"I read their article yesterday" (sic)

By Jie LaoShi

Some teachers in China claim that there is a “perceived need to hire 18 year old high school graduates from Cameroon and Nigeria in Africa, Philippines, Pakistan, India, Russia, Romania, Holland, etc. etc. etc. who have no teacher training, no teaching experience, and no college education, let alone any knowledge of second language acquisition theory.”

I totally disagree with them. First of all, a language school would not hire incompetent teachers for their school. I am not saying that the above mentioned are incompetent, but it would be the school who will determine these. I am pretty sure that a school would not let its credibility down by hiring an inappropriate employee. Secondly, there are no 18 year old high school graduates from Cameroon and Nigeria in Africa, Philippines, Pakistan, India, Russia, Romania, Holland, etc. etc. etc. who have no teacher training, no teaching experience, and no college education, let alone any knowledge of second language acquisition theory that teach in China. If they could prove that there is one, I would jump from the window of my 18th floor office. OOPPPSSSS!!!

There really is a difference between Language Acquisition and Language Learning. As the names imply, the first one is acquired and the second one is learned. Let me share an example, the sentence: “I read their article yesterday.” People who ACQUIRED the English Language know that the pronunciation of read should be “red” because it happened yesterday. That is without any knowledge of the rules in Grammar whatsoever. On the other hand, people who LEARNED the language know that the pronunciation is really “red” because it is in a past tense. They know the rule! EASY! (As my students would say: Easy! Easy! Lemon Squeezee!)

My point here is, that particular group of teachers (a combination of Doctors in Languages) should not generalize their conclusions regarding the standards of an English Language Teacher. Yes! They are doctors! But do I need them to teach my eight-year old students how to say, “I read their article yesterday”? Hmmmm…