We’ve often made mention of the fakers and the flakes in the international ESL scene, and how they’ve succeed in dodging close scrutiny while other, more legitimate personae have been forced to vacate their positions due to a variation of inadequacies including lack of recognition and consequently low salaries. I’ve often wondered how an impostor can continually avoid detection by any educational operation that claims good intentions.

Well, I once had a wonderful opportunity -- as an employee -- to closely scrutinize a popular ESL school here in the USA for a little more than a year, and I was able to reach some definitive conclusions. First of all, I noted that degrees and licenses meant very little or nothing to the management, albeit according to state law each teacher was required to have a college diploma and be registered to teach. It would appear, then, the teachers had the necessary qualifications to instruct beginning to advanced-level ESL students. Regrettably, such was not the case! Did they compose lesson plans for their classes? Yes, but they rarely employed same. Did they assign homework? Almost never! Did they compose challenging quizzes and final exams? No way, José! They simply felt their weekends were not to be invaded for the sake of "a lousy $15-per-hour job!" Looking in a state of absolute panic one day, the owner informed us of a planned visit by state authorities to inspect the school’s course work, personnel, and facilities. Almost immediately, and for the ensuing two weeks, a tremendous effort was made to have the school look like a professional academic operation, with little or no effort spent on its non-existing academic curriculum. Fortunately for all concerned, no such inspection ever took place.

Instructors, you say? Of a staff of ten teachers, six had been with the school since its inception three years earlier. With the exception of one sensei, no one had ever demonstrated any particular degree of expertise in English grammar, spelling, or composition. Perish the thought. Two of the staff spoke with rather thick New York City accents, while another with a deep Texas drawl. Could their students understand them? I seriously doubt it, while all tests were designed to be passed with little or no effort ... in some cases making positively mediocre students look like bloody brain surgeons! As for the reception of the teachers by their students … MAGNIFICENT! Why? A successful combination of comedy … no homework … easy tests … and constant smiling, even when being attacked by a barrage of incorrect answers! Yes, all of these so-called teachers had long been familiar with the art of survival in a highly competitive realm such as ESL and, moreover, without ever having to prove themselves as satisfactory entities. The school credo posted on all walls by management read: IF OUR STUDENTS ARE HAPPY, SO ARE WE! After all, it takes both time and expense to go about hiring new personnel, and an even greater effort to judge who’s good or who’s bad as per a professional interview and/or audition. Owners are rarely themselves educators and, therefore, haven’t the slightest idea of who’s on first or what’s on second. As a goodly portion of today's private ESL school operations are Asian-owned, good business sense is usually quite plentiful. However, in not having attended English-speaking colleges and universities, most owners haven’t the foggiest notion as to the whys and wherefores of the deeper academic aspects involved in day-to-day school operations. In this instance, many enlist the services of experts to render them timely advice on such matters. Sometimes it works … many times it fails, probably depending on how much control the owner will blindly insist upon maintaining. As for the teachers, it’s a more simplified matter. The personalities that please are what’s best for business. Making the students laugh, feel happy in the class and, moreover, inducing them to look forward to coming back another day ... THIS is what guarantees a teacher longevity and, in many cases, periodic wage increases. On the contrary, an old veteran like yours truly would swear that ESL success is about nouns, adjectives, and verbs, and how efficiently one imparts instruction as to their usage. Alas, such no longer appears to be so ... at least not in the case of the average privately-owned ESL learning center. Financial gain is truly the byword. The cause of learning, so it would seem, has disappeared down the bloody toilet! This is a worldwide problem, I fear.

Look, friends … let’s be honest. To be a teacher has customarily been an honorable undertaking requiring the participation of those who, aided by their learning, skill, and extra effort, have been dedicated to imparting the essentials of our language as thoroughly and as professionally as possible. Naturally, to be in such a position requires that one first be qualified to do so through both experience and higher academic achievement. This, unfortunately, is the point at which many individuals already ensconced within ESL (or desirous of being so) take a major departure from reason, e.g., the difference between telling the truth, stretching the truth, or outrightly fabricating. Because of overwhelming financial desires vs. true professional representation, far too many schools and their agencies have permitted so-called teachers to invade a territory which, as a rule, has been reserved solely for those who have achieved the qualifications necessary to bear the cherished title, instructor. As I previously mentioned, such individuals – whilst guaranteeing the continued financial receipts of their grateful employers – have managed to stick around while, in many cases, more accomplished, dedicated, and proven specialists (including many over 60 years of age) have been passed over or grossly underpaid. Granted, in Asia-- particularly in China -- agencies representing English language learning centers can be held responsible for many of the "non-teachers" who are "distributed" with regularity, and how, when detected, this causes ill will on the parts of all concerned. The poor students, on the other hand, totally unaware of the difference between good teaching and playacting, are the ones who inevitably suffer the most -- especially when reaching the stage of TOEFL and TOEIC or Licensure examinations to enter English-speaking colleges or the international business arena.

<> HEY! YOU GUYS OUT THERE -- THE CHEATERS: You have succeeded in selfishly perpetrating the hoax of representing yourselves as what you are not ... YOU who, even on this forum, have had the audacity to demonstrate a marked incompetence in your native tongue, yet freely critique the shortcomings of others ... YOU who occupy the space of those who rightfully deserve to be counted amongst ESL educators! And, on the all too few occasions when you are discovered for what you really are and sent packing by the school that was dumb enough to hire you in the first bloody place, you come on the eslteachersboard.com to protest to multitudinous atrocities committed upon you by both Asian schools and Asian people!
Examine thine own selves thou charlatans! Back to flipping mutton paddies with thee! Be off!

A totally hopeless dilemma? Perhaps, and as a dedicated instructor I feel mortified to realize that such things are allowed to continue -- relatively untapped, as it were -- in my chosen field of endeavor. In the final analysis, am I to accept that MY realizing continued success as an ESL pedagogue requires that I transform myself into a comedian … an acrobat … or a ballet dancer? God, I hope not! I prefer spouting out the rules of English grammar rather than swishing my hips and singing like Elvis … and marching to the blackboard rather than performing a lively two-step on the students’ desks! WHEN, pray tell, will we ever return to the fundamentals of our chosen area of education? When ... indeed. I'd more than appreciate your opinion.

The Arrogant One