Date Posted:04:28:23 04/27/02 Sat Author: Phoenix Subject: Legal Vs. Illegal
Just a thought. Would you want foreigners (or non-foreigners, for that matter) without a university degree teaching your children back home? Be honest. Your answer will really put the whole legal/illegal thing back into perspective.
If, there was any incentive to learn Chinese in Canada I really don't think that I would be concerned with whether or not the instructor held a degree if he or she was a native speaker. I would like to see this individual perform in the classroom and observe how the teacher interacts with the students, I would ensure there was some kind of standard tests to see that this teachers performance was in line with others. There is more in life that can be learned outside of a university than on the inside. For the record, I do hold an ARC and a real degree. My degree however is not in English or Education, but in Biology, and to be honest, anything I have learned in the Biology classroom rarely becomes an issue when teaching English in a Taiwanese cram school. Since coming here though I have read volumes an teaching theories and linguistics and would hold my own with anyone as far as I am concerned. I read about people blaming the backpacker population for the state of English proficiency in Taiwan and I laugh out loud. Of course they are taking advantage of this glorious opportunity to earn big money as they realize their dreams of seeing the world. How hard is that to understand. The problem lies, mostly, with the parents who accept this sub-standard level of education that they themselves are paying for. This mass apathy is the real reason why the level of English, as well as hundreds of other problems in Taiwan will never find adequate solutions. Secondly, realizing that in any society the general public is basically ignorant, the government should step in and create some rules to inprove the situation. This however may seem impossible as there would be no immediate financial gain for anyone who took this upon themselves. So to all the backpackers out there, way to go! Milk this wonderful system while you can, you never know, someday someone with a little interest in improvement may ruin everything.
>Just a thought. Would you want foreigners (or
>non-foreigners, for that matter) without a university
>degree teaching your children back home? Be honest.
>Your answer will really put the whole legal/illegal
>thing back into perspective.
