Such far right wing views on education you have. 
This position statement by @ironlady should be a thread ender. Those of us who are teacher trainers and advise or supervise them during their internships and see their teaching after they pass the necessary tests and loopholes, can attest to the fact that the certificates and degrees mean nothing. Some of the worst āeducatorsā Iāve seen have been licensed and would qualify according to the definition of a professional teacher, as defined by @ChewDawg . However, some of the best educators Iāve seen have only their common sense, on-the-job experience, and passion. Some of them have zero classes in pedagogy. Not everyone fresh off the boat can master the necessary skills, and on this point I see the concern from @ChewDawg . However, if we required every private buxiban to hire āqualifiedā teachers, there would be an extreme shortage of eligible applicants. Asking them to require applicants to submit a sample teaching demo might weed out the few incompetents that show up. Overall, however, most fresh arrivals learn quickly on the job, even if itās implicit knowledge of basic TESOL concepts and strategies.
I hate to admit it, but only about 20% of my professional track pre-service teachers would outperform a random foreign teacher with a couple of years of experience. Iāve seen it with my own eyes. Most experienced āprofessionalā teachers know about the new K-12 guidelines, but havenāt even checked them. My pre-service teachers are the same. Is this the standard of professionalism? In my home country, I was the only teacher at my school to actually read and adhere to the curricular guidelines. Is this professional?
I have a PhD, so I can call myself Dr. AhDohGah. There could be confusion if I actually did that (I canāt imagine being called upon during a trans-Pacific flight in the case of a medical emergency). I have MOE credentials as an assistant professor. Does that mean I can teach? Well, I assure you in can, but thatās not due to my studies or research publications, itās due to experience. Most professors (think engineering, humanities, hard sciences, etc.) are taught nothing but theory during their PhD studies and have no experience or background in pedagogy. Yet, once we have our certificate, we are āprofessors,ā which some would erroneously consider the highest tier of educators.
Overall, āthose who teach are teachersā (the good, the bad, and the ugly). Those who are certified teachers are certified teachers (see above). This discourse, if it boils down to semantics, is just that simple. Others have stated so repeatedly. My barber has no degree in cosmetology. My security guards have no degrees in law enforcement. The manager at the local tea has no degree in business management, and his clerks have no degrees in sales and marketing. What you do is what you are. I have no degree in being a $#!T-disturber, but would probably seem highly qualified as one to many Forumosans.
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If Betsy DeVos can be Secretary of Education, anyone can be a teacher 
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Itās a bit odd for teacher trainers to put forward the argument that teacher training is useless.
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I do not hold certifications as a gold standard. Hell, I have seen uncertified aids educate a hell of a lot better than certified teachers. They bring outside perspectives that are sorely needed. Furthermore, as someone with rightist politics, I often see the unions and associations fight to exclude common sense initiatives just to protect their members from having to modernise and keep their skills relevant. That being said, I think the term teacher is used way too loosely, and using it should always refer to certified teachers. If you have a pHd, more often than not, you are a professor. If you are in early childhood education, you are an educator, assistant, etc., and if you do privates on the side you are a tutor. If you dance around like a Sadhu singing about giraffes, you are an aidāor a Canadian.
I didnāt mean to give that impression, AT ALL. My focus was on practice and experience OVER theory, and the fact a certificate is only a piece of paper that, all too often, requires scant evidence of actual proclivity or talent in said area. There are plenty of teacher certificate mills overseas. In Taiwan, thereās an emphasis on testing, although internships and practicums are required.
This statement is not too say my students are incompetent, but that they lack authentic classroom experience. A few years into teaching, they realize their āclassroom managementā and āmaterials and methodsā classes were too theoretical and didnāt match the real classroom experience. Fresh faced college grads from overseas are not beholden to theory and try their best to teach a language through communication (which is precisely the point). So, in their naĆÆve approach to language teaching, the āoff the boatā teacher considers language as a communicative tool, rather than as an academic subject. This is an understanding that is natural to foreign educators, but often quite the opposite to the experience our local students have had in their own language learning.
From a pragmatic point of view, this is troublesome and, from the reactions on this forum, seems to go against our collective contextualization of what a āteacherā is. The only solution (since limiting the term āteacherā to only certified teachers is impractical) that I can think of is to refer to oneself more specifically (although this itself is awkward). For example, cram school teachers can be assumed not to be certified, while elementary/junior high/high school teachers would be assumed to have the proper credentials ā although exceptions exist. In the local context, the distinctions within national educational institutions is usually quite specific (čåø«ļ¼å°åø«ļ¼ä»£čŖ²ļ¼äø»ē®”ļ¼ å©ēęęļ¼åÆęęļ¼ęåø«ļ¼äø»ä»»ļ¼é¢é·ļ¼ę ”é·ļ¼åÆę ”é·ļ¼ēē). Itās a loss of face if you use the wrong term, although in most cases čåø« is a cover-all.
As I mentioned above, Iām a Doctor (of Philosophy in Education). Being more specific eliminates confusion, such as whether my degree is in dentistry, psychology, orthopedics, engineering, etc. Otherwise, as countless others have stated, those who teach are teachers. I was a Sunday school teacher at the age of 13, a certified Early Childhood Educator (but everyone called me teacher), etc.
The only conceivable solution to your hangup on the use of āteacherā is to specific as to just what kind of teacher we are.
Honestly, this thread is becoming tiresome.
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I agree. My fingers are becoming certifiably sore.
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Thank you for standing up for the noble PROFESSION of teaching. Facing the lexical and pragmatic challenges of evolving our discourse, Iām afraid Iād have to consider it a lost cause in Taiwan.
P.S. ācertifiably soreā 
Well done.
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Tutor if itās a few privates a week, I teach science as I have a masters degree in science and say science tutor. But who really cares, yes itās becoming a tiresome thread. Letās call ourselves what we want ,after all these days, we can choose our genders on what we feel like ha. Does a guitar teacher have to have a degree from a music college, what if he was taught by Jimi Hendrix for two months , we might even call him God lol
Adios to the name card thread.
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She may have zero teaching experience (I havenāt looked deeply into it), but at least she has a high school diploma, unlike a certain Ontario Minister of Education back in the āCommon Senseā era.
I don`t care if he had a diploma/high school certificate in feces throwing, he probably ran the ministry better than the McGuinty or Wynne Lib appointment. Thank god for Ford (and Harris back in the day).
Politics ain`t like teaching. No certification needed LOL.
Based Canadian forumsa poster.
Even if teacher had the narrow meaning you want it to have, your claim would still be nonsense.
Lower demand for EFL/ESL teachers in an English speaking country might put them out of work, which has nothing to do with regulation. If anything, ābuxibanā teachers are probably less regulated in Canada than in Taiwan.
You didnāt read the article, did you?
Now show me a worse performance by a Minister of Education appointed by Dalton or Kathy. 
That is because the consumer in Canada is smarterāthere is no demand for them. The regulatory environment is straightforward. A teacher is one with a teaching certificate. A babysitter/daycare worker usually has a certificate in early childhood education. A tutor or aid may have an area specialisation, etc.
The North Okanagan-Shuswap School District? 
Did you read the article? The people that are certified seem furious as it is rightly weakening the label. It is a right wing district, so I am not surprised they are engaging in such practices. But lets see what the BC Federation of Teachers does. They will fight it tooth and nail. And although I am no NDP supporter, I would agree with such retaliatory action.
Do you really want me to criticize Wynne education appointments? Part of her transition team as well!!! Former Ontario education deputy minister pleads guilty to three child porn charges | National Post
Are you arguing that if there is lower demand, because consumers are smarter, then itās OK to have less regulation of teachers?
No, but obviously if there is already a well regulated market in education, there is less ambiguous room and misinformation. That shuts down buxiban circus environments, no?
Is there an already better regulated market for cram schools in Canada than there is in Taiwan?
I am not an education expert in any way (I just enjoy commenting on it), but from my understanding, Canadians do not spend money on education to the degree the Chinese do. Even in Asia-heavy BC, I do not see buxiban industries. ESL is popular in universities (with a faculty that has proper ESL certification), but most students transfer into Canadian uni programs pretty quickly (after their language is up to speed) or if arriving at a younger age, utilise daycare and then public elementary, junior and high schools where teachers are 99.9 percent certified.
For our youngest, we put him in private reading lessons at age 2 (my wife is a Dragon mother). No certification, but they were essentially tutors.
I still donāt follow your argument that because Candians spend less on education itās OK for regulations to be more relaxed there.