Is teaching English a Real career?

United States
January 23, 2009 8:45am CST
Other than Math,Sciences and Special Education Teachers, there is high demand for English Teachers in some parts of Europe and most Asian countries. However, it has become alarming that most English teachers perceive English Teaching as a short term /temporary career before they find a real career. What is the impact of this to the English learners. How do people view English Teaching careers?
1 response
• China
24 Jan 09
Teaching English IS a real career, which is NOT LESS important, LESS noble or LESS challenging than any other subjects. And I'm obliged to point out that most Chinese primary and secondary schools, sometimes even universities, are fraught with unqualified international teachers from all English-speaking countries. They are irresponsible to their students and do awfully bad job in teachings. They are hired simply because they are foreigners. English teachers as they are, many of them are not indeed good English speakers. By good English speakers, I mean the people who have received university education and understand all the theories on foreign language acquisition. However, most of them, before they lecture the students, have never been teachers themselves, so that they arrange their courses according to their personal likes and dislikes rather than the need of the students. They follow not the educational curriculum. Given that I should concede strict adherence to the curriculum may not necessarily yields satisfactory results, it, at the very least, guarantee the students would not suffer from the badly planned teaching plans. To sum up, I do hope those who are not really earnest to put teaching English as a serious profession would leave the students alone.
• China
25 Jan 09
Almost all the international teachers flood into three major regions in China, namely Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong. It is never too late to pass a government policy to regulate the inflow of white-looking people. Given that we may have such regulatory policy, equal chances might still be a bit out of reach for those with black hair, due to the deeply rooted misconception that 'foreign-looking' teachers are more appealled to the students, which is not only untrue, but also unfair.