People without formal teaching qualifications
I'm talking about those without as much as a TEFL or CELTA certificate
posted on 2nd February 2010
They had no hands-on training. They were never observed and didn't observe others. They never learned how to lesson plan. They fell in to the job and have been stumbling through it ever since. Purely on the grounds that English is their first language. That is their qualification and the sum total of their experience.
They exist in a void of having always done things their way and will not be told otherwise. They rarely [scrub that, never] ask for other teacher's opinions and react negatively towards any sort of feedback on their styles.
It is nigh on impossible to try and streamline anything with them, such as a structured reading program across different grades.
And they shy away from anything that looks remotely like extra work or career development.
This is their logic. What doesn't get the attention of the head teacher is taken as a cue that they're doing things right. 1 + 1 = 2.
Why are they here? Because their significant other is a Thai. And that's the only reason. Oh, and it's good fun and relatively cheap to live here, too.
Why do they teach? Some have no other means of income. Others don't want to dip into savings and early retirement plans. And they intend to keep this practice up for as long as possible. It makes sound financial sense. Screw the quality of teaching and the dubious value that schools and students gain from their contributions. This is about good ol' farangy and his/her other half. And only about that.
What do they bring to the role? Every lousy habit and routine way of working that they held in their previous careers and the methods that they can remember their own teachers using from when they were at school.
They shout over students as a means of getting more of them to listen and are too set in their blinkered ways to realise that it doesn't work. If anything, it further alienates students and makes their lessons even more tedious.
They write in block capitals on the board AS IF EVERY LESSON THEY EVER SAT THROUGH AND EVERY TEXT THEY EVER READ AT SCHOOL WAS PRESENTED IN THE SAME MANNER.
Many are obsessive grammar bores because of the websites that they routinely grab their dreary material from. They believe that being able to memorise unusable grammatical terminology is as or more important than actually being able to actively understand and use the language itself. They're not teaching their students English, they're teaching their students about English. Guilty until proven innocent.
Most of them don't even know their students nicknames, or care too it seems.
Those that can be bothered to give a hoot about grades hold up their test and exam results as a sign of their ability to deliver, ignoring the fact that many of their students were good at English in the first place and would have undoubtedly scored higher with a properly trained teacher.
If their jobs are not simply a means to an end, some of them even read academic texts that were not written in, for or about teaching in Southeast Asia. And they swallow these texts verbatim despite the fact that they have no real idea of how to actually adapt and apply them to the classroom.
A few even go so far as to take up distance-learning degrees. Round of applause over, there is still not an ounce of hands-on experience or real-time feedback in sight. And that means the acquisition of nice-to-have information and knowledge vs. invaluable understanding and wisdom.
An online TEFL would be a lot quicker and cheaper and just as useless. They get a pretty piece of paper with their name on it too, just to show how diligent they are.
What really niggles me about all of this is that the educational and immigration authorities swallow this mediocrity. Wholesale. Because it's easy to rubber stamp. Where's the quality control in that?
It is both sad and worrying that people without proper teacher training behind them are so easily able to infiltrate the system. To be brutally frank, it sucks.
For me, the true mark of an untrue teacher is one that gets hung-up over things like punctuation and perfect nouns. All they're doing is rehashing what they themselves were taught at school. Yes, these things are important... but to native speakers in their own home countries. Whoever's selling red biros in Thailand must be making an absolute killing.
But to hell with communication. It's the latest Google search and downloadable lesson plan that counts, right? Wrong! Very wrong.
Note to readers. This is what I have observed on numerous occasions in numerous locations in Thailand. It does not refer to any one particular school and its hiring policy or to any one particular individual. It's called the plain truth.
I suspect that this article will ruffle a few collars. Swallow this as a finale. A degree in English Literature is unusable in Thailand because English is rarely if ever studied at such a high level and only an education-based degree could possibly make up for a lack of having been properly trained to teach English, and even then...
Tags: teacher problems teacher recruitment teacher roles teacher opinions teacher values unqualified teachers teacher scandals teacher scams teacher mindset
Comments
I agree with a lot of what was said in the article despite my lack of experience. I see many “TEFL” schools offering certification for a bargain price. It seems to me to be more of a business than anything else, like actually trying to get motivated and well-intentioned people into Thai schools. I have the added hurdle of being a Thai and “looking” Thai. I speak fluent English with no discernable accent whatsoever but still seem to have trouble getting my foot in the door because of how I look. I guess discrimination is the order of the day here? I came to Thailand to (hopefully) live out my days and help my fellow Thais learn English so they might get a leg-up on the competition when going out into the job market. I’m just waiting for a school to give me the opportunity to follow through. Many good comments and opinions are offered here. I saw firsthand in my own TEFL course the vast disparity of ability and talent that exists in TEFL seekers. Some of my classmates had advanced degrees but very little knack for teaching. It was very obvious to see when observing them that they should be doing anything BUT teaching. But they LOOK western or European and so will probably get more consideration for jobs based upon that sole fact rather than their actual ability to teach. It must be said that I also observed many who would and will be excellent ESL teachers. Why isn’t there some form of government regulation on who can issue TEFL/CELTA/TESOL certifications and the quality of the people they give them to? Maybe some kind of nationwide standardized testing for certification? On the subject of testing by the way, Aaron has it right. If you take a TEFL course, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you will pass. When it comes time to test, if you fail you get to take the SAME test again? Where is the comprehension? If I took the same test again I’d pass too, but I’d be exhibiting no understanding of what was taught. What’s better? A motivated and intelligent ESL teacher who can plan lessons from scratch and obviously has the talent for teaching but does not have a degree or an unmotivated master’s degree holder that just follows a textbook without really caring that the students are actually learning anything and downloads lesson plans from the internet? I sincerely hope those of us here in Thailand who have honest intentions and a desire to positively impact our students language ability(regardless of how they may look) aren’t hurt by the many unqualified or even qualified but “useless” English teachers in the job market.
Dear Aaron,
Why are you generalizing? It is not a market for fools. We are here to earn a living and many of us take this job very seriously. As Brian said, a CELTA course is a stepping stone to build you teaching skills into something more professional. Once you get experience and do some more research (through trial and error) you can develop your own teaching style that will work with students. Of course a TEFL is not a replacement for professional qualifications, but it helps to do the job and to steer you in the right direction. As I wrote before, now that you mentioned it, “to the possible exception of the most prestigious international school teachers”, even those “qualified” sometimes fall under the category of bores and ineffective teachers in the classroom. They may have a BA and MA but still they are teachers just in paper. Let me give you one example: I have a private student who is studying at a very prestigious international school,and currently I am preparing her for her Spanish IB exams. She’s commenting how she and her other classmates find the teacher’s class so boring that they pay hardly any attention to the lesson, resulting in her lack of proper Spanish language skills. She was doing fine at the beginning but then the lessons became too boring and demanding that caused her to lose interest and affected her learning process. Very often educators think that students are just knowledge storing machines wherein they can force data into their heads without any regard or consideration for their mental and spiritual well-being. And these students get really stressed out due to this. You see, the problem of teacher/student interaction and education is deeper than we can imagine, and the only solution to this is a revamp in the educational system. We can’t just think that if a student does not make the grades, he/she is a useless entity and cannot aspire to a good education in a good institution. Unfortunately, the practice is still prevalent, and only students who perform well in maths, science and English are being considered worthy of a good higher education. The system does not take into account that we have different forms of intelligence and that education is not only in the intellectual level, but also should be developed in the physical, mental and spiritual strata of human beings.
To ‘Aaron Prebenda’:
You’re missing the point of the article.
TEFLs & CELTAs provide starting points on which ongoing and invaluable experience is then created.
At least with a recognised certificate you’re facing in the right direction from day one and not just simply downloading PDF lesson plans from the ‘net 5 minutes before each class.
I work with someone who, in addition to their Thai marital partner, is a ‘doctor of something’. First of all, ‘so what?!‘. Secondly, at not one stage during this person’s academic studies were they ever taught how to teach English. Does it show? Yes, it does!
I think that I’ve understood the author correctly.
I have been a teacher in Thailand for almost 2 years and I taught in Korea before that. I am now the director of education, responsible for human resources, at an SAT prep school in Bangkok. I received a 120-hr, face-to-face TEFL certificate from a teacher training school in Bangkok. I believe TEFL programs are a joke and so are all the snobbish young people (I myself am young) who have been so completely brainwashed by their respective TEFL trainers that they actually believe they are good at what they do. The TEFL program I undertook was shamelessly self-aggrandizing such that test questions looked like this: “How did Module 3 help you become a better teacher?“. I rarely use any of the skills taught in the TEFL course and at any of the Thai schools I’ve seen or taught at, the school’s own policies or agendas prevented any real curriculum development, assessment, or lesson planning. Worst of all, I’ve heard TEFL trainees repeating the virtues of the TEFL as reinforced in the training classroom almost verbatim. It becomes this little boys (and sometimes girls) club of unbelievably pretentious, CELTA-qualified foreigners who have taught in Thailand for years because they are unemployable in their home countries or, as this article argues, have a Thai partner, and somehow think they are the Mother Teresa of teaching. The vast majority of teachers in Thailand (with the possible exception of the most prestigious international school teachers) are completely underqualified and a TEFL wouldn’t hold up for a moment in the West as a legitimate enough teaching qualification to get you into a public school. Exactly how does the TEFL guarantee a better teacher?! In researching TEFL/CELTA programs prior to taking my course, I found that the majority pass almost all students one way or another. No one failed on my course. TEFL/CELTA failures are given repeated opportunities to take the same course in order to pass. If I take the same test 3 times, I guarantee you I’ll pass even if I’m a brain stem. I’ve been shocked at the number of TOTALLY (no TEFL) unqualified teachers in Bangkok, but I’ve been even more shocked at the number of horrible TEFL- and even Master’s-qualified teachers who are an embarrassment to the teaching profession. I would never hold myself up as an exemplification of the best teaching but let’s be realistic and honest about what is really happening in Thailand with native teachers. TEFL/CELTA programs are businesses in their own right. And Thailand is a booming market for fools.
Comment on this Article
Most recently answered question:
I used a letter of employment to get a visa and now I don’t want the job. Can I use the visa?
Terms of Use I Advertising I Contact Us
In response to ‘People without formal teaching qualifications’. I would like to share my experience as an uneducated English Teacher here in Thailand. You seem a little bitter about the facts you have stated, and I can understand that. Your right about folks stumbling around. Its been quite a struggle for me, and I’m trying my hardest to get out of this teaching gig. I don’t want to leave the school without a replacement, and I know there are many teachers out there, that would love to have my job. I am putting together a website in the hopes of finding a replacement. The students are great; I really genuinely care about each and everyone of them, and their lives. But I don’t feel they are getting the best English lesson from me, and I know its not fair. To ease some of your frustration with unqualified teachers, maybe it would be nice to know, in my case, I never yell at the kids, like you mentioned. Their is never any reason to yell at a child. I am very patient with all of the kids, and really try make learning fun, and enjoyable. I try to just stick to what is useful for these guys. I do know all their names, and about their families, and what they want to be when they grow up, ect…I also pay close attention to the way they learn, and make sure that if they don’t understand something, I change it up, and teach the way they learn.
By Kate, Ubon Ratchathani on 2010-03-16