Shaun Goeldner
- 2007-12-08
Kevin, I would like to know, what is your definition of a qualified teacher? Maybe I should rephrase this question. What makes someone a good teacher? If you think there are too many people teaching English in China without a degree,then how can their teaching ability be improved?
You may think this is a stupid question. I ask it because no matter what you think,FT's armed with only a TESOL certificate will continue to arrive in China. Some of these people will have natural teaching ability,but who are they going to ask for help and advice?
I know one bloke who came to China with just a TESOL certificate, taught primary school for six months,then became a DOS. His biggest claim to fame is that he can read a Superkids textbook and extrapolate from it.He is either to lazy,or stupid,to come up with his own original ideas. He thinks he is a great teacher, but he is lost without his Superkids and NP3 textbooks.
When he has to teach high school,or an adult conversation class,his confidence wanes, and his weakness is exposed. This is starting to sound boring so I will get to the point. This DOS is giving advice to real,highly qualified teachers. It is like a little kitten giving orders to the big cat. He even said to me: " I don't mean to bragg,but I am the best teacher in eastern China".
So,when newbies come to China, they are taking direction from morons like this.As you would know, there are hundreds of people like him. Chinese schools will continue to hire non-degree holders. The question is, how can they become good teachers. So I agree with Choatle,it is the schools fault. They could be honest, and look after their teachers and students,but they won't, the mighty dollar rules in China now.
ChocolateBLock
- 2007-12-07
Kevin, let me explain things in a way that even someone who is limited can understand. Yes I a mocking you and being condescending. The difference is that I unlike yourself won't ever try and hide it or be subtle.
Schools here are greedy. They want money, and they don't want to pay good salaries. In turn they will hire anyone oftentimes. Is it your contention that people who want a job and are offered a job should not take it because it will impact you, the more qualified candidate financially? Or are you saying it is their fault for taking the job since they are unqualified? Should the school be recruiting people who are unqualified?
You see your placing the blame on the effect, not the cause. This is typical of people with no imagination and limited intellect, so I will take it easy on you this time 
Basically, and this is the bottom line, schools are to blame for there being unqualified teachers here, duh. They offer them jobs, they pay them, give them homes to live in. What exactly are you missing? Or has that high powered mind of your missed something? Yes that was sarcasm, you don't strike me as anything more then a wannabe intellectual to be honest. Someone who needs a good dose of humility.
Do not blame people who want and often need jobs. Should they be here? Who am I to say, they are, so they must be wanted here. Perhaps not by you, who feel slighted by their presence. I guess you think that only those of a particular station should be able to come here and teach. While again, in theory I agree, thats not reality. Why? Because thats not what schools want. If those "unqualified" people are working here, it is because someone hired them.
If you really want to blame someone, blame the school who hired them. If schools did not hire unqualified teachers, they would not be here.
I find it hard to believe someone who is a teacher, or says he is, can not figure these simple things out for them self. I guess maybe you are just another one of the pretenders who should not be here then, and maybe should go home. 
Someone must have given you a job though.
Now, if your argument is that these people work for peanuts compared to you, well, PK. What is your point exactly? That they should demand more money and in turn not get hired at all? They are unqualified as far as you see it. Though I have to ask what makes a real teacher? I've met too many mo mo's who have all of the qualifications but could not teach how to tie their shoelaces to another.
Face it, the people who take the low paying jobs are not to blame. It's the corrupt Chinese government who does not enforce their own laws that is to blame. Blame them if you want.
Another rocket scientist working in China as a teacher, what a shock. 
You don't have to read between the lines here. Later
Kevin
- 2007-12-07
Well, Choatle, I'm not surprised that you would consider my post as somewhat self aggrandizing, or as you called it, "tooting my own horn." I expected such a reaction. I am, however, surprised that you feel I am unsympathetic to the plight of teachers who are cheated and/or abused. But perhaps in my haste to show both sides of the coin I didn't make that clear enough. So o.k., I do sympathize. In fact, I'm deeply concerned that the EFL scene in China is blighted by the immense numbers of uncaring recruiters and phony baloney training centers.
However much I'm concerned, though, doesn't alter the fact that the system is corrupted by charlatan teachers as well. Having been here for more than four years now I have seen way too many situations where native and non-native English speakers, posing as teachers, have done little in the way of contributing to an atmosphere of excellence in terms of EFL teaching.
Your justification that because schools are only interested in white faces and that therefore it's ok to pretend to be a teacher is convoluted logic at best. In fact, as a parent, I find that kind of argument to border on disgusting. If I had entrusted such "teachers' with the education of my children, I would have to consider myself as having been an inattentive parent. Should I not have the same attitude about the children of China? Or is there some reason that these children deserve less? Moreover, to carry that argument a little further, let me ask you how you would feel if in your country there were only a handful of qualified foreign language teachers and, if you were a parent, how you would feel if pretend teachers were teaching a foreign language to your children. And even more to the point, how would you like it if you were paying good money for their education and then found out that they were being educated by teachers with absolutely no training whatsoever?
All right, you feel as though I have intimated that you personally are not a qualified teacher. I'm not sure how you got that from my post. Reading between the lines? Well Choatle, as we say in America, "If the shoe fits, wear it." As for intimating that there are many unqualified teachers in China - well, no, I'm not intimating it, I'm making it quite clear that I believe and bemoan the reality of it. Furthermore, I'm not just saying that they are not qualified, I'm adamantly espousing my opinion that they are doing more harm than good.
Your suggestion that I have my own agenda is an interesting one. And what do you suppose that agenda is Choatle?
Choatle
- 2007-12-06
Uh huh, well I won't comment on your questionable "they are asking for it" logic Kevin. Nor will I comment on your intimations that I or others are not qualified teachers, while of course you are. Tooting ones own horn is never popular, speaks of low self esteem actually.
This was years ago this Miss Liu fooled me into coming here. It was a bad experience, and my posting it was to help save others the same painful experience. I don't honestly see you, Kevin, doing anything bus dissuading others from doing the same. OH and yes, tooting your own horn. That you have an agenda is obvious. That you have little sympathy is equally obvious.
Many even most who come here are unqualified. Why? Because all the schools want is a white face, and a dancing monkey. If your naive enough to think otherwise then your fooling yourself.
Anyhow, hopefully more people become aware of this woman, who seems to have more complaints then anyone else I have seen thus far. She tries to operate under the radar as much as possible. Changing her name, her companies name. However she is still in Meihakou, still calls her school "Tonghua" and I think thats a good thing. NO matter who this fool woman tries to pretend to be, we will always know it is her, and mores the better.
Kevin
- 2007-12-06
It never ceases to amaze me that after all this time and all these warnings about scam recruiters and phony schools and training centers in China there is still a large pool of unaware teachers for said recruiters to "feed on." Yes, they are completely amoral; however, their victims apparently are the least sensible people on the planet.
There are multiple sources of information for teachers who wish to teach abroad. But therein lies part of the problem. The vast majority of "teachers" coming here, are not qualified to teach in their own countries anyway. Therefore their best potential source of information, their colleagues, are non-existent. However, having no colleagues to advise them, doesn't mean they need go willy nilly off to a foreign country with their Pollyanna hopes of the ideal teaching environment miraculously materializing. Indeed, you'd think they do a little research.
I would guess, no I take it back - I can't begin to guess how many warnings about teaching EFL have been posted on the internet. And yet they keep coming and we keep reading about the rip off recruiters and the BS schools.
What's even worse, though, at least in my opinion, is how these '"teachers," once they've been ripped off by recruiters and/or private schools, end up in the public school system - even at the university level. Now they're not the victims anymore. In fact, by disseminating the crap they call teaching, they are now the victimizers. Sadly, the administrators of these schools are well aware of how the majority of their foreign staffs are ill-qualified to be in the positions for which they've been hired; however, the pressure is on them to provide white faces for the students, and so they must look the other way and privately bemoan the glaringly obvious truth that their foreign staff is composed of a high percentage of bozos.
Sooner or later, though, the students will wise up. But that's another story. Meanwhile, those of us who have worked hard to become qualified teachers must often, embarrassingly, work along side complete idiots who are getting paid the same as we are. What's worse, though, is that we have to observe the garbage they throw out there and call teaching, and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.
Yes, many people who come to China are victimized by unscrupulous recruiters and school owners that turn out to be cheaters that are totally uninterested in real education. But on the other hand, many of the victimized become the victimizers. In a perfect world they would have the decency to go back to their unskilled labor jobs in America, or wherever, and stop negatively influencing the young people of this country with the crap they call English teaching. But of course this is not a perfect world and we are definitely not perfect beings...............
I have been in China a couple years now, and am doing alright more or less.
However, what brought me here was a tyrannical harpie by the name of Miss Liu.
The reason I mention her is because I have noticed she is recruiting heavily here and elsewhere.
Avoid this woman at all costs. Initially I was drawn here to work for her with promises of a decent job and an OK salary.
Well, when I got here, first thing happened that should have sent me elsewhere, no one at the airport to pick me up. Consequently, you will be sent to Changchun airport, so be leery of any job that asks you to go there. Anyhow, no one there, and Changchun quite a long distance.
Well, this was quite a reception. I was new to China, and all I could think to do was take a taxi into town and get a hotel room. Well, taxi cost a fortune, as did the hotel room, at least in Chinese money.
I contacted her and she gave me some bull shit story about there having been a traffic accident. She then said she would send someone the next day to pick me up at the hotel. She did, though the person was almost 2 hours late. By then I had already checked out of my room, and got to spend those two hours sitting in the lobby like an idiot.
When they did finally arrive, it was in a car that did not have a mark on it. Since her "school" only had one car, as I already knew from prior conversation, I was mystified about how it could be in perfect condition only the next day.
Well, after a long car ride with two chain smoking minion of this woman, we arrived in a very small town with more oxes then cars on the road. I was taken up up up to a closet of any apartment maybe 25 sq meters, at most. Then we went to Meikou I believe, might be misspelled, where this womans home base is.
Now this is when I discovered that this woman was not the headmaster of a school, as a woman named "Alice" told me. No, she just ran a crappy little recruitment agency that double as an employment agency. They work for schools who can not legally hire FT's. Therefore any contract you hire with her means nothing.
This was of course explained away as a "misunderstanding." It's funny that whenever these Chinese screw you, no matter how big, it is just a misunderstanding.
Well, I was stuck, having come all this way, so I kept an open mind, and started down the long road that is Miss Liu's ride to hell.
It starts with having to make daily trips to see this old insecure little bag of puss. Of course you have to pay for these trips out of your own pocket. These trips are take 45 minutes each way, and consist solely of entertaining Miss Liu, and impressing upon you how important she actually is.
To be honest I was not impressed. All I saw was someone very small trying to look very big.
She hires these poor Chinese girls, and then uses them as TA's for the teachers. They are all super attractive. many of them could even have been models. They have also are total flirts and ignore the FT for the most part. Miss Liu uses these girls, thinking they will get her teachers. it also makes her feel more important. She is a particularly ugly woman by the way.
At these daily meetings she would have them all lined up, chattering away about nothing. Usually there were at least a dozen of them. I called this Miss Liu's Harem. Not bad to look at, but not good for much else. While most of them spoke good english, none had ant experience in education.
Miss Liu makes a lot of demands on those who work for her.
Now, after a week of going back and forth to her little "villa" I had pretty much had it. I said, "If she wants me to keep coming out there for no reason, then she should be paying for the trips. This did not make MIss Liu happy, I am supposed to be at her beckon call after all. However these trips were not for business, so I saw no problem with bowing out.
Well Miss Liu did, and in the next week no actual job materialized. When I complained about this, I was sacked. reason given, "Your not a good teacher" though I don't see how she could know anything about that, never having seen me teach.
Anyhow, I was lucky to find something better, and only in a matter of days.
In truth when the car did not show up, I should have passed then and there. being new here though, I did not see any other choices.
This woman is a liar and a cheat. It turns out she has a long record of mistreating FT's here in China. She will lie, deceive, anything to get you to come here. Once she has you here she will systematically try to intimidate you and control you.
The contract I was given before arriving was crap. If she hires you to work 20 classes, it is actually 28. The pay does not change though. The apartment I was promised never materialized, and had no hot water, not even for showers. You won't be paid for the summer or winter holiday, though Miss Liu actually doe's get paid for them. She simply pockets the cash. She has an insatiable appetite for Mazhong, and must feed it somehow.
She will make many promises, but in the end, your nothing to her but a commodity, like a pig or chicken, to be bought and traded with whimsey. If you offend her delicate sensibilities in any way, or protest being lied to and deceived, well, your outta there.
Avoid this one like the plague. She uses an Alias by the name of Alice, or used to, likely changed the name. Turns out all the time I was talking to Alice, one of her supposed TA's, that I was really talking to Miss Liu. This allowed Miss Liu to blame this non existent person for anything I was told prior to coming, and say she had made a mistake, not Miss Liu. Over all a totally disreputable piece of crap, who should be out of business.
I posted years ago about her, but she is still around, using numerous aliases. If you want to come to china, don't use a recruiter, find a school and communicate with them directly. Avoid Tonghua Middle school, it is just Miss Liu. Avoid jobs in Jilin province in general, she has a lot of power there and will suck the life out of you like a vampire. This lady has an intense need to feel important, and loves to surround herself with foreigners and make herself feel important. Avoid avoid avoid, like the black death.