[etni] Native speaker teachers
- From: Rivka Lewenstein <rlewen@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 01:07:05 -0700 (PDT)
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I see that the thread about native speaker teachers is still going strong, so
I'll add my two cents worth, based on my own experience as both a student and a
teacher.
My experience as a student (I already posted this as a comment to the ETNI poll
about non-native speakers teaching native speakers):
I once had a non-native speaker teach me English (at college level), and
despite her advanced degree and many years of experience, she made a few truly
awful mistakes, including one correction on a composition which she insisted
was the best way to write the sentence, and which EVERY native speaker I showed
it to (including a professional editor) thought was absolutely wrong and
sounded awful to the ears. I still remember that correction, as well as other
pronunciation mistakes she made (vow rymed with go, rather than with cow),
because I was angry that I was being taught by someone whose English was in
many ways on a lower level than mine. Now, I'm not saying that every non-native
speaker teacher is like that, but it is pretty likely that most non-native
speakers will make some sort of pronunciation or idiom-related mistake at some
point or another, and in my opinion, this will cause their students to lose
some of their respect for them.
My experience as a teacher:
Among my former and present colleagues, I have not yet come across a non-native
speaker who hasn't made language mistakes at some point or another - it could
be using the Present Progressive instead of the Present Simple and vice versa,
it could be using the wrong word such as "inviting pizza for dinner", or it
could just be a pronunciation mistake which really grated on my nerves, etc.
Now I'm not claiming to be perfect regarding language usage, although I find
that most of my mistakes are typos in my worksheets rather than real mistakes -
for example, I found that I had written: The criteria IS (oops, and on a
handout for teachers, no less...), but once I saw it on the paper, I
immediately realized that it was a mistake. Again, we're all human and we all
make mistakes, but if a school, be it public or private, needs a teacher with
an extremely high level of English, I don't see anything wrong with asking for
native speakers only, although yes, asking for native-speaker flue
ncy
might be a better option.
All the best,
Rivka
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