Job Discussion Forums

[eslstudies]

This has come up before, and is a current issue on another thread, but I think it deserves its own.

Anyone who's worked in China for some time knows:

a] There are teachers of Non English Speaking Background [NESB: get used to it] holding down jobs in China. Often the fact that they are NESB is only discernible to a native speaker. Let's face it, the homeys can't tell a Long Islander from a Falkland Islander, and they're not alone there. Generally, their command of grammar and their ability to empathise with their students craps all over many native speakers.

b] There are true bilingual, or even native English speaker, teachers, be they from The Philipines, India, Africa etc who have "an accent", or a skin colour that makes finding employment much harder than for an unemployed white trash talking twentyish dropout, who only finished high school because they wanted to get rid of him/her.

Meanwhile, in Australia I've worked in reputable Australian language schools where a degree, post grad TESOL and experience are compulsory. The number of NESB teachers has been in the 40-60% range. If anything they're favored over the homeys. Most don't speak two languages, but three or more.

So my question is, has China actually got it wrong? Could it be that Russian guy with a masters in App. Ling. might be a better hire than the pimply faced kid who insists that "alot" is one word? And, should this realisation sink in, where does that leave tens of, to maybe hundreds of, thousands [who knows the true figure?] of unqualified, don't know, don't care native English speaker teachers?

[clark.w.griswald]

I guess that the answer to this question lies in the reason that foreign teachers are employed in the first place.

If indeed we are employed to be teachers of grammar and we don't need to be fluent in the language but just have a good knowledge of it then perhaps there is a role for NESB foreign teachers. My question here would be why employ a Russian (or any other foreign nationality) in this case and not just employ a local Chinese?

It seems clear to me that whether we agree with it or not the role of most foreign teachers is oral English practice, and as was pointed out to me on another thread, writing. I believe that generally speaking a native speaker can do both of these things better than a NESB.

Of course there are some exceptions, but the answer to weeding out these exceptions seems to me to be regulation, not the introduction of NESB teachers from other countries.

[Shan-Shan]

Having better regulations to weed out eslstudies' toliet bowl "homeys" would certainly improve the situation here. There are a number of FTs in China who do not possess any TESL ability -- be it through formal training or experience -- yet still manage to find jobs (as dismal as such jobs likely are) and depress the market.

But I still feel that a qualified (that is, someone with a substantial amount of training/experience in TESL) native speaker will always have a greater attraction for students than eslstudies' "nesb". Chinese students want to hear "English" brought to them from an English environment -- English fresh in the cage, a live kill.

The Russian lives in a linguistically Russian environment. In the students' eyes and ears, he/she may very well be perceived as only possessing the type of "English" the English speaking Chinese person has mastered, and not the "original". Students/Schools may fear that Rusglish, Taglish or Gerglish (make up whatever combination one wants of one language fused with English) will affect that "pure", though often just Wonderbread, English they've paid thousands of RMB to learn.

And as Clark wrote, why bother hiring a non-native speaker from abroad when China already has millions who will likely work for less.

A number of years ago I saw a Westerner in Taibei wearing a t-shirt which read "Real, Actual, Living English". The school which hired the man wanted English incarnate -- that is, white and spoken by someone from a very young age. The quality may have been poor, but it was the appearance of grade-A English that the school desired to draw in the clients.

Though many non-native speakers may possess flawless English (just as many native speakers have flawed), most schools and students, I suspect, in China would be more willing to back the native speaker -- if not just for the novelty of having a "native speaker".

Myself, were I to have the choice of a Russian with a Masters in Applied Chinese Linguistics or a native Chinese speaker with a BA in Chinese to be my Mandarin teacher in Canada, I'd choose the latter. In addition to the sheer linguistic-ness of the class, I'd want to know about China -- it's history/literature/current state. The Russian would likely be less able to provide such a window. Again, the Russian may know far more about China and Chinese than the Chinese person with a BA in Chinese. Most people, however, probably would rather not take the gamble.

ESL is a product. People want the right kind of wrapper and logo when they make their purchase, especially in brand-conscious China.

[eslstudies]

[Shan-Shan]

[Anda]

The clear reason to employ a native English teacher is from a client requirement. As stated above there are plenty of Chinese here that can teach passable English and do in fact do so.

In South Korea white South Africans are employed here and there on the same wages as native speakers.

I think it is also a government requirement at many places to employ us because we come from some of China�s main trading partners.

Education is Western countries these days leaves a lot to be desired.

I have sat in a number of English classes at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and found that most of the teachers were boring to say the least, so much for qualifications. What can you expect out of PPP training that they prepare English teachers with to teach there?

Personally I see nothing wrong with places employing teachers from non western countries to teach English. Our lot can be a back stabing lot quite offen when working together these days.

[Plan B]

[eslstudies]

[eslstudies]

[Plan B]

I imagine that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.....

A paradox that I have witnessed with my own eyes is being in a school with teachers from an extremely international background.

At one time, the school had native speaking westerners teaching alongside more experienced and proficient non-native speaking teachers. During this time, the non-native speakers were looked upon favourably in comparision to their native speaker counterparts. However, as soon as the native speakers left, the non-native speakers along with the school itself were often critisized.

....It appears what had happened was when the school was left without native speakers, it was made to look like the school did not want to invest in "quality" teachers. Previously, merely having native speakers on the staff deflected these complaints, as it appeared that we were hiring the "best of the best" - irregardless of skin-colour or native tongue.

The shrewd employer, therefore, must carefully balance merit & proficiency with student expectations.

[dajiang]

Hiya.

Interesting topic, especially since I am a non-native English speaker myself (Dutch).

I've been working in China for a few years now, doing terms in a private language school, a private uni, and now a public high school, and in all cases I've been treated with the utmost respect. I've not been turned away by any school, and in some cases I've got even better deals with regards to secondary benefits than my native speaker colleagues.

So I really couldn't complain about the treatment I've got here in China. Of course job ads usually say 'native speakers only' but my experience has been that once they know you, have heard you speak, and have seen your credentials, that really doesn't matter.

Dajiang

[englishgibson]

I hear ya, Plan B. And, quite a good point with respect to "balancing merits and proficiency with students".
In my opinion, it's not about what the English teacher's back ground is, but how good at teaching English this fella is. That surely has to do with the teacher's proficiency in the language.

Dajiang, you are a lucky one.

Peace to the role of foreign teachers in China
and
cheers and beers to all hard working FTs

____________________________________________________________
It's not about where one is from, but what sort of environment the one has grown in

[roadwalker]

[quote="Shan-Shan"] Myself, were I to have the choice of a Russian with a Masters in Applied Chinese Linguistics or a native Chinese speaker with a BA in Chinese to be my Mandarin teacher in Canada, I'd choose the latter. In addition to the sheer linguistic-ness of the class, I'd want to know about China -- it's history/literature/current state. The Russian would likely be less able to provide such a window. ]

One of my first teachers of Chinese was a non-Chinese European. I think I got a lot more out of his classes than the Chinese natives that followed. He was able to communicate Chinese as Westerners would experience it and probably saved me a lot of time and frustration. On the other hand, it was good to later have Chinese natives with such divergent accents, even though it was frustrating at the time as far as modeling pronunciation.

But that is Mandarin which is not considered a world language. Native Chinese are often graded on the standardness of their Mandarin speech. Contrast that to English which is a true world language. I can quickly digest a typical BBC broadcast, but a bloke or a mate going on about something or other often takes me a few moments to gleen. I get it eventually, but my point is that English has an even weaker argument for 'Native' speakers. We can puff ourselves up all we want, but the fact is that some 1.4 billion people speak some form of English (.4 B natively).

[Steppenwolf]

[Steppenwolf]

Native speakers come in handy if students have a solid enough grounding in English and are preparing to go abroad; in such cases speakers of the English variety to which they will in future be exposed could facilitate their integration into their future host society.
But the majority of our students never go abroad to study or work; surely providing them with speakers of selected English variants is a luxury without rationale?

There are some very serious downsides to employing "native speakers"; let me refer to them as "Anglos" for clarity's sake.

First, they are quasi-diplomats of their own home country and as such will defend its English variant; this is undesirable and confusing for students. Once we had a lengthy debate here about the proper pronunciation of the letter 'Z' (zed in British English, 'Zee' in American English). Nationalistic kneejerk reflexes carry the day and pure reason has no chance of prevailing!

Non-native speakers may be less intuitively familiar with English but they are lifelong learners that strive to understand the differences between the subject they are teaching and other languages they know; they wouldn't be English teachers if they weren't interested in the subject in a professional way. How would an Anglo explain to his Chinese charges why a 'cook' can be a 'chef', and why the pronunciation difference?

Some non-native speakers actually get understood more easily by other non-native English speakers; this is not to say that all non-native speakers have a clearer enunciation but for learners of any L2 it may be some comfort to know one's opposite number is equally disadvantaged than oneself in using the target language.
ANd it's not just Europeans that do well as teachers; many Asians are competent English instructors! In future we all will have to get used to English variants tinged with Asian accents. In fact most English conversations take place between non-Anglos!