Native Speakers Only?

Are schools looking for English NATIVE  speakers only?? or a qualified ,experienced teacher will do as well?

Native speakers have a very strong advantage in the job market.
However, non-native-speaking teachers can make it...we have several here on the Saloon. Non-native speakers will generally need stronger qualifications, and their English must be quite correct. Unfair, given the English spoken by some native speakers, but the way it is...

I have a good English American accent and I think just speaking the language is not enough
you have to know the way to teach,explain and direct the students-learners.

I'm a strong advocate for the well qualified non-NEST being as good, and often better, than the native. First and foremost, they know how to learn [as opposed to naturally acquire] English, having done it, and also they know about how the language works. In my experience, your average lets-have-fun in China native speaker [and there's very few of those on this forum ] can't tick those boxes.

However, I'm not an employer these days, so you'll need to convince the school you're applying to. Stress your native speaker equivalence with regard to accent and pronunciation - though God knows why Chinese employers find these so critical -  as well as your qualifications and your work history. Good luck, and keep us informed.

ps don't post this at Dave's. There are a lot of very insecure native speakers over there!

Americans, Canadians, and even Australians are classed as native speakers, it's a sorry state of affairs

How do you define native speaker? You could be born and grow up in the USA or UK and not speak English proficiently. Or you could be from a non-English speaking country, yet speak the language as well as, if not better than, the average native speaker. Some Indians, Malaysians, Philippinos etc. consider English to be their first language, others don't speak a word. Perhaps in our globalised times, the term 'native speaker' doesn't really have as clear a meaning as it once did.

I've worked with two good teachers who were not native speakers, but let's say didn't go out of their way to advertise that fact. Well, to be strictly accurate, the Belgian guy was a fine teacher and the Dutch woman was a shambling foul-mouthed alcoholic, but her morning lessons were OK.

I'm with Gonzo; there's no reason at all that non-native speakers should not be as good at teaching English as native speakers, and they even have some advantages.

Also, there are some fairly odd dialects among native E speakers. My part of Canada has people who say things like "I seen Fred yesterday." and I would not say they would be qualified as teachers unless they've also learned standard English as a second dialect. There are equally odd things in other E-speaking countries.

People from Holland or Scandinavia rather often have excellent English, I think partly because their native languages are related to E and partly because those countries have good schools with required English courses. An argument they might use is that both the really massive definitive grammars of E have had a Scandinavian author. Otto Jespersen, a Dane who I'm told never lost his rather thick accent, did one about 1900. That was superseded by Quirck, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik in the 1970s. With a name like Jan Svartvik and a post at Oslo University, I feel safe assuming one of those is Scandinavian.

That said, I'll quote text I mostly wrote from the Wikitravel China article:
http://wikitravel.org/en/China#Work

There are a fairly strong preferences for native English speakers and for citizens of major English-speaking countries. Job ads routinely include a list of acceptable passports; UK, US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are on every list, Ireland and South Africa on most. Some schools will not even read the rest of your resume if you do not have one of those passports. Various prejudices may also come into play; overseas Chinese (even with perfect English), Filipinos, Indians, Malaysians, American Blacks, and especially Africans all report some difficulties finding jobs, or getting lower offers. Members of all those groups are happily employed in other schools, and many are well-paid, but getting a job is easier for people who fit a stereotype — Caucasians especially Americans or British. Some schools want blue-eyed blondes, because they hope that will help their marketing. Accent can also be an issue; Chinese people generally hope to acquire American accents, so a really thick Scots or Aussie accent will bother some employers, for example.
 

How do you define native speaker? ........ Perhaps in our globalised times, the term 'native speaker' doesn't really have as clear a meaning as it once did.

Spot on, but for yer average Chinese employer, who wouldn't know a Irish from an Ozark accent, it makes a convenient point of difference. But why? None of our students, no matter how they try, end up sounding even vaguely native speaker-ish. If they can speak clearly and correctly, that's all that's needed. Its the ones who affect an accent that really piss me off. Try CCTV9 for starters.

Americans, Canadians, and even  are classed as native speakers, it's a sorry state of affairs

Damn you Kitano, damn you to hell. Mate.
BTW, is "Kitano" Japanese??

None of our students, no matter how they try, end up sounding even vaguely native speaker-ish.

Well...some of the younger (and more affluent) generation I see going through IELTS and EAP programs have been doing A-levels etc and going to English medium schools since a young age, some get sent abroad to summer schools, and they have also grown up with the internet and access to Western English speaking culture, movies etc. 

There's a fair few teenagers out there with pretty spot on British and North American accents these days - granted, they are a tiny minority, but they exist. 

Please be on-topic here, the topic being non-native speakers getting jobs as teachers in China. Thank you.

@gonzo - I chose the username Kitano because at the time I registered I was watching a lot of films by Takeshi Kitano. 'fair dinkum'

@raoul - sorry....

Quote

None of our students, no matter how they try, end up sounding even vaguely native speaker-ish.

 

There's a fair few teenagers out there with pretty spot on British and North American accents these days - granted, they are a tiny minority, but they exist. 

There are no generic NA and Br accents. Even Meryl Streep knows that! And MK's point interestingly is that none of these fakers "learned" an accent from an FT. They all get them from Hollywood.

Chinese universities are certainly fairly backwards in terms of how they think about spoken language - so many textbooks still contain daft assertions about RP.  Students can't quite comprehend that being a global language with many, many times more L2 users than native speakers renders arguments about the "correct" variety of spoken English rather ridiculous. 

As a result of this, getting a job if you are non-native is going to be fairly tough.  I wonder if anyone who has had experience on the recruitment side of things, or who is a non-NEST in China, would care to speak to whether an IELTS certificate would help.  Certainly, if I was looking at a non-native teacher's CV, then they would have to be very well qualified and either have an IELTS or TOEFL certificate or a degree from the UK or US.  That said, I would certainly consider candidates who met those standards.

  I wonder if anyone who has had experience on the recruitment side of things, or who is a non-NEST in China, would care to speak to whether an IELTS certificate would help.

I'm involved in recruitment of foreign teachers for my Uni.

Obviously being a native speaker helps. Some departments specify that they iwant one. Last year, half of our teachers weren't NESTs and that made timetabling awkward.

However one of our returning teachers is a NEST. We seriously considered two different teachers from Spain and one from Paraguay. Our advertising makes no reference to native speakers.

The value of an IELTS would be in proving the level of English, but we speak to all prospective teachers on the phone anyway, so it would be kind of redundant for us. Of course we want a very good level of English ability, but it's all about the teaching (and attitude) for us.

There's no doubt it could be (and has been)a pain if a non NEST made lots of mistakes in their English, but I'm not necessarily always that impressed with the English level of the NESTS (and to be fair, I make the odd error myself).

This year we have 4 NESTS (and all of us are to some extent aspiring writers) but I gave one of the Writing classes to the non-NEST this year because I sometimes feel he communicates in writing much better than the rest of us NESPs (Native English Speaking Pseuds).

So, our foreign teachers just need to be from any country other than China.

Or Japan.