[etni] Re: job postings (was: wall street and teachers)
- From: "Lev Abramov" <lev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Etni@Freelists. Org" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 00:02:08 +0200
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-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 6:01 AM
The following ad has appeared on ETNI Job search for about six months.
Wall Street Institute School of English is looking for dynamic and creative
native English speaking teachers for our branches in Petah Tikva and Rishon.
-------------snip-----------------------
I would like to add another facet to the issue of banning certain ads off
this list.
In my opinion, posting "native English speaking teachers" requirement would
never run in a country where "Equal Opportunity Employment Policy" is a must
(see http://www.cokecce.com/srclib/1.1.3.html, for example) unless one were
looking for a lawsuit to lose. Call it a personal crusade, but a few
advertizers of this sort have already received offlist messages explaining
the racist nature of their posting: applicant's place of birth set as a
requirement for a position.
Ads like this hit a red button on my personal keyboard. I can still remember
the old burning feeling when, while in Russia, my job applications kept
getting rejected due to the fact that I was Jewish (sometimes the reason was
somewhat disguised, in other cases quite explicit). I could never change
that fact of my biography no matter how hard I tried...
How do you think I feel when I see job ads listing "Native English Speaker"
among the requirements? To make such a long way from Russia - only to get
the same sort of feeling once again?! [Especially given the fact that,
unlike some native speakers posting to this list, I spell "definitely," not
"definAtely," and can tell the difference between "its" and it's," etc. But
who cares?!] BTW, only 1/4 of people speaking English are native speakers;
another quarter are those for whom English is their second language.
Finally, 50% speak English as a foreign language. So who "owns" the
language?
There is a very elegant solution for those who still believe they prefer to
hire someone born in a specific country, rather than a teacher with a
certain set of abilities and qualifications: list it as "language
proficiency at mother-tongue level." Then feel free to filter the
applications as you please - but at least make your posting look decent.
Non-natively yours -
Lev
-----------
Lev Abramov
The Schiffman Institute - an equal opportunity employer.
<http://home.schiffman.biz>
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