with being a good teacher.