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 Friday February 23 2007

Language teachers as a commodity

Language teachers as a commodity is an interesting post by Dana over at Linguistic life. I haven’t visited nor read her blog in ages, but it looks like I’ve been missing out on good stuff.

Clearly from the examples listed there the general mistreatment of ESL professionals spans the globe. Comments or stories to share?



Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Feb 23, 2007 at 06:45 PM
Teaching |

Picture of Katie

Katie wrote 159 words  on  Saturday Feb 24, 2007  at  07:47 PM Slovak Republic

This is a tough subject - I don’t have any experience with JET but I’ve heard only good things about it, so it’s sad to see it is dying out.  I’m a bit torn on the topic in general; lying to people before they move abroad to take a job is certainly despicable.  At the same time it seems like the nature of tefl - as it exists now - kind of pre-empts a solution.  Many people want to teach for just a year or two and arent’ inclined to or in a position to demand better treatment/conditions - they just put up with it for a year and leave - not everyone, but a lot of people.  I think if teachers as a group demanded better conditions, lots of jobs would go unfulfilled and lots of teachers would accordingly be without work.  I don’t think it’s a great situation, but I think this is why it is perpetuated.

Picture of Katie

Katie wrote 18 words  on  Saturday Feb 24, 2007  at  07:50 PM Slovak Republic

Whoa-the Slovak flag has changed!  I’m close to Austria but...it was a while ago that that was German… smile

Sean.

Sean. wrote 51 words  on  Saturday Feb 24, 2007  at  08:07 PM Korea (South)

Katie,
The problem is that long-term EFL professionals are not the target for JET or other similar programs. They want FOB, will take any job in order to travel abroad kind of people. Until ESL/EFL schools are willing to pay for the professionals I can’t see this changing any time soon.

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