Native or non-native teachers?

[Angelina]

You are a good person. Despite your tendency to misunderstand people. Relax!

[Demonic_Duck]

@hedwards: I'm sorry if my posts offended you, I had no intention of doing so, though I know I come across as a bit of a dick sometimes, especially online (I'm working on it). As for roddy though, his post clearly wasn't bullying, more like friendly advice. I don't think there was any ambiguity in the original post of mine which you responded to. I admit that my response wasn't entirely cool-headed, mainly because you accused me of making a "rookie mistake", which I'm fairly sure my post neither claimed nor implied.

 

At any rate, I essentially agree with you on most points, it seems it's more of a difference of emphasis than a real difference of opinion (though perhaps I'm wrong about that). You emphasised that not all mistakes (even large, commonplace and obvious ones) can be corrected in a single instance; I emphasised that all such mistakes should eventually be corrected at an opportune moment, though some teachers simply ignore them as long as they can understand the student. One particularly obvious example is tones. Many Chinese teachers simply overlook incorrect tones. As a result, some students get away with atrocious tones and teachers say nothing. Sometimes this is the result of prioritising, which is fine; but other times, I suspect it's just because many Chinese teachers treat the incorrect tones as a given, because "tones are difficult for foreigners".

 

For this reason, I think a non-native speaker who themselves has very good tones would probably make a better teacher for this particular aspect of the language - if their tones are very good, it's probably because they've spent a lot of time on perfecting them, and are going to pick up when the student's are lacking.

[Johnny20270]

You know, I have been thinking about a related decision I'm having at the moment.  I am trying to decide if I should ditch group classes and go private. I thought its a pretty straight forward choice (noting price difference) but I have noticed a positive benefit from the group classes.

 

When we are struggle with a translation, often bouncing "translation tries" amongst the students themselves can make it a lot easier to get the meaning, especially if there is a slight nuance in the translation"  This is particularly useful amongst native (and native like) English speakers. We all kindof 'click' together and say "ahh ok I see, so its similar saying blah blah blah in our language"

 

I have noticed a common cause of misunderstanding amongst my fellow students is that the teacher doesn't often highlight  a point of potential confusion originating from words or the subject being omitted from the Chinese sentence, because its in context of the passage. 

 

I suppose this is one real advantage of a native English teacher teaching Chinese! 

[Lu]

I am trying to decide if I should ditch group classes and go private. I thought its a pretty straight forward choice (noting price difference) but I have noticed a positive benefit from the group classes.

Do you have the possibility of doing both? The downside is of course that it would take more time and money, but you get the advantages of both. Or perhaps you can get a private teacher when/if your class stops for holidays.

[Johnny20270]

Do you have the possibility of doing both? The downside is of course that it would take more time and money, but you get the advantages of both. Or perhaps you can get a private teacher when/if your class stops for holidays. 

 

 

 

Yup, that's I have decided to do. I have loads of text book knowledge in my head now. Listening far better than speaking. Our class is not the best for practice to be honest. I basically just need to pay someone to speak to me and guide me when wrong. 

 

I'll do it a few hours a week and take it from there. Actually I have a question on this will start a new topic.

[Justpin]

I think many people find this a bitter pill to swallow because it is so often shown in shallow discrimination and ignorance. It is a well documented fact that it can be hard to get a job teaching English in China if you aren't white, regardless of being a native speaker or not. I considered going myself but have hesitated for this very reason. I don't even have to have been in the situation to feel real anger, indignation and yes, hurt, that someone would decide what I can and can't do based on race/skin colour or whatever. Yes the schools do it for business reasons, even if they themselves know you can teach better than anyone else on their staff, if they know the parents won't like you then they have to make tough decisions. But this isn't an excuse. Nothing ever changes if we just sit back and say, "Oh, well everyone's doing it and it's a fact of life so there." Hopefully as China opens up people will realise that skin colour and race are basically meaningless, until you interact with a person there's very little you can tell from this alone, hell style of dress is likely to tell you much much more!

 

 

I feel more than a little hurt. I have a PGCE, MA TESOL, 7 years teaching experience a CELTA and a DELTA.

 

I'm hurt because of what my dad said to me in Hong Kong in 1987. He said (obviously in Chinese) this is your homeland, this is the soil from which your blood comes from. You will always be accepted here if not in England. Maybe come back when you're older and live here in your homeland.

 

In 2014 I went to China to go seek a teaching job. I was rejected many many many times. I found many schools hiring Russians and Eastern Europeans to teach English.

 

My feeling is China will not change within the next 100 years. Japan in the 70s/80s were all about white face.

 

S Korea was the same in the 90s and 00s.

 

Many of the above places still want white faces above all others.

 

On this time scale it will be 2040 before China changes even a little bit.

 

Down in Hong Kong which is supposed to be 40 years ahead of Mainland China, or Taiwan 30 years ahead. There is still a massive preference for white faced teachers.

 

 

As such my conclusion is simply to let China burn and let them hire all these crap teachers illegally.

[renzhe]

To me, it comes down to two factors:

- Pronunciation, prosody and the "feel" for the language. This requires either a native speaker or somebody damn close to a native speaker.

- Grammar, organisation, and teaching ability. Ability to notice errors and knowing how to correct them. This has to be learned.

Both are crucial. Ideally, and in perfect conditions, a native speaker with an advanced degree in language teaching is the best option, as they will have both. But I find people like this to be quite rare, at least in situations in which I find myself.

So use both, as much as you can. You can learn much from a native speaker with no linguistic training, and you can learn much from a non-native speaker with an advanced degree in that language.

EDIT: I should also point out that foreigners with near-native Chinese are exceedingly rare, which makes native speaker input very important. In languages like English, French or Spanish, things are slighly different, as there are many non-natives with insanely good pronunciation and phrasing.