Job Discussion Forums

[Emmzee]

I have seen quite a lot of discussion about how easy it is to get teaching work in Asia without any qualifications or experience.

I just don't understand how you could do that? I mean, what do you do? How would you even have any idea about what to do in the classroom? Where would you even start? I just can't imagine going to the local school, they offer you some hours, and then.... what now?!!

[Gordon]

This is a good question. Another one is what kind of school hires someone whom they know knows nothing about teaching?

Often a school will have some books that you work through with students or if they are kids, you play games, sing songs, teach simple vocabulary... It really is hit and miss and the teacher often feels guilty knowing the students are paying a lot of money for someone who hasn't got a clue about teaching. This is why many of us here recommend getting a TEFL certificate so you have an idea of what to do in the classroom.

[Glenski]

In defense of some schools, some DO provide training in the techniques that they want you to use. Also, many conversation schools aren't teaching serious English grammar lessons anyway; they provide people with the chance to practice speaking stuff that they may have learned for 6 years in JHS/SHS. Teachers are merely the conduit for facilitating chitchat in some cases.

The OP's point is still valid, yet many people come to Asia with the notion of just showing up in the classroom as a means to fund their outside activities. They know it's not rocket science.

[Roger]

China was the first country in the world where I stumbled upon the oral English phenomenon. I had studied foreign languages in my childhood, and we had no chitchat classes in any lingo; we did, however, have to use our growing competency in the target languages while studying it in discussions with our teachers. It worked, and it worked certainly better than what you will see in China.
Foreign teachers often have enormous communications problems with local students; they complain "he speaks too fast", or "we can't understand him!', while you will no doubt find that "they speak too slowly and haltingly" as well as "I can't understand THEM!"
The Chinese - and I guess other East Asians - grow up in a culture that frowns on individualism including on individual students getting ahead of the rest of their classes. Chinese teachers routinely grade the whole class' performance rather than each student's. They may vary the grades reflecting their likes and dislikes )for behavioral issues, for instance). But their grades seldom accurately reflect an individual student's performance.
This leads to some cultural challenges: how can we make them take the initiative? How can we prompt them into speaking about anything on their own? They prefer the bad old group approach, chorussing, answering a teacher's well-rehearsed questions and answers.
When it gets down to this level in your class, your students will complain "it's not interesting enough!" Your job it would be, depending on who you ask, to "come up with an intersting topic for free talk". Now you can see what a simplistic concept these people subscribe to: you aren't supposed to teach them how to improve their communications acts, but to make them speak faster and more fluently.
In point of fact, an enterprising Chinese borrowed this idea a long time ago. He now is marketing his "Crazy English" throughout the nation, and he has attained star status.
His notions of "oral practice" revolve around SPEED and LOUDNESS. He exhorts his students to "practise good English", which he defines as follows: "Good English is when you speak it fast and loudly!"
That few learners acquire an English that would enable them to effectively communicate with others has escaped everybody.

As a consequence of this unsophisticated approach, a growing number of Chinese feel "foreign teachers are useless!"
Of course, in some cases we are doing no useful job - especially if we pander to the whims of training centres and lazy students or parents who believe they know what's best for their child, and you have to listen to their uneducated input.
In many other cases, however, this perception is merging with traditional xenophobia. Just visit the China Daily website's forums, and see for yourself!