I've seen the question of qualification come up a number of times, and it's beginning to bother me.

I do not have a degree because I went to a career school. In my general field of work, a degree could be not mean less--your portfolio gets you work, and failure to produce gets you put out of work. I plan to be illustrating as I teach. I'm in college again back in the States, working on a degree in foreign language, but this isn't really my primary goal in life, nor do I have the financial ability to just pop out a degree in four years.

What I'm really getting tired of hearing is about standards of teaching.

Here is what I have seen. You do not *need* a degree or formal education in order to teacher a language in your own native tongue.

The Chinese class I am taking in college is run by a 22-year old Taiwanese girl with no degree and no certificates. She does a fantastic job. The Japanese class here is in the same boat, except it's run by a music-theory majour. This is the same system used in several schools throughout the country. I hate to break it to you, but these are good teachers. And this is in the US.