tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8533171043031843199.post4502236820195889619..comments2024-01-30T05:43:28.525-08:00Comments on the capital in the north: Why are there so many English teachers in China on the wrong visa?Ji Xianghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03406727999722525339noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8533171043031843199.post-70911924927050451592019-05-07T00:51:14.570-07:002019-05-07T00:51:14.570-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Cindy Sampsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13041059009169781008noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8533171043031843199.post-88738028968003443022017-01-12T04:46:08.033-08:002017-01-12T04:46:08.033-08:00@Ji Xiang -
"Reform and closing down" ...@Ji Xiang - <br /><br />"Reform and closing down" - I WILL steal this one!<br /><br />I wonder how they are enforcing the native speaker rule? From what I can see on line it appears that South Africans are definitely out if they don't have a degree from a native-English-speaking country (though I expect that plenty will find ways to 'obtain' one), at least in Shanghai and tier 2 cities. But is this country-wide?<br /><br />The South Africans I worked with in Taiwan back in 2001 were not all native speakers of English - some were Afrikaaners who spoke English of varying quality, others were <i>"Englesmen"</i> (or <i>"Rooineks"</i>) who naturally spoke English at native standard. Neither employers nor the Taiwanese authorities distinguished between them.<br /><br />What they did distinguish between were black South Africans and white ones, with black ones receiving lower pay and much worse treatment. Gilman Grundyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06607416440240634159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8533171043031843199.post-30289965714946838342017-01-09T17:24:48.599-08:002017-01-09T17:24:48.599-08:00@FOARP:
interesting comment. In China foreign Eng...@FOARP:<br /><br />interesting comment. In China foreign English teacher's wages also haven't really increased in a while. The result is that you get a lot of teachers from developing countries (I have met a few from the Philippines and South Africa). According to new rules however, "non-natives" will no longer be able to teach English in China. I wonder how this will play out. If these rules are enforced to the letter, there are going to be very few foreign foreign English teachers left very soon. It's probably part of China's general "reform and closing down".Ji Xianghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03406727999722525339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8533171043031843199.post-10426236193326112022017-01-09T01:15:20.940-08:002017-01-09T01:15:20.940-08:00My ELT days are long gone (thank god! Though any m...My ELT days are long gone (thank god! Though any member of the expat community only ever seems to be a step or three away from it . . .) but yeah, this was exactly how things were outside of university teaching (who had fewer problems getting visas). I knew plenty of people in both mainland China and Taiwan who either used fake diplomas or were working on tourist visas - some of them are still there, 10-15 years later, either making repeated runs to Hong Kong or on fake credentials. I also saw the flip-side of this which were businessmen in the country but with visas for being there as students or teachers. <br /><br />Part of the reason why the ELT business is so shady is just because it is not really a respectable profession since it is mostly about putting unqualified white faces in front of paying students, students often don't really learn that much so it is - to an extent - a rip-off. <br /><br />Look at Japan and Taiwan and you can see where this train goes: ELT teacher salaries, initially high to bring people in, stagnated and got eroded by inflation, and after an initial boom the ELT business started to decline as the people who went through the Bushiban/Eikawa cram-schools themselves elected not to send their own children to them. When I was last in Taiwan people there were making exactly the same salary, in NT$, that I made back in 2001, and most of the cram-schools in my old stomping-ground of Miaoli had closed. Similarly, when I lived in Japan there were Eikawa teachers making a salaries as low as 1800 JPY an hour and two of the biggest Eikawa chains collapsed around that time (Nova and Geos). <br /><br />Basically, there's no future in ELT.<br /> Gil (FOARP)http://www.foarp.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8533171043031843199.post-91626204867411691702016-12-14T17:34:53.729-08:002016-12-14T17:34:53.729-08:00"In fact, any Chinese (reasonably accurate an... "In fact, any Chinese (reasonably accurate and fluent in English) should be better - as a rule - than an American, Briton or other native (but untrained) teacher. After all, a non-native speaker knows more about learning approaches and strategies."<br /><br />I don't know if I agree with this. The thing is that a Chinese teacher will tend to speak to the children in Chinese, not to mention the fact that most of them tend to only care about their students passing exams. For the pupils the experience of having to speak in English with a foreign teacher can be valuable. <br /><br />Also, the majority of local English teachers in China don't speak especially fluent or accurate English. The small proportion of Chinese who really speak fluent English tend to have better paying jobs than teaching English in school.<br />Ji Xianghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03406727999722525339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8533171043031843199.post-42491857551777935822016-12-14T10:53:54.110-08:002016-12-14T10:53:54.110-08:00This is a field where standards are generally low ...<i>This is a field where standards are generally low on all sides.</i><br /><br />If things haven't changed during the past eight years or so, that can probably be said about most of the English-teaching industry in China.<br /><br />The superstitious belief that "white" teachers were best is one of the weirdest features in the business. In fact, any Chinese (reasonably accurate and fluent in English) should be better - as a rule - than an American, Briton or other native (but untrained) teacher. After all, a non-native speaker knows more about learning approaches and strategies.<br /><br />Native speakers with no teaching skills can be good for conversation lessons, but hardly for much else.justrecentlyhttps://justrecently.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com