Re Native Speaker vs Teacher

The overemphesized drive for "native" applicants for the jobs two-faced and self-centered. Locals wish to see whites, agents scream they've got "specialties" to offer, but few realize what's necessary for one to give what's to be given. In China, a fine Latvian English teacher for instance that's studied, lived and worked in the US for a lengthy period of time won't suffice for the local academics loss of face (and opportunities). The hypocrisy of the need for foreign teachers rather than foreign practitioners of English stinks to say the least.

Of course it should. However, there are exceptions to every rule. If a person is born in Russia for example, and his/her parents emigrate to the USA when the child is 1-year-old, that child will be raised in the USA, essentially having English as their first language.

The falsehood begins with "of course" for the minimum requirement for foreign teachers to be native-born speakers. Your compelling special case is little in the score of issues with the mandated need.

I have met many native-born FT's who can't spell and who think 'Grammar' is married to Grandpa! Minimum 'requirement', (in parentheses because I'm using the term lightly), is a 120-hour TESOL course. Personally, I don't think that 120 hours is long enough, but it's not up to me to make the rules.

The dishonesty continues when laughable examples and the 120 hour TESOL fly. Would you like TESOL to make more money for the prep than it does? Would you like the company to drive the market better than it does?

Pottery degrees or degrees in ballroom dancing etc, only go to prove that the holder has enough English ability to be able to study in a NES university, and has nothing at all to do with their ability to teach English.

The hideous amusement goes on further when dancing experts are mentioned. Would you like this standard to be fixed?

There are also huge differences between Turnoi's 'dancing monkeys', that work in crappy training centres, and FT's who work in schools. We have a new colleague this semester who has been working in a crappy training centre for about 4 years, and he is strugglingbig-time in our middle/high school environment.

The biggest difference appears to be that although training centres are 'crappy', for the most part at least, students actually want to learn. In schools, they don't. This apparent difference in attitude is something that my new colleague is really struggling to cope with.

From the qualified dancing experts to unqualified "dancing monkeys", this may become a nonstop debate, if we don't know the local expectations of those foreign teachers.

In short, he wants to be more than just a 'babysitter', but after 2 years working in the same school, I'm doing my best to convince him that 'babysitting' is essentially what our school's FT's are all paid to do.

Yesterday for example, I had one particular student who was absent from my class, but appeared in our office directly after class was over. I called him over and asked him why he wasn't in class. He scuttled off to the other end of
the office and muttered something to his Chinese teacher who then followed him back to
my desk. She began to speak for him, but I told her that I wanted the student to tell
me. He couldn't. It turned out that he had been to the hospital. In the summer of 2017
this student will go to Canada to study, yet he couldn't even tell me in English that
he'd been to the hospital. He is among approximately 30% of students in our department
who all have the same level of English ability.......zero! How on earth are we to be
expected to teach 17-year-old morons (in English), when they have the same ability as a
5-year-old? They don't care, their parents don't care, yet we are expected to care.

'Babysitting' in training centres is not normally required, yet it's these same training
centres that often end up employing the most useless FT's. Something is most definitely
'broken', but no-one seems to know how to fix it.

So much for the "in short" above. Why would one overwhelm the forum with such comical details there?

Perhaps the new classification of the FT working visa may go some way towards fixing the
problem, only time will tell.

In short, any qualifications for minimal foreign teachers requirement in China depends on the local incompent powers and their sponsors. What all FTs, regardless where they were born, should do is be ambassadors of English and English speaking nations in their Chinese or any other country's classrooms.

Over and Out
Caring