Non-Native Teachers?

mcgina · Post by **mcgina** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 3:08 pm

I am a non-native English teacher and although I am fluent and have a Trinity TESOL certificate I am having difficulty finding a job because I am not a native speaker. Has anyone else had the same problem?

joshua2004 · Post by **joshua2004** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 5:58 pm

I often have people trust my ability to teach English solely because I am a native English speaker. Its convenient for me, however if I wasn't truly a professional that loves his job and works very hard to do well, eventually I would not last.

I know lots of non-native teachers that are excellent English teachers. Next year I am going to be coordinating the English department of my middle school and I fully intend to back up my non-native teachers and hire any teacher that I believe is a qualified teacher regardless of their "nativeness".

What parents and most other people don't understand is that the teacher is often not the major source of information in the classroom. There are tapes, cds, movies, books, articles, songs, and many more types of input for students. The teacher's job is to expose students to this and make it understandable, and usable by giving the opportunity to practice.

I agree there is that discrimination and I for one know it is not justified. Teacher's ability should be determined off their skill at teaching and having a reasonable knowledge of the subject matter.

omaru · Post by **omaru** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:10 pm

I agree with the main idea, however, I disagree that the teacher isn't the major source of information. I find that when students ask questions (especially about certain idiomatic expressions, or obscure vocabulary) only the teacher has the ability to ensure that the students understand. And it requires that knowledge that isn't in the books most of the time. (Especially if you can't translate in class! Berlitz!)

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 10:17 pm

Not being able to translate in class due to a Direct Method "ban" on L1 (and since when did that really stop anyone!) is not the same thing as being unable to translate due to being only a monolingual teacher (albeit a native one)...but I agree with the point that often what is said in a book conflicts with what is said in another book etc, and often requires a very high level (near native or native) of language ability and awareness on the part of the teacher to thrash out and solve to a satisfactory degree...but then, as Joshua says, there are non-native teachers who are excellent teachers with a very reasonable knowledge base, and even native speakers can't claim to know everything offhand!

joshua2004 · Post by **joshua2004** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:06 pm

Also one has to question how much do students truly remember and learn from those off-hand corrections and translations? To learn a language takes time and loads of the language input in context.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:30 pm

If the advice a teacher offers truly is offhand for perhaps the first time, then it may not be of great value (especially with the benefit of hindsight), but quite often there are very interesting tangents and valuable hints of phrases etc being suggested in class, and students would do well to be instructed to start taking notes (see suggestions by Lewis, or Will McCullough on Dave's itself about Wordsurfing etc), especially if it is the sort of thing that the teacher has seen crop up before, but simply hasn't had the time to knock into any pedagogical shape yet (a worksheet etc). The least people could do is take and MAKE time to go through a dictionary, for example(s

) - that way the teacher usually confirms their intuitions, and somebody usually spots a few additional things that may prove to be further springboards (forget The Lexical Approach and Wordsurfing, "Mushrooming" is the new in thing!).