Beth
- 2014-12-01
Yes, but his language teaching skills come from his CELTA and DELTA, not his degree in History.
My point is that simply having a degree in an unrelated subject does not qualify you to teach English. A degree in History did not teach your friend how to explain the use of the past perfect to his students, his C/DELTA did. So his degree in History has no relevance to his job as an English language teacher. I'm sure he is gainfully employed, the standard for employment is met by his degree and his C/DELTA.
I'm not saying that they can't be employed, just that ideally any teacher should have a relevant degree, a teaching certification and an ESL certification. Also, a DELTA requires a minimum of two years teaching experience before being undertaken, which means the only training your friend had prior to becoming a teacher was at most a 4 week classroom based certification (The CELTA), compared to somebody who had studied English and then sat a PGCE also, whose students do you think are getting the better deal?
Someone with a C/DELTA and no degree and someone with a C/DELTA and a degree in an unrelated subject are equally as unqualified when compared to somebody with a relevant degree and a teaching certification. My point is that if you have sat an ESL certification and have a fake degree, it really is no different to having sat an ESL certification and have an unrelated degree. Attending university does not automatically qualify you to teach English.
The standard for teaching should be related degree, PGCE (or country specific equivalent) and an ESL certification, preferably with the DELTA being sat when possible.
yu2fa3
- 2014-12-01
As I have said many times, the only people who should be teaching ESL are native speakers who hold a relevant degree, a teaching qualification such as the PGCE and a classroom based TEFL certification.If you have a degree in, oh let's say history, something unrelated to the English language, you may as well not have one at all for all the use it provides to the teaching of English as a second language. In that respect I would say the degree holder and the person without a degree are actually equally as unqualified as the other. Simply attending university doesn't qualify you to teach a second language.
I would always take a native speaker over a candidate to whom English was not their first language, simply because thier use will not be as natural as the native speaker.
I don't have any problems with what you say. The only amendment I would make is that if schools just couldn't get qualified native born FT's to aid students with conversational English, there are many well-read degreeless first language speakers who can help out. It would seem a shame and be detrimental to the students for the schools to be obliged to hirer sub-standard degree-holding second language English teachers. Much of my Mandarin was learned from uneducated Chinese people, I would have found it very difficult to learn the language from say Turnoi who is qualified to teach Mandarin as a second language, don't you think? However, I am not saying that the degreeless English teachers I had in mind would be as totally uneducated as some of the migrant workers who successfully helped me with my Mandarin. Being degreeless doesn't mean totally uneducated in the west- most of the time.
yu2fa3
- 2014-12-01
Thats interesting because I have a scouser mate with a good degree in history from Liverpool uni, who in addition to gaining his CELTA and DELTA, is now gainfully employed at the British Council in the Emirates. A lot of places don't give a fig what degree you have, as long it is from a UK uni. I have met many FT's in China namely from a certain country in Central America and others in West Africa, with completely fraudulent credentials. Therefore ANY degree from a UK uni is better than faked documents from some pretend sham of a university in some godforsaken banana republic, imho.
I believe that all properly qualified FT's should carry English Literature degrees at the very least. Anything short of that and they should be classified along with my degreeless heroes- allowed to help out if there's not enough qualified people to go around. I am of course only talking about native English speakers- the others do not come into my reckoning at all. If they want to be around esl schools they should make like a tree with that nifty squeegee. Polish that vinyl and spruce up that urinal.
Sludge
- 2014-12-01
If you have a degree in, oh let's say history, something unrelated to the English language, you may as well not have one at all for all the use it provides to the teaching of English as a second language.
Thats interesting because I have a scouser mate with a good degree in history from Liverpool uni, who in addition to gaining his CELTA and DELTA, is now gainfully employed at the British Council in the Emirates. A lot of places don't give a fig what degree you have, as long it is from a UK uni. I have met many FT's in China namely from a certain country in Central America and others in West Africa, with completely fraudulent credentials. Therefore ANY degree from a UK uni is better than faked documents from some pretend sham of a university in some godforsaken banana republic, imho.
Beth
- 2014-11-30
As I have said many times, the only people who should be teaching ESL are native speakers who hold a relevant degree, a teaching qualification such as the PGCE and a classroom based TEFL certification.
If you have a degree in, oh let's say history, something unrelated to the English language, you may as well not have one at all for all the use it provides to the teaching of English as a second language. In that respect I would say the degree holder and the person without a degree are actually equally as unqualified as the other. Simply attending university doesn't qualify you to teach a second language.
I would always take a native speaker over a candidate to whom English was not their first language, simply because thier use will not be as natural as the native speaker.
yu2fa3
- 2014-11-30
A fake degree doesn't say anything positive about the fake degree holder. He/she is a cheater, and as Beth has said, it's unfair towards students to allow unqualified "teachers" to deech them.
Instead of sugegsting that SB did not have a legal degree in Linguistics, you should better worry about your own fake degress. When will you go back to Bangkok to buy another one - perhaps a Master degree in faking or even a Doctorate?.....LOL
Well it's a step in the right direction if you consider Beth the foremost English language authority on this forum to such an extent that it supplies the winning blow against me in the fact that she agrees with you. She might however feel that our degreeless hero might be a better option than somebody with your grasp of the English language, albeit you say you are a degree-holder, and I believe that to be true/of sorts. I don't know, you should ask her. I am all for just degree-holding native English speakers only to be FT's. Unfortunately there are not enough of those to go around. In which case we either hirer you or our degreeless heroes....Oh what a difficult choice!