http://www.usingenglish.com/speaking-out/esl-employment.html

By no means the best article that I've read in recent times, but one that touches upon issues that I have mentioned recently. The quality levels amongst foreigners coming to China is decreasing quite a lot and it the industry seems to be indeed be facing 'a drive to the bottom' due to the current economic situation in the West. But one interesting point was:

The market is saturated, and has been likened to the 'migrant labor situation of the 1930’s in America'. With students in places like the UK graduating heavily in debt, the salaries offered in many ESL schools won't attract them, so standards will inevitably fall.

I find this point very interesting because when I first arrived in China and was teaching in other industries, English teaching seemed not to be the highest calibre job around, but it was at least a respectable thing to do, usually done by old retiring men or young students, only intending to teach for 1 or 2 years after graduating to delay entering the real world of work or at least to try to do something positive for the world, before they take on a job that actually pays the bills back home.

Now, it usually seems to be the case that people are only coming over because they can't find employment back home, the title 'English teacher' seems to have a greater stigma attached to it, than ever before.

For some of us, it is still just a stop-gap or a career break, but for increasingly large numbers of foreign teachers, teaching was a job that they took as a last resort, a job that they never really wanted but was forced to take. It is not a healthy situation, to say the least.

If things carry on like this, the industry will never attract those passionate teachers that actually want to teach!