Oh, my, such a case of wounded national pride. Well, good, because it could use a little wounding. You can expect more to come as time goes by and China tries to integrate with the rest of the world.

I agree with you that a lot of the alleged English I see posted in these places makes MY teeth hurt, too, and some of the people trying (or pretending) to teach English are simply wankers. (Patrick, however, was just having fun with you. I tried to tell you that back in that thread, but you simply read his one post and saw red. Which, of course, is exactly what Patrick wanted you to do.)

I also agree that there are some great students here who really want to better, well, at least themselves. These are the ones worth reaching.

You're seriously misled, however, if you think either of these cases represent the majority of the real situation out there.

I've been in this country a long, long time and I know an awful lot of English teachers. Most of them are well-educated, intelligent, devoted people who take their jobs more seriously than the jobs deserve.

I've also taught in universities here. Good universities, too, and I think I acquitted myself honorably enough there. I got a load of what these places are really like and I want no part of it. I have no interest in ever teaching university classes in China again.

I don't even want to talk about middle schools. You don't have to see many classes of 150 doing rote memorization to get an idea of where they're at.

The bottom line is that the primary driver to most education here is pure, naked greed. Oh, and control...lots of control. The administrations I saw couldn't have cared less about education. They were too busy raking in the money coming in from both tuition and bribes. Ever seen a poor school owner or principal or dean? I sure haven't. The Chinese teachers were too terrified to complain or buck the system...the favored ones had noses in the trough themselves, while the unfavored ones had to surrender their work documents and were just trying to stay in a job. The vast majority of the students never showed even the slightest glimmer of interest in learning anything. They just wanted a grade and a shiny piece of paper at the end, and they were willing to lie, cheat, steal...ANYTHING but actually do any work...in order to get it. I used to have to tell many of my classes that if they'd work as hard just doing the assignments as they did trying to find ways to cheat their way out of them, they'd all be 'A' students.

This whole system, top to bottom, is rotten to the core...at least by those international standards which you like very much to tell yourselves you live up to. Everybody likes to say this stuff isn't happening, but anyone involved with the system for any length of time knows it really is. Those good students you referred to certainly knew it, and they hated it at least as much as I did.

The Education Ministry? Sure, they showed up once a term or so. We always knew about it because the schools would warn us a couple of weeks in advance that the inspectors were coming. Everyone had plenty of time to temporarily clean up their acts and find a tie. When the time came to give the exams and post the grades, though, there would be nobody in the henhouse but the foxes.

So yes, there's a few laowai teaching here who probably shouldn't be. However, most of us have absolutely nothing for which we need to apologize to you, or which we have to explain to you. The quality of the teachers in a system will ultimately only be as good as the quality of the system itself, so don't come crying to us if the teachers suck.

By the way, from what I see the Filipinas ARE chiming in on a pretty regular basis, and seem to be doing a pretty good job of it. Rock on, ladies!

And finally, if you see any significant problems with my English, please point them out to me if you can. Typing errors don't count!