You made some good points there, Turnoi, which on the face of it I agree with. However, having actually worked for 2 different private school chains, I have at least some insider knowledge of teaching both in private and public schools, and just don't agree that your arguments reflect the actual reality for teachers such as myself and other teachers I know from private schools.

You made this very nice comment: "With the extremely bad working conditions that "schools" like EF, Aston and Shane are offering - a heavy weekly teaching load, an extremely low salary and a disorganised management, a lack of resources in terms of book and media, a "corporate philosophy" of how second language learning should be and is actually implemented - are all decisive factors that make learning and teaching in such places a nightmare and is counter-productive to quality education and only serves to fill the pockets of those in a central office of a franchise chain. It's a system that can't work.... "

While your comment sounds great, it's not 100% consistent with my personal experience. There IS a heavy teaching load if one signs up to teach 25 hours a week, but one can also choose to teach less. I agree that teaching 20 or more hours, especially if one is teaching 6 or more different lessons a week, will definitely effect the quality of those lessons, and there will be little or not time for reflection on what one's taught. However, if one teaches 15-18 hours, and has 5 or less different lesson plans, and only teaches on the weekend, one than has 5 days free a week to plan 5 lessons, which is NOT difficult at all. Secondly, after one's first 6 month term with a private school, one will teach many of the same levels again and can re-use and re-tool one's lessons from the previous term. In this way a teacher can seriously hone his or her craft of teaching. As for resources, the private schools had SUPERIOR books and workbooks for students, whereas at the university I need to make everything from scratch because the books are boring and focus far too much on just saying the same thing in a bunch of different ways.

As for the "corporate philosophy" of what second language learning is, I don't know that there's any consistency in that, other than that the students should enjoy the classes and want to come back the following term, otherwise there won't be any business. This, however, isn't inconsistent with current trends in 2nd language teaching, because teaching should be much more interactive and pleasurable than the rote learning methods Chinese students are accustomed to. In other words, a properly taught EFL class should absolutely fulfill the requirements of schools as businesses.

You wrote:

"On the teacher' side, someone who has worked for a place like that, will be used to teaching techniques and styles that must be considered sub-standard outside such corporations, and that is the reason why such teachers why I would not employ such people at my school."

Why "must" they be sub-standard? I had the freedom to teach however I wanted, as long as I covered the core material the students were required to learn. The requirement, if there is one, is for above-standard teaching, because if it's sub-standard the students won't pay to come back. As you point out, the cards are stacked against teachers to perform above-standard in language mills, but the expectation is still there.

You wrote:

"The advantage of working for private schools you see with regard to teaching grammar is something that I do not agree with either."

That wasn't my point, or at least not what I intended to say. I personally rarely teach grammar as grammar, because beginning students wouldn't understand the explanation. I teach it through example, practice, and implementation. But my point was that when you teach in a private school you have to teach beginners (my youngest student was 3), and every level up to near fluency. Thus you DO have to teach lessons that target specific aspects of the language, which one wouldn't know how to teach (such as what kinds of activities or strategies to employ in regards to them) if one just walked into a university position with no similar extensive real world experience. In short, a private language school teacher must learn how to teach English as a second language, from the ground up, whereas someone who just steps directly into a university teaching position can get away with not knowing how to do any of that, and just holding conversations and pseudo-debates without knowing anything about how to teach English as a second or more accurately "foreign" language.

You wrote:

"In my understanding, an English teacher has to know English grammar and be able to teach it before graduation, that is why a decent English teacher training has to include respective course modules and teaching practica ("practicums") before graduation of the teacher trainee."

True enough, but you are talking about teaching grammar as grammar to students who already speak English. I'm talking about teaching them how to use grammar without teaching it as a subject. If someone is teaching grammar by talking about the subjunctive clause or past perfect continuous, the students eyes will glaze over and they'll lose interest.

You stated:

"The claim you are making in this respect is clearly from the perspective of a 4 week intensive course offered by a commercial provider, and I am not talking about such pretend EFL teacher training programs."

As compared to what? If you're talking about teachers who majored in teaching, or linguistics in college themselves, that's a minority of people teaching in China. Most teachers I've met in public or private schools don't have such a background. In regards to a 4 week intensive TEFL qualification, in which a prospective teacher will need to learn contemporary teaching theory and teach classes to native speakers while being observed, I find the teachers who have that have a marked advantage over those who don't. Let me give you an analogy. The TEFL course is like a month long intensive driving course. Those who have it will be better drivers than those that don't. Most teachers I've worked with in China didn't have it.

Finally, I think we are talking apples and oranges here. IMHO foreign teachers in China are typically hired to teach "oral English," which they are more suited to do than are their Chinese colleagues, assuming that they have the kind of foundation that a good TEFL or other certificate program can provide (better yet if they've majored in the discipline in their own university). Most other English courses are taught in Chinese, and the subject of the course is English. However, if the teachers try to teach it in English the students won't understand it because they simply don't have the listening or speaking ability in English, as is the case in most Asian countries.

Therefor, to teach "oral English," it is advantageous for a teacher to have taken a 120 hour intensive training course in order to learn and practice contemporary methods of doing so, and real world experience of applying and expanding on those techniques in intensive private language schools is going to make one a far more effective teacher.

On the other hand, there are teachers in public universities who have no TEFL or equivalent, no teaching experience (or no teaching English as a 2nd or foreign language experience), and merely have a BA in any discipline. These teachers, through no fault of their own, have no idea what to do, and some of the older ones who do have an idea think it's to spread the Christian faith.

I have found that my students who had such teachers in the past, in a university setting, have had NO actual practice with the language because the teachers didn't know the fundamentals of teaching oral English. They didn't know how to introduce a focus of the lesson or some target language, practice it, and then use it in an activity or simulacrum. They didn't know how to review. The students only expressed their opinions on hot topics in Chinglish. Most students had remained silent for their previous year, because the teachers didn't know how to engage them and get them to speak, but instead merely held conversations with the students who already possessed strong enough English skills to do so.

And this is why, I would hire someone with a legitimate TEFL (the internet one is best printed on toilet paper so it can serve some ultimate purpose) and real world teaching experience in which they must have had to implement their knowledge. I definitely would NOT want to hire teachers who just winged it in a public school environment without any foundation.

But then there's also the question of natural teaching ability. Some teachers are just good, and students respond to them. Such teachers can learn from experience and become better teachers. In the end, it's probably best to find out what the students think of the teacher or watch a demo class. But to automatically disqualify any and all who have taught their asses off in public schools seems misguidedly discriminatory, unless one is looking for teachers with a specific collegiate background in teaching for teaching non-oral English classes. For teaching literature or writing, I would go for those teachers, particularly if they were bilingual (otherwise the students probably won't understand them at all).

Cheers.