The teaching of English in China is mired in many fallacies. One of them is that if someone can speak English they can teach English. This demeans and diminishes the teaching profession and leads to abuses in the foreign teacher recruitment process.
In 1978, when China first opened its door to the outside world, China recruited high quality foreign teachers like Mark Salzman, a Yale University graduate, to teach English as a foreign language (EFL) at the university level.
As China expanded the English curriculum to middle schools, the demand for foreign teachers outgrew the supply. China started the slippery slope of recruiting less than qualified foreign teachers. The requirement of a Bachelor degree in English, Linguistics or 2nd language acquisition disappeared, as did the 2 years of teaching experience requirement. China’s recruiting approach also changed.
The original “employment opportunity” became “come experience the culture and travel around China.” This recruitment advertising appealed to those who wanted an extended vacation in exotic China, necessarily interrupted by the necessity of “work” to finance the adventure. Thus China recruited those who became known as “backpackers.” They arrived in China with a short term tourist mentality and a backpack, not a suitcase.
When China extended the English curriculum to the primary school and even kindergarten, there was simply an insatiable demand that could not be met so China further reduced the requirements of foreign teacher qualifications. If a foreigner could play the guitar or piano or just chat with the students, they were considered qualified.
Initially, white skin and blue eyes remained an iron clad requirement. This group of foreign teachers quickly became known as the “white monkeys.” In China, brown monkeys are regularly trained to entertain and collect money from the crowd. White monkeys entertain the students and collect money from their employer.
Even white monkeys could not fill China’s insatiable need for English teachers; so foreign exchange students, in China to learn Chinese, were pressed into service. L2 English speakers are now regularly recruited due to a lack of qualified and even unqualified L1 English teachers. Russian, Filipino and even African L2 speakers are now employed to “teach” EFL in China.
The Chinese students are cheated because they do not get the quality education they deserve. Their hard working parents are cheated because they are paying for a quality education for their child. The employer is cheated because their new hire does not possess the English skills represented by their diploma. And finally, Chinese society is cheated because the university graduate is not fully equipped to make their maximum contribution to a better off harmonious society.
The solution is simple and practical. Start English education in the first year of university and only recruit qualified foreign teachers and weed out those Chinese teachers of English who are unable to teach in the target language, ENGLISH..
Maybe there is another way: Recruit qualified foreign teachers to train Chinese teachers who teach English and get them to know the English culture, manner, and how to make students gain the ability to use English and express themselves. The most embarrassing thing is that most students are studying English just for high grades, and they lose the opportunity to learn English culture and speak English, and western principles like “Do it today, don’t delay”. China is making a big progress in economy, power, culture, let’s see what will happen in education.
Today, every university in China has been increasing the number of students. Many people say that the policy of enrollment expansion leads the declining quality of students. I think everything has two edges. The policy also decreases the number of illiterate people. But I don’t agree that recruiting more teachers by reducing the requirements of foreign teacher qualifications because it is bad for students’ development.
Of course there is a problem with recruitment of foreigh teachers to teach English in China. The underlying problem is not only with unqualified teachers but also with the chinese mentality and the chinese education system. Here in China emphasis is placed on examination marks [RATHER] than improvement on the language skills. Every parent in China expect the child to have higher marks which does not necessarilly mean that the student has graps
onthe language. You see [A] university student memorizing vocabularies from A to Z but hardly [ABLE TO] use these vocabularies. The Chinese can do better for themselves if they use what they have already to be more communicative in the English language [RATHER] than solely relying on the foreign teacher to be [A] “clown” for them. Guys, see you around.EDITOR’S NOTE: NEXT TIME FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. WRITE AND CORRECT IN WORD.
White monkey is a very illustrative analogy of the unqualified foreign English teachers today. We students really need that kind of English teacher that can help us to improve our English. I think our schools should have the responsibility to do this thing better. Maybe it’s not easy to find some eligible English teachers for leaders of school, but their jobs is just to offer us the great learning environment. At least we can’t decide who can be our teachers, so I wish the leaders of school can treat this phenomenon seriously.
Well, compared with the past, more and more students could get the chance to access foreigner teachers, sounds good, isn’t it. We are making progress in the teaching of language, that’s what thousands and hundreds of us looking forward to, and urged by the pressure, the requirements of recruiting a foreigner as an English teacher was lowered, unfortunately, few of us have taken the consequence into account, and as a result, a considerable part of students’ English skills improvements are affected, which may leave a profound bad effect for their development in future, and to our country, in some way. This is not we want actually, in my opinion, to change the situation and to stop the potential consequence, I suggest what our country should do now is put quality before quantity, only in that way can our English teaching development go up to a new stage, and our country step to a developed one in future.
I do not think the problem is everlasting. A qualified teacher needs a job for good salary, otherwise noone or just very few people (super enthusiastic) would go and stay abroad to work. If there is a demand for “white monkeys” within low salary, they (white monkeys) will keep doing what they do.
At the moment Chinese Universities start realising the problem, so “white monkeys” get concentrating mostly in private language schools and training centers, where no so many people really care about the EFL diplomas. If you agree to do you job for that money – go ahead. We will find the students for you to teach.
As for EFL – teachers, there is no axiom, like EFL teacher should be a native speaker. In many schools and training centers native speakers teach oral English, listening comprehension or both in some way. For those activities they are not supposed to be super qualified, or they d’ better be but if not it is OK!
Ten years ago, when I was still in middle school, our school recruited a Canadian man as our foreign English teacher through an institution in Harbin. What he impressed us most was his different appearance and poor communication skills. He failed to arise our interest in learning English. After a semester, he left and another Canadian man came, then the third and the fourth. The longest time they stayed in Harbin was just a semester. And our parents still had to pay them five or six times salaries than our Chinese teachers. As the article says above, they are backpackers rather than foreign English teachers. As more and more foreigners come and go, what we need most is a high quality education that
benefits children a lot. Unqualified teachers will probably mislead children and they should not be employed as teachers.