Unprofessional and unskilled English Teacher's do you feel guilty?

[AYJAYDEE]

No matter how unskilled and unprofessional they are, they are still better equipped to teach conversational english than most of the thai english teachers in the school system.

[David48]

To the OP ... I'm confused.

Are you disapointed that your gf lent her sister the money ?

Or are you decrying your perception of what the English Camp will be like ?

If it's your gf's money ... then it's her money and no recourse back to you.

Unless you are going to the English Camp ... is it really your business?

It's not you going to the English Camp, it's not your kids going to the English Camp ... so two degrees of separation

between yourself and the aggrieved action.

Life here is much easier if we let others make their own choices and we don't interfere and try and make it for them.

.

[star kicker]

To teach a language, does 1 need to be a native speaker ?

when i did my CELTA the only student to get an A grade came from Ukraine and was an excellent English teacher.

everyone else, all native speakers, got C.

i was one of only two students who received a B grade

[Display]

To the OP ... I'm confused.

Are you disapointed that your gf lent her sister the money ?

Or are you decrying your perception of what the English Camp will be like ?

If it's your gf's money ... then it's her money and no recourse back to you.

Unless you are going to the English Camp ... is it really your business?

It's not you going to the English Camp, it's not your kids going to the English Camp ... so two degrees of separation

between yourself and the aggrieved action.

Life here is much easier if we let others make their own choices and we don't interfere and try and make it for them.

.

To answer your question.

Yes I have the right to intervene as I have a lot of respect for my GF and that will luckily flow towards her family. I have met her sister kids and their great and was impressed at least with the eldest that wanted to speak English with me.

I don't mine the money as its no problem for me but I would like my GF sister that struggles with money that wants the best for her kids and to get what she is paying for!

Who do you think pays the bills? I am in the privileged position to do so! Although my GF still wants to pay her way which I encourage! As she is my GF not my wife!

I have been here long enough to know the story in Thailand and maybe I am one in million but Thailand has been good to me!

Edited May 29, 2014 by Display

[Seastallion]

I agree that some non-native speakers with very heavy accents shouldn´t be teaching, but there are a lot of foreigners (like myself) who have trained and achieved a near perfect accent and are therefore very much qualified to teach if we have the linguistic knowledge.

Accents aside, I believe that non-natives often have much greater knowledge of English than natives, since the natives simply have acquired the language, and not really learned it.

You're quite right with that last sentence, except perhaps for extent of vocabulary. My wife is Thai and an English teacher. She can tell me exactly why a sentence is grammatically wrong whereas I just "feel" it is wrong or maybe don't even realise that it's wrong. Her vocabulary is not as vast as mine, but it is extensive enough for us to be able to talk for hours on any subject and only occasionally ask for clarification.

But you said "Accents aside". Therein lies the rub. At my wife's school there is an English teacher from India. From my experience with Indians, I guess his vocabulary is more than adequate and his technical knowledge might be excellent, the problem is that nobody can understand him, not even my wife and she has been living in a completely English speaking country. I have yet to meet him but I don't anticipate any problems as I am used to the accent but it would be hard for many NES's let alone Thais

But, accents aside, what I find disturbing is NES's who don't have a good grasp of their own language. A chap from some part of London who says things like, "I'd like some of them ones over there" and uses double negatives all the time, or even look at the appalling spelling and grammar, and limited vocabularies on this forum from supposedly NES's. It may be all well and good enough for primary school because the students only need the basics, but once a student is at vocational level or even before, they should have a better class of teacher.

[cgphuket]

I work in the field and have met "qualified" teachers with the right degree, that are shit teachers. I have also met some with nothing more more than a 4-week TEFL certificate that are really good. I think a passion for teaching and caring about the students is more important than having the right qualifications. Even dodgy teachers care more about learning than the school management. As far as non-NES, I have met some ESL people who speak better English than some native speakers...just saying.

[pinkpanther99]

Yes, I felt guilty!

I was teaching for a year and half when I first arrived in Thailand. I'm was your classic TEFLer. No genuine qualifications for teaching, just took some poxy TEFL certificate from the UK and before I knew it I was stood in front of 40 kids 'teaching' in Thailand.

Although I tried my best and worked hard, the longer I taught, the more of a fraud I kind of felt. I was only teaching to be able to earn a salary and stay in Thailand. I was more of a babysitter than genuine teacher. However, none of this seemed to matter to the bosses of the school, one of whom started to cry when I told her I would be leaving at the end of term, which was quite bizarre!

Also, I've come to realise that I am a massive hypocrite. Going down the TEFL route to earn some money was fine for me a couple of years ago. However, since becoming a father, I now realise that my daughter may end up being taught by someone like me - (an unqualified farang, with zero experience, who was only 'teaching' to pick up his 30,000 THB at the end of the month). Suddenly that's not OK when the shoe is on the other foot. I don't want my daughter to be taught by some farang numpty.

And some of the standards of farang 'teachers' I have seen in Thailand (and I include myself in this) are shockingly bad. Guys just giving colouring in worksheets to kids every lesson. One guy running through a role play of how to buy an air conditioning unit, where kids needed to identify specific make and model - to a class of 8 year olds. Another guy stuggling to get through the 7 times table, again when teaching 8 year olds.

I don't want that for my daughter but it's funny how my opinion has changed.

And people call Thai kids stupid - well is it any wonder with the standard for farang teachers they have teaching them!

[AYJAYDEE]

Yes, I felt guilty!

I was teaching for a year and half when I first arrived in Thailand. I'm was your classic TEFLer. No genuine qualifications for teaching, just took some poxy TEFL certificate from the UK and before I knew it I was stood in front of 40 kids 'teaching' in Thailand.

Although I tried my best and worked hard, the longer I taught, the more of a fraud I kind of felt. I was only teaching to be able to earn a salary and stay in Thailand. I was more of a babysitter than genuine teacher. However, none of this seemed to matter to the bosses of the school, one of whom started to cry when I told her I would be leaving at the end of term, which was quite bizarre!

Also, I've come to realise that I am a massive hypocrite. Going down the TEFL route to earn some money was fine for me a couple of years ago. However, since becoming a father, I now realise that my daughter may end up being taught by someone like me - (an unqualified farang, with zero experience, who was only 'teaching' to pick up his 30,000 THB at the end of the month). Suddenly that's not OK when the shoe is on the other foot. I don't want my daughter to be taught by some farang numpty.

And some of the standards of farang 'teachers' I have seen in Thailand (and I include myself in this) are shockingly bad. Guys just giving colouring in worksheets to kids every lesson. One guy running through a role play of how to buy an air conditioning unit, where kids needed to identify specific make and model - to a class of 8 year olds. Another guy stuggling to get through the 7 times table, again when teaching 8 year olds.

I don't want that for my daughter but it's funny how my opinion has changed.

And people call Thai kids stupid - well is it any wonder with the standard for farang teachers they have teaching them!

you think the thais teach english any better?

[Seastallion]

I think that non-native speakers, such as the Scottish and Liverpudlians, should be given the chance to teach English too once they pass a IELTS test or whatever it's called.

I disagree with you. You let the Scots in, then you may as well let in Kentuckians.

Or Cajuns!

[Braddockrd]

It just bothers you because you are the one who ends up paying for it :-)

[captspectre]

How do you know they had any white NES?

I don't think they even consider guilt. remember it is the Thai who hires them! you get what you pay for and the youngsters end up paying by not learning prolerly.

[Eliot Rosewater]

I work in the field and have met "qualified" teachers with the right degree, that are shit teachers. I have also met some with nothing more more than a 4-week TEFL certificate that are really good. I think a passion for teaching and caring about the students is more important than having the right qualifications. Even dodgy teachers care more about learning than the school management. As far as non-NES, I have met some ESL people who speak better English than some native speakers...just saying.

I agree with you; however, I also know people with no driver license who can drive better than people who have had one for years.

That is all fine and good, as long as the driver with no license knows that if he/she makes a mistake, then he/she will be held accountable for breaking the rules and will have to deal with the consequences.

[simon43]

Chris from Belfast, Steve from Glasgow, Bill from Liverpool & Phil from Newcastle.

All native English speaking people, all with varying degrees and all eligible to take TEFL or whatever other foreign teaching courses there are.

Truth, they all find it difficult understanding each other let alone, on the basis of being a native speaker, teaching English to others.

I commented on regional accents in a previous thread, because I have worked with English teachers with strong, (incomprehensible) accents from Scotland and Liverpool.

I come from Leicester and can speak with a strong, local accent. But when I teach students I 'switch off' that accent and speak with a very clear and neutral accent, (Queen's English).

When I asked my fellow teachers why they didn't switch off their regional; accents when teaching, they could not comprehend how one can switch between a 'family' accent and a 'teaching' accent.

Is no-one nowadays taught by their parents to switch between local and neutral accent, according to the situation that they find themselves in?

Simon

[Soutpeel]

shocking!

Oh dear

I don't profess to be an English teacher dear boy, but seeing as you feel obligated to correct my work in the style of a typical TV English Nazi, one suspects you must be

Maybe I should employ you as my proof reader, sure you could do with the money...

[Soutpeel]

Yes, I felt guilty!

I was teaching for a year and half when I first arrived in Thailand. I'm was your classic TEFLer. No genuine qualifications for teaching, just took some poxy TEFL certificate from the UK and before I knew it I was stood in front of 40 kids 'teaching' in Thailand.

Although I tried my best and worked hard, the longer I taught, the more of a fraud I kind of felt. I was only teaching to be able to earn a salary and stay in Thailand. I was more of a babysitter than genuine teacher. However, none of this seemed to matter to the bosses of the school, one of whom started to cry when I told her I would be leaving at the end of term, which was quite bizarre!

Also, I've come to realise that I am a massive hypocrite. Going down the TEFL route to earn some money was fine for me a couple of years ago. However, since becoming a father, I now realise that my daughter may end up being taught by someone like me - (an unqualified farang, with zero experience, who was only 'teaching' to pick up his 30,000 THB at the end of the month). Suddenly that's not OK when the shoe is on the other foot. I don't want my daughter to be taught by some farang numpty.

And some of the standards of farang 'teachers' I have seen in Thailand (and I include myself in this) are shockingly bad. Guys just giving colouring in worksheets to kids every lesson. One guy running through a role play of how to buy an air conditioning unit, where kids needed to identify specific make and model - to a class of 8 year olds. Another guy stuggling to get through the 7 times table, again when teaching 8 year olds.

I don't want that for my daughter but it's funny how my opinion has changed.

And people call Thai kids stupid - well is it any wonder with the standard for farang teachers they have teaching them!

a good honest post...

[Soutpeel]

I think that non-native speakers, such as the Scottish and Liverpudlians, should be given the chance to teach English too once they pass a IELTS test or whatever it's called.

I disagree with you. You let the Scots in, then you may as well let in Kentuckians.

Or Cajuns!

I think in the UK context... Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle...are the most least understandable accents, even for people from the UK

[apalink_thailand]

I agree that some non-native speakers with very heavy accents shouldn´t be teaching, but there are a lot of foreigners (like myself) who have trained and achieved a near perfect accent and are therefore very much qualified to teach if we have the linguistic knowledge.

Accents aside, I believe that non-natives often have much greater knowledge of English than natives, since the natives simply have acquired the language, and not really learned it.

People from the north of England and Scotland are speaking English as native tongue yet....they are often impossible to understand. Little Thai kids with Geordie accents? Nooooooo ;-)

[KittenKong]

"Unprofessional and unskilled English Teacher's do you feel guilty?"

They would probably feel guilty if they could spell it.

Four pages of discussion of English teaching and apparently no one spotted the erroneous grocer's apostrophe in "teacher's", quoted above.

[yourauntbob]

As an "untrained" English teacher myself, NO. I do feel bad for the kids as the system is set up against them. There are many bad teachers both "trained" and "untrained" running around Thailand. As for myself, I have taken several "unrecognized" courses and try to update my skills regularly. According to Thailand and most other countries, I am not a "qualified" teacher. I am however, a much better teacher than most of the "qualified" teachers I know.

Its not the certificate you have, its how much time and effort is put into the craft. Unfortunately in Thailand there are too many people working in all varieties of schools simply looking for a paycheck and not a job. Those people should be ashamed. The hard truth is that the system here works against anyone actually trying to teach the kids. The best teachers I know cant keep a job because they refuse to follow the path of least resistance. Conversely, the worst teachers I know are set for life because they dont try to change "how we have always done it" mentality.

Edited May 30, 2014 by yourauntbob

[geronimo]

My opinion.......... you need to change your mindset.

[chakatee]

To teach a language, does 1 need to be a native ?

I think its a good start to be native at least! As just yesterday I was speaking to a friend of a friend that is Chinese's and he is a qualified Chinese teacher here in Bangkok, and he was joking to me that there are French and Spanish English Teacher here in Thailand with heavy accents. He taught it was hilarious!

Don't shot the messengers here please.....

Hmmmm..i come from The Netherlands and it is mandatory that kids start to learn 3 other languages when they start high school. English, french and german. Do you really think that we have thousands of natives from those countries teaching their respective languages ?

Of course in Netherlands and such countries all those foreign language teachers are not natives in those languages ... however they all have at least a Bachelor Degree for teaching in that language. They will know the language as well as most natives and probably speak it without a heavy accent.

This cannot be compared with all those (English Native or not) people who never actually learned to teach (or with a short course only) and more specifically never to teach that specific language.

My English is ok I think but I wouldn't even consider myself being capable teaching English. I have been teaching (in my home country) but only in subjects which I was trained for ... a language (any language) is a whole other story.

Those Philippine teachers: many have a teacher degree so that's a plus, not all of them though. Some have good English skills, others make lots of mistakes in both grammar as vocabulary. And from many if not most the pronunciation is quite poor and heavily accented. Overall some are better but still I would prefer them to teach my children English over some French or German native.

[Zooheekock]

Why I ask this is because my GF sister's kids that live in the countryside with their grandma were calling their mum that does not have a lot of money asking could they get money for an English Learning Weekend Camp.

Now she didn't have the money for it but felt bad so she borrowed some cash of my GF to pay for it.

Now I know enough that most of these Falang teachers on these English Camp are not even trained teachers and a lot of them are not even Native English speakers!

I think this is wrong! What is your opinion?

As far as I can tell from what is a remarkably badly written OP, you don’t actually know anything about what happened at the camp or about the teachers; your complaint seems to be that your assumptions make you unhappy. What do I suggest? Get a set of assumptions which makes you happy.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Zooheekock

[KittenKong]

Its not the certificate you have, its how much time and effort is put into the craft.

Actually when it comes to teaching it's ability and knowledge that matter, not certificates or effort.

By the way, both the "its" in your sentence quoted above should be "it's".

[simon43]

I think that non-native speakers, such as the Scottish and Liverpudlians, should be given the chance to teach English too once they pass a IELTS test or whatever it's called.

I've taught IELTS exam preparation courses for a few years, so I am reasonably familiar about the requirements and exams. Your accent has no bearing on the grade that you achieve in this exam (there is no 'fail' grade). It is a test of reading, writing and verbal comprehension/grammar, not a test of your accent. Even the examiner may have a regional accent, (although not a strong accent which would normally be considered as difficult to understand).

In my IELTS classes, my students practice listening to British, American, Australian, Indian etc accents, and I then 'shock' them by playing conversion in 'Geordie'!

Having said that, I really don't think it is fair on the students (of any age), if their teacher speaks with a strong, regional accent or 'foreign' accent. A Thai who learns to speak with a Geordie accent is doing himself/herself no favours at all, (unless they work in the Newcastle dockyards....)

Edited May 30, 2014 by simon43

[cardinalblue]

Dusplay,

Your writing sample makes it sound like English is not your native language? Are you trying to ask a question or a dig at English teachers? Here is my response...

Like all products or services some are of high quality and some are poor. If one does their own research, one can distinguish between what meets their objectives and ones that don't cut the mustard. No different than researching a car, a medical provider or a tennis program....

Rather than spout generalizations and negativity, do your homework and you will reach a meaningful conclusion if this is worth moving forward...

CB

[F4UCorsair]

I'd hate to be paying for my kids to be taught English by some who identify themselves as English teachers, and post here.

Some are incapable of spelling even simple words, use appalling grammar, and their grasp of the language is tenuous at best. Some are even NES!!

I think if a person intends representing himself as an English teacher, and is prepared to be paid for so doing, he should be toward the top of the literacy spectrum.

Kids poorly taught will carry those inaccuracies through their lives, never being able to correct them.

CB, are you an English teacher?

Edited May 30, 2014 by F4UCorsair

[inutil]

Im pretty much trained. BA philosophy and a crappy tefl with ten years of classroom experience. But still, im trained. And theres the rub.

There is very little training or feedback in the ESL industry. No matter which country you work in you will find that few people actually care enough to put you on a genuine training programme to bring you up to speed. The best training an esl-er gets outside of paying through the nose for it, is another ESLer relating which activities kinda worked and demonstrating them in a once a year 2 or 3 day waste of time for all concerned, seminar.

This is not an industry that appears to be built around delivering exceptional results. Its a revolving door. Bodies come in, burn out, leave, new wide-eyed bodies come in... Pay is stagnant, opportunities are stagnant, conditions seem to be amazingly, getting worse in almost all the main countries delivering ESL (and the climate is certainly turning away from English if youre actually paying attention).

So why would an ESLer feel guilty in the midst of all that? Most people WANT to be good at their job, but simply havent got a clue where to look. Before the advent of englipedia i honest to god had a repertoire of about 6 or 7 great activities (from the aforementioned seminars), and the rest were trial and error (and for the most part error). Im fairly good at this job now, but only because ive screwed up somewhere in the region of 60-70% of the total classes ive taught... wait! i should clarify. I mean that the lesson didnt achieve its set aims not that the kids had a lousy time or that i had some kind of nightmare - those account for around 5-10% of classes id say. I discovered Englipedia in my fourth year of teaching and it was eye-opening. BUT it was still at its core a bunch of ESL English teachers saying "this worked, try this!"

This is a dysfunctional industry. Its driven by profit and subsidy. In the public school market most schools have an NET in class because central government will subsidise the board of education (or the individual school). A school in Japan nets around 400,000yen/month for a teacher i believe, of that, 300,000 or so went to my company, and i saw 240,000 of it... well actually, closer to 190,000. We are free money for schools to buy other things, which is why schools themselves often care very little about integrating the NET. They plonk us on a desk in the teacher room, then schedule us however many classes, dont offer training, dont offer feedback, dont really tell us what to teach ("you decide!") and really just hope that we make a nice bond with the students and have smiley faces. The content of our classes isnt vetted, no one is supervising us (actually supervising us - not just being the poor schmuck who has to look after the ALTs paperwork), no one is training us. If we suck... no problem, its about "internationalization" anyway. If the kids are happy, the school is happy.

Why Japan you might be asking? Well, if i talk about Thailand i will literally have no idea where to even start... Ive never taught in a more disorganised, chaotic system than in Thai public schools. So lets not even bother with Thailand. Lets just show that even in the most mature industry, an ALT is little more than a warm body on a seat that brings in money for the Board of Education. Lets not even remark that schools in thailand are often personal fiefdoms for directors who can spend the extra on personally propping up their status rather than on school maintenance and resources. At least in Japan schools are putting that excess right back into education (and it might even be into their English education for all we know).

As for camps... as someone rightly remarked, the teachers have nothing to do with them. Just like in public schools, we're sent there by our company. They do all the organisation and planning of the material. We're told to teach x-activity. And its usually an activity with the only relationship to English education being that the instructions are given in English because "yay! camp!" So again, why would the person on the bottom rung of that ladder be the one that should feel shame about the situation? Theyre paid for the camp, and that pay will get them IN PART through the 3 months or so where they receive no wages at all because if you choose to teach public school and try and do something useful rather than following the money trail of privates, you get punished with 3 months of lost salary because youre on a term by term contract at 30-35,000/month. And thats if you fit the criteria (western stereotype, fresh out of uni, or young enough and with experience).

If you think this industry is in any way related to education, then youre deluding yourself to be honest.

So in answer to the question, yes, i feel a lot of shame that instead of teaching a subject i love and instilling that love into the minds of kids, im teaching a subject i loath and despise because it pays me while i try and save the money for the ridiculous fees i need to to do a PGCE (that doesnt exist in the subject i want to teach). Im ashamed that im an educator in a cynical industry that cares not one jot for its employees and looks only at ways to make money off their backs by selling a product to people that often dont really need it.

Edited May 30, 2014 by inutil

[SaintLouisBlues]

Not when the post is from someone who can't place an apostrophe correctly let alone a comma. The topic "Unprofessional and unskilled English Teacher's do you feel guilty?" should read:

Unprofessional and unskilled English Teachers, do you feel guilty?

[Mudcrab]

To teach a language, does 1 need to be a native ?

I think its a good start to be native at least! As just yesterday I was speaking to a friend of a friend that is Chinese's and he is a qualified Chinese teacher here in Bangkok, and he was joking to me that there are French and Spanish English Teacher here in Thailand with heavy accents. He taught it was hilarious!

Don't shot the messengers here please.....

Hmmmm..i come from The Netherlands and it is mandatory that kids start to learn 3 other languages when they start high school. English, french and german. Do you really think that we have thousands of natives from those countries teaching their respective languages ?

Agree. When I went to high school one language I had to learn was Latin. Not too many native Latin speakers around in those days.

[umbanda]

To teach a language, does 1 need to be a native speaker ?

Good point!

To teach ANYTHING what is the most important is to LOVE to teach......I saw in my life very many unmotivated and boring "professional" teachers...farangs and natives......and a lot more in Thailand than anywhere...Thai English teachers mentally abusing its students with demands, indifference, and discrimination....

The best English teacher in Thailand I know is an American 80 years old retired lady that do not have any degree. She is a landmark in her north Thailand big town..She do not only loves to teach...she loves to learn. She speaks Thai perfectly....something I don't, even close to my poor English...

My respects Judith!

Edited May 30, 2014 by umbanda