TEFL, TESOL, CELTA etc are (or were) to qualify us for our teaching positions around the world, although from what I am seeing on mainland China is just not the case. The local teaching techniques are so much different than what these teaching certificates stand for and the local employers management techniques guide its local employees to constantly interfere in our classroom efforts. Moreover, varieties of academic material from, usually, Beijing press contradict what we have learnt before assuming our honorable teaching posts. Needlessly matching Chinese characters with English words and pics in lower level academic materials, and then using some local techniques in originally western books such as Cambridge or Oxford press that have sold their souls the "large local market" called China i see as despicable. However, local authorities see the practices as keeping their own traditional approach to education and their own work opportunities as well.

So, why would one go through such a teacher training program when coming to China? Well, apparently some local authorities still take this teaching certification as a part of the foreign teachers' qualification justifying it somehow as an appropriate document to teach.

Sitting at a table and looking at my Oxford course book for early learners, I am scratching my head how or why the Chinese characters have got in and then thinking about the reasons of Ms Maggie Koong (that's in the "foreword" introduction) how she justifies children's mother tongue recognition there. My question is whether she really is from Hong Kong as the city's educational system approaches English in L1 rather than L2 level. From my experience on mainland, it is clear that traditions have to be preserved and so "it all" has to come out of China.

Cheers and beers to no interference of other languages in our classrooms :)