I remember back in a previous lifetime when I was standing at a bus-stop in England. A car drew up and the Australian driver said ''Scuse me mate, how do I get to looga beroo?'

After a lot of repeating and head-scratching, I finally asked him to write it down. 'Loughborough' was where he wanted to go - and Loughborough is pronounced 'Luff Burra'.

Pronunciation may not be the 'bee-all-and-end-all', but it's certainly not unimportant.

Of course pronunciation is important, especially during one's teaching. A Chinese teacher of physics whose reading comprehension was good, but whose oral and listening were abysmal, once asked me if I had read 'Janner'. I knew not what he was referring to, until after thinking again about it, I had a moment of inspiration, and came up with 'Jane Eyre'. I was right, and felt proud of myself for having solved the problem.

Turnoi says we should all obey China's visa regulations. One of them specifies countries from which job applicants should apply, which are all native-speaking English countries. The reasons for that visa regulation are obvious. But even then, a job applicant's fluency and pronunciation need checking in my opinion.

Another point I feel I should make - I have notuced in the 'resumes section' of the board most jobseekers claim to have TESOL/TEFL qualifications. However, some of their resumes/introductions are basically dismal in sentence construction, spelling and grammar. I'm sure they can't all be in possession of false credentials, or are bare-faced liars. It seems to me that some such qualifications are awarded to low quality English language users. That is a a disgrace!

Glottal stops are rare in British English. The only instances I can think of can be found in what we call 'cockney' English.

I've observed that the weakest FTs focus on pronunciation in their classrooms.

I suspect this is because their students already understand English grammar better than the FT. A perusal of this board will give you a general idea of FT writing skills. And most FTs are in love with the sound of their own voice.

As unimportant as pronunciation is, the teaching of pronunciation requires an understanding of the physiology of sound creation and an intimate knowledge of IPA characters; both of these skills are not in the skillset of most FTs. Explaining sound creation physiology to students is best done in their native language. Discussing glottal stops with students in English is futile.

For the FT who has no idea about the meaning of the above:

Pronunciation is unimportant and you DO NOT know how to teach it.

Dance. Drone your PPTS.

One simply needs to visit any Chinese university and sit down with a few random members of the graduating class of English majors.

They cannot speak English.

Perhaps twenty percent of the class can hold a conversation. Perhaps five percent of the class speak well.

Bringing thousands of foreign 'teachers' to China to 'teach' English during the past two decades has been a marvelous business venture but an educational fiasco.

What you don't know is how woeful the statistics would be without native speakers of English teaching such students. However, what we can say, generally speaking, is that non-native speakers of English, such as Turnoi, are no better than the Chinese teachers of English as far as the teaching of oral English is concerned. I disagree with your assessment of the effect of bringing foreign "teachers" to China being an educational fiasco! What you don't know and didn't mention is the positive influence of oral teaching by FTs at high schools on pupils who later enter higher education as non-English majors. Some such students can speak better English than English majors!

There are exceptions to every rule and since I don't know what Turnoi's native tongue is, I would have to guess that Turnoi would speak a second language with some kind of accent that reflects his first language - in much the same way as a Chinese English-speaker would speak English with a Chinese accent.

When I fist came to China back in 2008, I met a Chinese man who spoke perfect English, but with an American accent. When I asked him how long he had lived in America, he told me he had never even been there. He had two American English teachers who had spent heaps of time helping his pronunciation, thus the accent.

Pronunciation is NOT everything. It is extremely important, but then again so are the other 3 facets of language learning.

Your comment -

A grease-monkey mechanic with good
pronunciation would be worth ten degree teachers with bad pronunciation.

Turnoi is a 'one-off'. I think most of us agree that his standards are exceptionally high and he deserves respect for what he has achieved. But sadly for Turnoi, many of us do not share his love of linguistics and therefore occasionally have to tolerate his public outbursts.

Of course, you as a non-native English speaker probably have poor pronunciation of English, just like most Chinese teachers of English. That aside, you do not have full cultural awareness of any country whose first language is English. You are not required by Chinese employers to teach oral English. You are not qualified to denigrate oral English teaching. Many Chinese jobs for FTs exist for native speakers of English. Even if a foreigner is a native speaker of English, that doesn't necessarily mean he/she will be a good teacher - that will depend on how good his/her pronunciation is as well as his/her teaching skills and classroom management. You don't half post a lot of tripe on this board.

Pronunciation is everything, it's all important. A grease-monkey mechanic with good pronunciation would be worth ten degree teachers with bad pronunciation. That said we don't know that Turnoi has bad pronunciation do we? I imagine by looking at his writing and knowing something of his credentials he's word-perfect.