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

[Soutpeel]

I have several students who were taught English by non native speakers. One of them sounds more Russian than Putin and another speaks English like the Muppets Chef.

I thought the muppets chef was Swedish...

[KittenKong]

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?

Actually there is one more error in the title of the topic that is still uncorrected.

"Teachers" should start with "t" not "T".

Edited May 30, 2014 by KittenKong

[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 am Scottish and passed the TEFL course, and I can say that the way I spoke in the classroom, and the way I speak normally are very different. I do agree with you about the Liverpudlians, their accent is really dreadful, the mens high pitched voices? Oh dear.

They could probably be the same as me and speak clearly and slowly in the classroom.

Dear Dear....you picking on the Scouser's but no comment about your brethren in Glasgow...

I worked with a group of Thai lad's and a Glaswegian and when he spoke they all looked at me to translate and I said I haven't got a clue what he is saying either...

[NoshowJones]

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i know the "teachers" were having a good moan the other year when some philopines were coming over to teach, for less money then the "english teachers" that were here

jake

?

I have lost both the teaching jobs I had in my three years teaching because the Filipinos worked for a lot less than me, but I still say that every Filipino I have worked with have been excellent English speakers and excellent English teachers.

[Sandman77]

There are many places in Thailand ,

Where Thai people can learn English for free, in this case is not a question of money!

It's called foundation

[larsjohnsson]

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, and it's the same in Sweden. Where I come from. I have never seen a native teacher in my home country. But here in Thailand every person born in US or UK belive they will be a great teacher because they are born in an English speaking country.

[NoshowJones]

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.

Where do you come from then? With a username like that you are probably what is known as a Heinz (57 varieties).

[thailiketoo]

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, and it's the same in Sweden. Where I come from. I have never seen a native teacher in my home country. But here in Thailand every person born in US or UK belive they will be a great teacher because they are born in an English speaking country.

Now I understand.

[NoshowJones]

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?

In some cases yes, but in most cases no. I always had Thai English teachers coming to me with questions, and I was always glad to help, even encouraging them to do this.

[Nickthegreek]

We have a Philippine employee in our office that would run rings around 90% of the farang professionals in Thailand and probably speaks better English. If they are all like this I will hire nothing but Filipinos.

I have worked with Filipino English teachers, and there English is every bit as good, if not better than native English speakers.

Sadly I have yet to meet one Filipino that can speak English as well, or even close to that of an English person..let alone close to the skill set of a real English Teacher..

I spend hours ever week re -training all the words that my Daughter hears incorrectly so she understands what real English sounds like.

The main issue I see is that Thais from an early age pick up their native tongue and R becomes L as We all know, sadly a Filipino in my humble opinion cannot train this out as they don't have the training to work on pronunciation and by the time the children get to 6/7, its too late to undo the damage.....

I still remember and and encourage my Daughter to say " Peter Piper Picked a Pickled Pepper " I am no teacher,but she is now clear, albeit not to Uk speed quite yet.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Nickthegreek

[Soutpeel]

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?

Actually there is one more error in the title of the topic that is still uncorrected.

"Teachers" should start with "t" not "T".

You have no classes to attend today ?

[NoshowJones]

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.

How true. The best post in this thread so far.

[NoshowJones]

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 ;-)

Little Thai kids with Liverpool accents noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. a thousand times noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

[Mango Bob]

I have observed a number of English Camps and I think most of the teachers were very good and kept the students attention, and the students enjoy the camp. However when I speak with these teachers almost all of them are here on tourist visas or doing border runs.

[wilcopops]

I think the opening question says it all.....the OP hasn't got a clue on the topic and had already made up his/her mind.

Edited May 30, 2014 by wilcopops

[Soutpeel]

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 ;-)

Little Thai kids with Liverpool accents noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. a thousand times noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Almost as bad as the same Thai kids running around with a "see you jimmy" accent...

[NoshowJones]

We have a Philippine employee in our office that would run rings around 90% of the farang professionals in Thailand and probably speaks better English. If they are all like this I will hire nothing but Filipinos.

I have worked with Filipino English teachers, and there English is every bit as good, if not better than native English speakers.

Sadly I have yet to meet one Filipino that can speak English as well, or even close to that of an English person..let alone close to the skill set of a real English Teacher..

I spend hours ever week re -training all the words that my Daughter hears incorrectly so she understands what real English sounds like.

The main issue I see is that Thais from an early age pick up their native tongue and R becomes L as We all know, sadly a Filipino in my humble opinion cannot train this out as they don't have the training to work on pronunciation and by the time the children get to 6/7, its too late to undo the damage.....

I still remember and and encourage my Daughter to say " Peter Piper Picked a Pickled Pepper " I am no teacher,but she is now clear, albeit not to Uk speed quite yet.

We all have our expriences, I should have said " If not better than SOME native English speakers".

[johninbkk71]

My French teacher was Scottish and My Spanish teacher was English

[thailiketoo]

We have a Philippine employee in our office that would run rings around 90% of the farang professionals in Thailand and probably speaks better English. If they are all like this I will hire nothing but Filipinos.

I have worked with Filipino English teachers, and there English is every bit as good, if not better than native English speakers.

Sadly I have yet to meet one Filipino that can speak English as well, or even close to that of an English person..let alone close to the skill set of a real English Teacher..

I spend hours ever week re -training all the words that my Daughter hears incorrectly so she understands what real English sounds like.

The main issue I see is that Thais from an early age pick up their native tongue and R becomes L as We all know, sadly a Filipino in my humble opinion cannot train this out as they don't have the training to work on pronunciation and by the time the children get to 6/7, its too late to undo the damage.....

I still remember and and encourage my Daughter to say " Peter Piper Picked a Pickled Pepper " I am no teacher,but she is now clear, albeit not to Uk speed quite yet.

The man speaking is a Filipino English teacher in Thailand.

Now what do you think? Do you speak better English than the Filipino in the video?

[NoshowJones]

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....)

I don't know about IELTS, but in TEFL, there are faiures, a teacher trainer will not let you finish the course if you do badly in the tests you get every three or so days ( my course allowed you a second chance free, if you were not good enough to finish the first course) and no, that didn't apply to me. May I also point out that there is about a 20% fallout for various reasons before the course finishes.

[wolf5370]

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 ?Yes in my Country at least my French Teacher was French and my German Teacher was German! makes sense!

I went to a (supposed) good school in the UK - my French Master was English and my German Master was a Czech (he actually spoke French better than the French Master too!). We did have visiting French and German student teachers from time to time though. However, I have yet to meet a 2,000 year old Roman teaching Latin, or a 3,000 year old Geek teaching Classical Greek

The difference is of course, that the French Master held and Oxford degree (MA) in French and the German Master held various degrees including German from a German University! That is the difference I guess - though one could ask: Is it better to have an uneducated native speaker, or a poorly educated (in English language and teaching skills) non-native teacher? The answer is, neither!

[navara]

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?

Yes, you might be wrong. Native is nonsens. English has 300 dialects. Many non natives are doing very well. Beside this, do you have any idea about the quality of the Thai students?

[simon43]

I don't know about IELTS, but in TEFL, there are failures...

The IELTS exam results are graded from level 1 up to level 9 (in half-grade steps). Grade 9 equates to an (educated) NES, (which is why you really never see a student with that grade, because NES never bother to take the IELTS exam).

Grade 1 equates to being asleep in the exam.....

Interestingly, the average grade for Thai and Burmese students is about 6.5, whilst the average for Chinese students is only about 5. That is average, and of course there are exceptions.

Anyway, I'm going off-topic, so I'll shut up.....

Edited May 30, 2014 by simon43

[Gillyflower]

Well I read all the posts up to 25. There are a lot of NESs amongst them, whose grammar isn't all that wonderful.

By the way Myran, it is learnt.

[Soutpeel]

Beside this, do you have any idea about the quality of the Thai students?

I wondered when this gambit was going to be played.....someone is paying for someone to be taught, but lets blame the customer...

"it not our fault we are good teachers, its the students that are cr*p"

poor excuse dear boy...

[IanSalisbury]

now this will be good,,

and ill lay odds, that the old falang verses young falang card comes out to play,

there young,,,lol

this will be good,, wait till schools out,,lol

[IanSalisbury]

Do you talk about yr self. Pervite

[IanSalisbury]

now this will be good,,

and ill lay odds, that the old falang verses young falang card comes out to play,

there young,,,lol

That's bullshit and you know ut

this will be good,, wait till schools out,,lol

[NoshowJones]

We have a Philippine employee in our office that would run rings around 90% of the farang professionals in Thailand and probably speaks better English. If they are all like this I will hire nothing but Filipinos.

I have worked with Filipino English teachers, and there English is every bit as good, if not better than native English speakers.

Sadly I have yet to meet one Filipino that can speak English as well, or even close to that of an English person..let alone close to the skill set of a real English Teacher..

I spend hours ever week re -training all the words that my Daughter hears incorrectly so she understands what real English sounds like.

The main issue I see is that Thais from an early age pick up their native tongue and R becomes L as We all know, sadly a Filipino in my humble opinion cannot train this out as they don't have the training to work on pronunciation and by the time the children get to 6/7, its too late to undo the damage.....

I still remember and and encourage my Daughter to say " Peter Piper Picked a Pickled Pepper " I am no teacher,but she is now clear, albeit not to Uk speed quite yet.

We all have our expriences, I should have said " If not better than SOME native English speakers".

I made a slip up with experiences, sorry, even teachers and ex teachers are human.

[IanSalisbury]

All the teachers I met at 25 schools were professional. Don't start rumors about yr own problems