Job Discussion Forums

[blueberrymango]

Seems like a lot of the job listings I'm seeing now are for online teaching.

Those of you teaching in foreign countries, do you think that online teaching will replace a large portion of in-person foreign language teaching jobs? Do you see it happening currently?

As a language learner myself, I'd highly prefer attending classes with a native speaking teacher right in front of me, rather than on a screen.

[scot47]

Not sure
I AM sure that the "native-speaker" hype is just that. Hype. Give me someone who knows how to teach and forget what her/his mother tongue is.

[blueberrymango]

[Kowloon]

Agree with Scot. Don't think the online teacher wave will come to pass, but I do think that the Native trend in each country is always doomed to die off a bit. I was in Korea 09/10 which was the peak for TEFL visas being issues (around 20,000 I think), it's now less than half that and has been going down every year. Same happened in Japan, will happen in China eventually. Perhaps Indonesia will take over for a while before the same occurs there.

The market/parents/the media/whoever eventually become aware of the issues and the 'profession' eats itself. There will always be decent jobs about for those with qualifications and experience, but the days of the academy gig with free flights, a nice apartment and a livable wage are numbered for the 'just a BA' types.

[blueberrymango]

[Kowloon]

That would be the vision of a lot of education depts. of various governments I imagine, but I doubt it will happen that way!

Why have a native speaker in the first place? As native speakers we start from 'why not have one', but turn the question round. Surely a competent user of the language who can also converse with students in their L1 is the ideal teacher? Particularly in 'proper' school settings where loads of kids will never reach proficiency, and for whom socialization, life long learning skills, behavior management etc. is way more important than practicing the first conditional (or trig, or learning about the Crusades etc.)

As narratives around inclusion start to influence more education systems people will rightly question why so much money is spent on programmes that help so few students. The reality is, it's almost pre-determined. Those from middle class families and above, who have access to tutors, Western media and home education resources, have English speaking parents, and are encouraged to succeed will become accomplished speakers of English regardless of their exposure to natives. Those who do not, won't.

I think of people like my wife, her colleagues, my Uni professors, my colleagues. All of whom have great English and never learned from a native speaker.

*all of the comments above apply only to programmes in Government Schools in countries where people all speak the same L1. If you have a class where students do not share an L1 you've struck gold and a Native speaker is ideal.

[bograt]

[voyagerksa]

Rote learning and bad pronunciation are the main reasons for NET's. Also foreign speakers don't understand tenses

[nomad soul]

Sure, but what does any of this have to do with the OP's assertion that there are more online teaching postings than before?

[Kowloon]

[nomad soul]

[eldryan]

Online is worse than in-person. But, too many in-person teachers suck. So, there is a market for online teachers who want to make a decent salary, while living in a different place.

Native speakers definitely better than non-native, and shouldn't be a discussion. How can you learn legitimate English from someone who can barely speak well enough to give a class?

It's like learning Trig from a high school student. Sure, they may have studied pre-calculus, but they shouldn't be teaching trig.

[spiral78]

[kev20]

In China the local teachers generally decline to the level of their best students over the first few years of teaching. Some of the older teachers are awful at speaking. The best speakers of English I've met invariably don't teach it.

The public school set-up with foreign teachers is a complete joke to be honest. Access to foreign teacher classes should be restricted to the best students and they should be seeing that teacher a few times a week, in an ideal world.

Some of the regulations in China are also making it very difficult for small English schools to hire native speakers. They need a license which is very difficult to get and usually involves brown envelopes or knowing someone who can help. Most of these places are hiring non-natives instead, illegally on travel visas, as people from Eastern Europe are more willing to accept the risk that comes with that. Native speakers will look elsewhere (online for example). I think I read China has a shortage of one million foreign English teachers. With the difficulty in hiring legally, I'm not surprised more are going online.

[RedLightning]

The native vs proficient non-native argument can go on and on, but if I were learning Chinese I'd feel much more comfortable (and confident with my results) if I were taught by a Chinese person rather than Steve the white guy who 'speaks excellent Chinese'

As to online teaching, I suspect the majority of these employers are those who have very few resources and/or are purely profit driven