Hi, ESL teachers & recruiters:

I am not here to argue. If I were a recruiter, I won't mind the color, race, gender, I do mind their qualification, certification and experience. As the proverb goes: "The taste of the pudding is in the eating". As long as one can make my students English proficiency, the more the better. In all the world, there are still lots of illiterates. They speak fluent English, we can label them "native speakers", but they had never had any education, not mentioning related degrees and methodologies. In the universities I had been, many foreign teachers were very arrogant in fighting for their rights, but in the classroom they were a lazy bunch. They came from 'civilized','developed' countries, yet they smoke in the public without asking if they were offending anybody. Their penmanship were poor, their English was full of grammatical mistakes, yet when questioned, they would say that's contemporary colloquial English, or slang.

Students in the second language countries do not have a choice. They wanted to improve their language skills to handle the negotiations and business transactions when facing their clients. Sticking to one kind of dialect might hinder their comprehensions. I would keep changing teachers from different countries from time to time, so they would be accustomed to the different tones by different customers. Right now, those teachers are here for free paid touring purposes. Most are have been here by signing a contact of a year. Students have no chance to appreciate the variety. Believe or not, most of the students in China nowadays can't read cursive writing. So they couldn't understand manuscripts and memo by customers, either. Their textbooks do not reflect their future needs. They are learning a dead, bookish language. They may be able to pass the exams, but not an extensive interview.

Some recruiters did call me by phone, the purpose was to evaluate my oral English proficiency, but was more or less a formality. I think it should cover in over all phases, to insure the future results.

Alex Wu