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[ericthered]

Sorry Raoul, that was a typo. The "not" should not have been there.

[contemporarydog]

No matter who's in the classroom, serious teaching quals are, IMHO largely irrelevant if the entire educational philosophy and practice are useless.

Exactly.

[ericthered]

No matter who's in the classroom, serious teaching quals are, IMHO largely irrelevant if the entire educational philosophy and practice are useless.

Exactly.

True. I highly doubt there is anyone who would argue that any teaching quals acquired in the West are geared towards a vastly different educational system, just like the one found in China. However, from the point of view of the schools, corrupt, profiteering rackets they maybe, insisting that a teacher has quals at least, to a minimal degree, ensures that whoever they hire will have some interest in teaching and not be the aforementioned cheese-monger who's only there to make enough kuai to get pie-eyed on cheap beer and afford the flight home and who could not, even if he tried, care a fig less for the quality of education his students are receiving.

[contemporarydog]

I can't argue with that at all.

Personally I think some kind of set exam for all foreigners (who aren't 'qualified'), plus a prerequisite that they do a demo class in their home country and send it to the school, might be the way to go.

[contemporarydog]

I agree with you about the pay we get, Eric.  It's enough to live quite well (on a 'local' basis) here IMO.  My point was more that, if the 'qualified' teachers can earn so much more elsewhere (Hong Kong/International Schools in Shanghai or Beijing, etc), it's going to be very very tough to fill all those positions with them exclusively.

Heck, the UK is full of disgruntled (proper) teachers who don't even find the appeal in these high paying international positions, never mind 5000 RMB a month.  I've got a mate in Thailand who is a qualified teacher, and earns the equivalent of 18,000 RMB per month.  I told him he could double (or more) his salary in Shanghai, but China just doesn't appeal to him compared with Thailand.  China simply doesn't appeal to a lot of people, let's face it most of us are a bit eccentric in some way or another.  Most British people want warm sunshine, a beach, and somewhere a bit chilled out, if they're thinking about 'abroad', so the only thing that will draw them here is a decent wodge, for the most part...

[ericthered]

How would you orchestrate a demo class?

Yes, you would have to have some incentive other than teaching to come to China. A high salary would be one. I, for one, is going because I want to learn the language. There are more money to be made in the future by people who know their zhege from their neige than experts on Eighteenth Cent literature could ever make.

[contemporarydog]

Personally, I came here because I was interested in China.  And do still enjoy it, by and large.  But I feel it's wholly unrealistic to expect to fill all the positions advertised on ESLTeachers'Board and the like with fully qualified teachers.  Just never going to happen, it probably couldn't even ever happen in places like Korea where they pay a lot more.

[Foscolo]

100 years ago the education systems of the so-called developed countries were rudimentary and wrong-headed for all but a tiny privileged elite. That gradually changed because there was an open and informed public debate disseminated through a reasonably unfettered, high quality media. Developed countries with less good education systems tend to be the ones which were encumbered with dictatorships for significant chunks of the twentieth century.

I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, and it may be best not to spell it out here. Basically, to quote an old saying, "You can't build a palace in a pigsty".

But even in countries with top-notch state education, ESL is often still only one up from burger flipping. I got to the stage where I was often so angry about the naked exploitation and general crapness of my ESL job, that I actually started wondering what effect it might be having on my health. My strategy has been to diversify into other types of work. I still do some teaching, but more or less on my own terms, and I'm not dependent on any one employer for my living.

I'd come to dislike teaching, and a little to hate myself for accepting the conditions under which I was doing it. But now I've started to enjoy it again.

[joe.thinker]

The younger teachers here have great ideals, but I fear they are being crushed by the system.  It will be years before they are the ones in charge and by then their integrity might have been beaten out of them.

Amen to that. I'm an idealist, I know this. I should say I was an idealist. Now I'm a fuckitist. At least about teaching here in China. I've had too many people above and below me in the chain pound into my head "You bad teacher." Why both bosses and students alike think this to be a proper way of recommending change, or inspiring greatness ...

... and the students that could squeak into a Western college at all would probably last about 3 hours before being smacked up for cheating/plagaiarizing/etc. So, what the hell.

And I am indeed stating that the jobs, and a helluva lot of the students, just aren't worth it. They don't understand, appreciate, or want all that fine educational philosophy and tradition and training we represent. Nor do they want to, and they will fight tooth-and-nail to prevent it from happening.

Amen to this as well. I did have the joy (albeit looks like it's being removed from my schedule) of teaching American Uni prep courses. During these courses I taught Psych, which was my major at uni. I didn't even go in with expectations of essays, or even homework, really - I was given the class to wax psych/philosophy with a bunch of - at the time - great kids. Since starting it, however, and showing the depth to which some of the fundamental educational psychologists analysed the human, the class size started dropping - exponentially. Within three weeks, the size was 12 down to 6, then two weeks later 6 to 2. One of the two brought a friend, so it's back up to three.

I approached the kids as to why they left the class - and NO JOKE - one said: "I don't want to work that hard. You think too deep."

We were on the basics of the theory.

Now, in LE's happy bandwagon defence - the three that are present DO wonderfully, and one is even considering switching his major to Psych. He does, however, wish to return to China. And it pained me - seriously pained me - to tell him: "Don't. If you want to come back ? Don't. Stay a law major, it'll actually serve you here."

I said earlier I am/was an idealist. I suppose I still am - but to force myself to abandon my ideals because of recognising the complete impracticability of them here for the life of a student ?



LE said earlier that if you're not satisfied with the way things are going, or with your job satisfaction, that you're just wasting your time here, or something to that extent. I think this is what pains me the most. I'm returning to the west, for a short while. But I still can't see myself living there, not at this point in my life. I can't - however - imagine myself continuing this existence here as a "teecha" as RD said it in his analysis of Hong, Suzhou. I'm just too depressed.

I like to quote a band Brave Saint Saturn, who says: "Anaesthetic apathy, come and take my pain away." What pains me is that I can't seem to become apathetic. RD, can you hook a brother up ? Maybe I need to start consuming copious amounts of drugs.

Lastly -

The Chinese educational system remains a crock of shit because changing it would cost the main players money and face. Period.

To which I can only say: "I too am tired of losing face. Losing face to eight year olds. Peace out, I'm leaving this rock, with no intents of return."

[Calach Pfeffer]

I confess to being a little puzzled by all this sound and fury.

My bias informs me that the people in front of me will or won't follow the path they mean to follow according to who and what they are by themselves. 

Of course, I also, each week, insist that they do follow the particular path I've planned out for them that week because, though I know I'm just making it up as I go along, I also know I've put work into making it coherent.

When strength and mood moves me I do try to draw out of my own principles and make a broad sketch of the content I'm supposedly dealing with, and I like to try and measure it against some standards.  Thus, qualifications seem to me to be nice, pleasurable things.  And inattentive students seem unpleasant, insulting things.

And for as long as there are classes that will go silent when I ask them to listen, and will set to when I prompt them to action, and I face no prospect of robbery or spiritual assault from the management, then corrupt, silly venality that goes on outside the classroom doesn't become an issue.

Yes, I know, there's contradictions in that approach.  I doubt I contain multitudes, but there's different things banging around inside there anyway.

But, too, I imagine, should management ever seem alluring, this live and let live approach would change overnight.


Another thing I'm a little puzzled by is this "if you reach just a few" idea.  I find it humiliating to speak as if to a room and know I am heard by only a handful.  The fuckers are with me or they're agin me, and this teacher acts out accordingly.


All of this, in my humble, personalised opinion, means... means... well, if I want to keep being a teacher, I should come to know what other teachers know now that I know what it is I think I know.  That's what I'd expect from a qualification.

That's probably when everything would start to go to hell.  With a broader perspective on the way things are and the way they could be, a lot of things could well start to look like shit.  And low salaries may start to feel insulting.  And effort to change these things might well be blocked at every turn.

What can I say?  Teachers, prepare your breakfast and eat hearty.  For tonight we dine in Hell.

[contemporarydog]

I'll present, if I may, a little summary here:

Do Chinese students deserve teachers who actually try to teach them? Yes!

Do they deserve the horror stories I've read of teachers who just 'goof off' (great USAnian phrase there), turn up drunk, and show DVDs?  Of course they don't.

Should teachers coming to China be able to write and speak English to a decent level?  Of course they should!

Should there be major questions raised about some teachers over here, some of whom post on the ESL cafe, who can barely write in coherent English?  Of course there should!

Is it realistic to expect each and every one of those teachers to be a fully qualified teacher with tons of experience, for the money paid?  Of course it isn't.  I don't think even Korea, which pays a lot more, could attract fully qualified teachers to all its ESL positions.  Let's not forget, many qualified teachers haven't trained to teach ESL, and the majority have no desire at all to do so, otherwise they would have gone and done a CELTA/DELTA in the first place, instead of training to teach speakers of their own language, in the setting of their own country's schools.

Is it possible to find a middle ground of people who might not be fully qualified to teach back home but are well educated, have done the CELTA and do make a lot of effort to try and teach the students?  Yes! (IMO).  I think most of the people here fall under that category.

Should teachers be given better access to resources and materials for teaching?  Yes, they should!

Finally, would you ask Lewis Hamilton to get a job driving an old lady to the supermarket in a Robin Reliant?  No, I wouldn't!

[Calach Pfeffer]

Inspiring people's okay for you E-type Idealists.  What about us Introverts who trade in ideas and independence of persons and don't function at our best in full-on, high density people all around me, clambering to get inside my skin and steal my soul situations?  Dependent students and corrupt environments will be a trial.

Dunno.  One goes with one's preference and does what one can, yeah?  You find a way to do something of what you're good at.  It's a pity there's no such thing as a take-it-or-leave-it approach to teachers here.  The kids expect if not beauty than at least a high level of personal involvement.  But then again, they all say they're lovely and warmhearted too, and that's not true either.

There's like--what?  3000 universities and colleges in China?  Can't all be a bunch of strung out emotion junkies.


ps.  neat summary, CD. 

[contemporarydog]

I do have to agree with LE about the students.  They are, generally, great, and deserve, often, better than what they are given, including by their schools.  But that's precisely what people are objecting to.  We've all seen the schools' principals and bosses driving about in their shiny black cars and getting their expenses paid trips to New Zealand and Australia for the summer.  We've all 'done the math' about the fees which are paid, the total money which the schools are taking in (PLUS government money if it's a public school) and balanced that against the salaries paid (to both local and foreign teachers), and resources provided.

CP.  One other thing I would have included to highlight what I'm saying... Dalian is considered one of the best cities in China.  My school's High School, where the teachers are all 'proper', qualified teachers, pays 25,000 a month.  That's no small wonga, and in a city considered one of the most desirable to live in.  A hell of a lot of teachers, by all accounts, turn up, take one look, and go home after two weeks (this also happened at my Wuhan school, but that was less surprising).  That's despite very high salaries, good conditions, good area.

[joe.thinker]

CD - I like your summary. And your crazy ass avatar - what's up with that (PM me if at all, let's not derail this post) ?

As I see from this thread, there seems to be three major schools of thought:

1) Provide a good teacher, and the system will follow. I see LE, Eagle, and others adhering to this belief. The central idea seems to be that of an inside out mentality: "You're not worthless, you alone hold the power to change !" This mentality charges forward, and gets things done: Washington, Jefferson, and Mao, to name a few. The slippery slope that I see this belief holding is that it is fairly akin to the Manifest Destiny charge of the Bush administration. "I WILL MAKE CHANGE, DAMNIT ! You're either for me or against me !"

2) Fix the system, and good teachers will follow (or I'll get off my ass to become a "betta teecha"). I see myself, and RD being main proponents of this view, as well as others. I can try to be objective. It, too, has it's benefits in belief. The Promethean ethic of yesteryear is gone, but the Prometheans got things done through peaceful protest; Ghandi, MLK, Lennon all held to their beliefs and cried "We're not gonna take it" (or maybe that was Twisted Sister ). The slippery slope here is, of course, that it's completely based off of an external locus of control: "You change first, to MY standards, MY beliefs." I admit that I'm only one man, with one set of eyes, and one brain; the way I put the world together is (probably) radically different than the way the world really is.

3) "FUCK IT." That's the undeniable third party at work here. The "Turn on, tune in, drop out-ers" of the good 'ole days are back in full swing. So many "drunken backpackers" DO just turn up, with little to no direction in life, let alone their drunken wanderings. But some of them make FINE teachers, IMHO.

Why ?

I, again, can only say my opinion, and it is this: "Teecha trainin'" here in China - to what parents, students, and employers alike desire - need not consist more than 20 minutes of reading: "101 jackass games to play to make people think they're learning a second language" followed by 20 minutes of reading: "How to lose your scruples, dignity, and interest in making a difference, DEBT FREE !" and ending with 20 minutes of reading: "Tea'ch am I, aNd so YUU caN: An intensive study of Chinglesh." All three of which I'm writing every night after a succession of several beers. Look for them on shelves in Fall '08 !

[James the Brit]

Recommended another teacher to my school today. First question from the person on the phone: "Is he handsome?" Second question:"Is he tall?"

Nothing was asked about teaching experience or certifications.

 
 

How do you expect the situation to improve with people like that?