Is the English Level Standard of English Teachers any Indication of Standards in Other Disciplines?

[Demonic_Duck]

These are natural products. An ingredient may have multiple effects so different ingredients may be combined to balance them out.

If only one of the ingredients is the active active one, the logical thing to do would be to isolate that one ingredient, rather than adding lots of other things.

BTW the same concept when used in western medicine is considered a breakthrough, like the cocktail treatment for AIDS.

A breakthrough is when a new treatment has some effect (cures or effectively treats something) that previous treatments weren't able to do, not when someone decides to combine things together in a unique way. If the new combination is proven to be more effective than the treatments used individually, then I guess you might call it a breakthrough, though that seems like a pretty loose way to use the word.

That's not in any way suggesting that scientists who come up with effective new combination treatments or improvements to existing methods don't do valuable work, just that "breakthrough" is the wrong word.

[Guest realmayo]

If only one of the ingredients is the active active one, the logical thing to do would be to isolate that one ingredient, rather than adding lots of other things.

 

This would no longer be TCM, but modern Western medicine using Chinese herbs. And regardless of whether that's seen as a good thing or a bad thing, or neither, it would still need drug companies to run countless expensive trials; they may not be willing to spend that money, and the trials may not be effective because of the difficulties involved in experimenting on living human beings.

 

Maybe some these posts could be moved to a new topic called 'Reasons Westerners tend not to like TCM' or something like that?

[Flickserve]

If only one of the ingredients is the active active one, the logical thing to do would be to isolate that one ingredient, rather than adding lots of other things

it can win you a Nobel prize and then you would be fawned upon by the Chinese press.....just have to wait a few decades.

[abcdefg]

But going back to the original question, "Is the English level standard of English teachers any indication of standards in other disciplines?" I would say the answer is no. Most of the other posters above seem to have the same take on it.

 

Just because some native English teachers don't speak very good English, doesn't mean that the standards of medicine, engineering, law, computer science, and so on are deficient in China. Cannot extrapolate like that. Each discipline is a case unto itself.

[歐博思]

Let me turn it around and give you my impression of Spanish translations of stuff in the USA. This could be bus signs, health care information, etc.

With very few exceptions, they look like they were written by an average 12 year old: fluentish, but ungrammatical and awkward. I don't think this is a signal for the level of education of the US as a whole, it just signals to me that educated spanish speakers are scarcer than educated English speakers and that the people that hire them can't tell the difference.

I'm guessing that's the case in Taiwan: you just don't have enough native English speakers.

This sounds like bad hiring practices to me: Both the hirer and hiree are both unqualified for their position. In a lot of cases, you get what you pay for , and sounds like the signs you're seeing are being done by people who just aren't putting out.

 

I could relate a few "medical horror stories" that I've seen here first hand; but I could easily do the same for the U.S. Not sure that would be productive or shed any light on the subject. Medicine in China today is strongly profit driven, and that sometimes leads to bad decisions. Same is true in the U.S., although it is partly held in check by the influence of governing bodies and fear of litigation.

USA: held in check by governing bodies and lawyers

China, and probably to a lesser extent Taiwan: held in check by guanxi/angry family members in hospital lobbies

 

That's a really interesting point. I guess something else that I forgot to mention that has made me wonder about weather this standard is held across disciplines, is that the English teachers I met not only weren't that great at English, but also didn't seem very interested in getting better (I can't believe I forgot this, because this is another major reason for my question).

It's pretty hard to get fired when you have lots of guanxi. What's the point of improving when you've already got yourself an iron rice bowl? Add to that the aforementioned teaching to the (written) test, and we've a recipe for more lackluster English teaching performances in general. 

 

An English teacher today who is 45 years old will have been at university in 1990. Would his or her teachers at that time ever have actually spoken to a foreigner? In the mainland, I'm guessing not, so its not surprising that he or she can't speak good English. I don't think that will apply to the majority of teachers in 20 years time though.

I really agree with this that English teaching quality will be greatly improved in 20 years time; they just need more students returning from abroad going into teaching. What will probably not have changed, though, is rule by guanxi possibly sometimes keeping more talented teachers out, instead favoring a person 'owed' some guanxi. If they want good quality, efficient teaching then the right person has to be paid the right amount of money. If they instead keep making decisions based on guanxi, then we'll continue to see similar things in the future. An example might be like this, where lack of Chinese oversight and overzealous use of the antibiotic-of-last-resort, Colistin, is starting to cause bacteria on Chinese pigs to become totally immune to antibiotics use, and since some of these bacteria can afflict humans, this could potentially be extremely disastrous in the future for all of us.

 

In short, because of the guanxi factor, I believe that what we're discussing is a cultural thing, and as such will more-or-less be found across the board.

 

Oh man, who is gonna strawman me as having argued for poor English teaching = death by Chinese pork

[Shelley]

Translations of signs etc need to be double and even tripled checked before they are used.

 

I remember one story about a road sign needing translating into Welsh as signs need to be in English and Welsh in Wales. They sent an email to a Welsh translator with the text they wanted translating and received a reply in Welsh.

 

They painted their sign and put it up, some weeks later it was pointed out to them that it said " This is an automated reply as I am out of the office at the moment"

 

I also  remember a sign in chinese being translated as "Google translate is unavailable"

 

So I think this type of thing more common as the world shrinks.

[Michael H]

[Shelley]

@MichaelH that is exactly what I meant, Its very funny but I think we might be in danger of wandering off topic and we might get told to start a new topic. Maybe it will get split and we can have some fun with silly signs.

[Yadang]

 

Not sure it is fair to generalize from what sounds like a Student Health Clinic encounter. The prepackaged "handful of pills" for a minor, self-limited ailment often characterize such one-time encounters. Students are generally perceived as unreliable patients, and this leads to "shotgun therapy" instead of precision.

 

 

The three experiences I mentioned all were at different health centers - one was at a school, but the other two were at separate, private clinics (one being an acquaintance of mine, the other not). However, I'm not only going off of these three experiences, but also what I've observed when I went to a high school with 43 other local Taiwanese for a year. It still might be true, though, that, because we were all minors, we received "shotgun therapy". Still, it surprises me, the amount of pills that Taiwanese take.

 

 

Flickserve (#11) said:

 

It's a local culture thing - one has to pay the GP for the consultation and there is an expectation that medicines will be given. The patient expects medicines will cure everything so expects to get some tablets. The doctor feels that if they don't give medicines, the patient won't come back. Such is private care under the GP.

 

Interesting. I wonder if some of that is at play in Taiwan, too.

 

 

realmayo (#16) said:

 

An English teacher today who is 45 years old will have been at university in 1990. Would his or her teachers at that time ever have actually spoken to a foreigner? In the mainland, I'm guessing not, so its not surprising that he or she can't speak good English. I don't think that will apply to the majority of teachers in 20 years time though.

 

Hmm - that's a good point.

 

 

As for all the pills, the only thing I know about Chinese medicine is that it generally seeks to do more than just treat one particular symptom, so multiple types of medicine are prescribed. And they are individually fairly weak so you usually need to take lots of the same pill.

 

The medicines I was receiving (and those that I saw my classmates taking) were all "Western medicine". But it may explain their use of "Western medicine" - if they consistently take more, like they do with Chinese medicine...

 

 

abcdefg (#24) said:

 

But going back to the original question, "Is the English level standard of English teachers any indication of standards in other disciplines?" I would say the answer is no. Most of the other posters above seem to have the same take on it.

 

It would seem so, yes. At least it seems people are agreed that one can't make the following argument:

 

1. The level of English teachers' English in Taiwan/China is sub-standard.

2. The level of English teachers' English in Taiwan/China is indicative of the levels of other people's skills in their respective disciplines.

3. Therefore, the level of other people's skills in their respective disciplines is stub-standard.

 

But I still wonder about the other aspect that I brought up, about the difference in attitude between English teachers in Taiwan and foreign langauge teachers in the U.S.  Or, as put nicely by 歐博思 (#25):

 

 

It's pretty hard to get fired when you have lots of guanxi. What's the point of improving when you've already got yourself an iron rice bowl? Add to that the aforementioned teaching to the (written) test, and we've a recipe for more lackluster English teaching performances in general... I really agree with this that English teaching quality will be greatly improved in 20 years time... What will probably not have changed, though, is rule by guanxi possibly sometimes keeping more talented teachers out, instead favoring a person 'owed' some guanxi. If they want good quality, efficient teaching then the right person has to be paid the right amount of money. If they instead keep making decisions based on guanxi, then we'll continue to see similar things in the future....

 

...In short, because of the guanxi factor, I believe that what we're discussing is a cultural thing, and as such will more-or-less be found across the board.

 

What does everyone think of this?

[abcdefg]

#25 -- 欧博思

In short, because of the guanxi factor, I believe that what we're discussing is a cultural thing, and as such will more-or-less be found across the board.

 

This is food for thought. And worrisome.

[Flickserve]

I think guanxi will still exist yet it, as well as rice bowl employment can change and evolve over the next twenty years. Some people will be satisfied with rice bowl jobs, those jobs will become fewer and fewer, those in such jobs may yearn to do more with their lives so there will be a changing flux.

Although guanxi is strong, it also exists to an extent in other countries. You are more biased to someone who has the same contacts or university as you. If the referee of a interviewee happens to be a friend of yours, you would give more weighting to that interviewee.

[Cid]

I've noticed that as well in Taiwan. When i meet someone who supposedly teaches English but their sentences aren't even grammatically correct, i think to myself "Wait...how are you even able to teach English?" I can only speak for Taiwan but i think they mostly just want someone to look the part. As long as they look "foreign", they can get by without having a really good grasp of the language. Whereas if an Asian-looking person who actually speaks and understands English at a highly-proficient level might experience some discrimination just because they don't look like a foreigner. Just my two cents. 

[li3wei1]

I think that many people on this forum, when they think of what it means to 'teach a language', will base it on their own experience of being taught or teaching themselves. Their goal was the ability to use the language effectively in the real world. What we're talking about in this thread, however, is 'being a language teacher', which is increasingly a completely different thing. Just as what happens in a doctor's office should be based on the health needs of the patient, but actually is based on expectations on both sides of what the other side should and might do, and incentives for the doctor to behave in certain ways, what happens in a classroom is also determined by expectations, tradition, and incentives, rather than the educational needs of the student. I worked for a year in a Taipei university, and the only instruction I got from my boss (who never observed any of my teaching) was 'We spent a lot of money on the equipment (for listening to tapes and talking in pairs), so you should use it more often'. I now teach over the internet to small groups of children in China, and my boss says 'the parents like colorful powerpoints'.  It doesn't matter what the students need, what matters is what looks right from the sidelines. Unfortunately I see a lot of the same thing happening in the UK school system.

[NotChinese]

Speaking English is good enough because they just hear English. Flip it around and imagine a western institution finding a native Chinese speaker - they all sound pretty much as Chinese as anyone else to the untrained ear!

 

The big issue however is teaching standards. I met a few total morons teaching English over there, it was almost upsetting. I like to think they'll be weeded out eventually, a bit like they were in South Korea, but China is huge with many, many people wanting to learn English, so it'll be quite some time before that happens.

 

Regarding their standards in other practises - One thing I gleaned from Chinese culture when I was there was that many things seem to be about the end result, rather than the quality of the process being done. For example I bought a nice new bike which looked pretty good but no it was rubbish. It seemed they cared more about the end result of making 'a bike' rather than making it good, if that makes sense. The bike was made of weak metal and fell apart in about a month.

 

I remember even seeing Chinese folk doing exercises on sports fields etc, and many of them would do the motion of the exercise e.g. a pushup or a pull-up on a bar, but instead of doing it properly to  gain the maximum work out, they'd take every conceivable short cut so it looked like they were exercising but weren't really doing it properly. I saw this kind of thing everywhere. All about the end result by any means necessary.

 

From what I saw, they seem to prefer their short cuts. A friend of mine had a Chinese girlfriend (soon to be wife) who said that it's normal for them to pay for others to pass exams if they can, and it isn't seen as immoral because it's just a means to an end. Make of that what you will...

 

However, I'm not exactly a master of Chinese culture so I could be completely wrong.