If an instructor takes their job seriously, they will try to be initially at worst half-decent at it, and over the long term reasonably competent. Hence, over time, any teacher - with or without formal training in education - should become a pretty good teacher.
However, the whole point of formal qualifications is to satisfy the needs of hirers: asking for education training is an empirical way to determine who actually is interested in becoming a “real” teacher. The sad fact is that many employers don’t accept informal learning as valid because so many untrained teachers are unreliable. But it’s also true that many untrained teachers are very professional.
Overall, however, there are fewer trained teachers who are incompetent than untrained teachers who are.
Agreed but I am still sure you can’t find many public school teachers that sit on their butt for twenty years. Actually it is easier to be an incompetant trained teacher once you get tenure than someone work in a private business. I don’t know about England but American teachers would either have to beat a student or sexually abuse someone to get fired. In my opinion this leads to many lazy teachers and people who become a teacher for a study pay check.
Doesn’t being a good teacher also have something to do with adaptability, responsiveness, and the willingness to explore classroom dynamics?
For every unqualified teacher that refuses to try a new approach, there is no doubt a corresponding qualified teacher that refuses to budge from their ingrained dogma.
[quote=“TheGingerMan”]
For every unqualified teacher that refuses to try a new approach, there is no doubt a corresponding qualified teacher that refuses to budge from their ingrained dogma.[/quote]
[quote]Doesn’t being a good teacher also have something to do with adaptability, responsiveness, and the willingness to explore classroom dynamics?
For every unqualified teacher that refuses to try a new approach, there is no doubt a corresponding qualified teacher that refuses to budge from their ingrained dogma.[/quote]
I don’t know so much about qualified teachers but sticky to ingrained dogma is a true tendency of the professors that train teachers. If you more more interested in this idea read Judith Harris’s Nature versus Nurture.
Harris’s point is that it is difficult for academics to get out from underneath certain ideas that they have build their careers on even if there is information that would lead people to believe that the idea may not be accurate.
Qualifications are only good if the people who are given them, actually are teaching something that is correct or that will help their students.
I don’t know whether you have studied at 師大 but I would say that someone without a M.A. from 師大 may be a better teacher than someone who has done their M.A. If one looks at the lack of visuals and explanations in the books at 師大, I am not sure what kind of methods they teach in regards to Mandarin teaching.
Hardly reality. One can easily find many uncommited teachers in most public school systems just sitting their because they know it is a safe job. I have had teachers that barely know more than their students.
I really doubt that classroom management can be learned in a university classroom. It is like trying to teach someone to play British or American football in a classroom. They might no all the techniques and still not be able to perform well.[/quote]
Firstly, I don’t know about Entre les murs. I saw it at a cinema in Australia. Sorry I can’t help you there.
Regarding your first point, there are indeed teachers who are useless, though at least in the state in Australia where I am from, there is an ever-growing series of hurdles to getting permission to actually teach, even beyond what people do in their initial education courses. That said, again, a large part of the issue comes down to a real disconnect between what people seem to want to pay and what they want to get. People seem to expect teachers to be (amongst other things) some sort of quasi-divine figure who is both perfectly moral and all knowing, yet they’re okay with teachers getting paid at about the same rate as the school janitor (I’m being slightly hyperbolic, or perhaps not), whilst having to put up with abuse from all quarters from the students to their parents to bureaucrats and the media. Again, ruling out those ideologically committed to doing a thankless job, who’d be a teacher, doubly so if the person concerned had a degree in something such as science, business or languages where there is much higher earning potential in other careers? Just one more reason I’m over here doing it and not over there. I had the utmost respect for my colleagues in the science departments because not only did they know their stuff, but many had passed up (or switched from) much more lucrative careers. One, for instance, had been a geologist on about double the money she was getting as a teacher in a pretty feral school. If education is so important, and teachers are such fools, why not really clear out the profession and double the salary so as to consistently attract the best? Even teachers in the private school system still don’t get what they could in other fields. I am pro-market, but the central issue with quality of education is that education simply isn’t valued or respected in the West. Even if the entire system were liberalised, it would still be the same because people would balk at the idea of paying teachers what doctors or lawyers get.
Secondly, classroom management is something that isn’t just taught, that’s right. It’s a constant process of heeding advice and suggestions from others, and then trying to implement those ideas (and your own) in a practical manner. Obviously, any teaching course is limited in the degree to which it can teach these things, but it starts that process. It’s a process that spans the career of any teacher, and even quite experienced teachers will be the first to admit that they’re still learning. It’s a mistake to think it doesn’t start with some ideas in a university classroom, applying them on practical placements, receiving feedback from more experienced teachers whilst still a student teacher, and then reflecting upon them before beginning the process anew. It’s analogous to saying great sportsmen or musicians are simply born. Maybe there are some savants, natural paragons, or the like, but for the vast majority, it doesn’t work that way.
I think that is more of the outcome from having to have a teacher’s license to teach in first world countries. How useful those methods learned in a university classroom can be debatable! In my opinion there is usually some disconnect (help me if you can tell me a better word) between academic learning and real world learning.
One good example would be learning a foreign language. Some people can do grammar exercises and get 100s on grammar test but if you actually asked them to use the language they would not do very well.
[quote=“steelersman”]One good example would be learning a foreign language. Some people can do grammar exercises and get 100s on grammar test but if you actually asked them to use the language they would not do very well.[/quote]That example actually undermines your argument. The problem of grammar teaching not really being equal to grammar learning is precisely what has occupied many, many academics over the last thirty years. The results of that research include some useful practical methods which are covered in language teacher training classes around the world.
I think that is more of the outcome from having to have a teacher’s license to teach in first world countries. How useful those methods learned in a university classroom can be debatable! In my opinion there is usually some disconnect (help me if you can tell me a better word) between academic learning and real world learning.
One good example would be learning a foreign language. Some people can do grammar exercises and get 100s on grammar test but if you actually asked them to use the language they would not do very well.[/quote]
Of course, but it’s a feedback loop between practice and theory. Surely no one is arguing for one over the other. They both have a role to play, and if used well, they complement each other. I have a colleague who is currently doing graduate studies by correspondence. A large part of what goes into his academic studies comes from him testing various ideas on a daily basis in his teaching. In turn, he receives feedback from academics and other teachers in his programme, and he offers ideas to them. Thus, they all have new ideas for their daily teaching, and the process begins anew. It’s circular in one sense, yet in another, it propels them forward.
I don’t think it undermines my argument since grammar exercises and vocabulary memorization are still a large part of high school English in Taiwan. I have seen kids taking vocabulary test at schools in Taipei everyday to prepare for college entrance exams. Maybe in western countries the problem of grammar teaching not really being equal to grammar learning is precisely what has occupied many, many academics over the last thirty years. I am not really sure that has filter down to high school teaching or English standards in Asian countries.
I don’t think I argued either way. My point was more that academic qualifications don’t necessary mean someone is trained. Depending on the methods being taught where you study having a teacher’s license or M.A. from a school might actually mean you are expounding something that may not actually be better at all.
Steelersman, you may not realize it but you’re actually shifting your arguments. You started saying some stuff and now it’s changed to other stuff. Impossible to discuss things in that situation.
Anyway, if it makes you feel better, I agree that in some cases some teachers might try some methods that they learned in university that they then realize don’t work well in that particular learning situation and need to be adapted or abandoned.
But I do think that, for various reasons, generally it’s better to be trained than not to be trained.
joesax, this is my first post and last post on this topic. I don’t really see that my argument is different. The last post is more detailed. Maybe some people think I want to say that all qualifications are non-sense. I don’t believe that to be true. My point is two-fold. A qualification may result is you doing something well or not. Due to the difference between book theory and being able to actually do something. Secondly we have the problem that not everything taught in a university or any level of education is always good. Sometimes it is plain incorrect.
So how does this fit in with anything else you said?[quote=“steelersman”]I don’t think it undermines my argument since grammar exercises and vocabulary memorization are still a large part of high school English in Taiwan. I have seen kids taking vocabulary test at schools in Taipei everyday to prepare for college entrance exams. Maybe in western countries the problem of grammar teaching not really being equal to grammar learning is precisely what has occupied many, many academics over the last thirty years. I am not really sure that has filter down to high school teaching or English standards in Asian countries.[/quote]How does saying that teachers here may not be taught modern methods and thus sometimes use inefficient methods reinforce your argument that modern methods aren’t always very good?
[color=#4000BF]The 2nd story: About Qualification…[/color]
My first foreign English teacher only had a high-school diploma and before he became an English teacher, he was a handy man in his country. I did not know his background until he decided to leave Taiwan. At that time I had had the classes for more than one year at a cram school. I was not upset because he was always serious about teaching. According to the law of Taiwan, he was unqualified; on the contrary, getting a lot of learning benefits from his classes, I thought he was qualified.
My teacher’s example is only AN example anyhow. If I were an foreign English teacher and had chances, I would rather to get more certification/training courses/degrees/experiences/whatever than nothing, because the market of English-teaching is competitive and the employment of English teachers is comparative. Think about your resume! How to fill your resume in order to improve your competitiveness? Think about the changing of reality! Right now it is rare to find high-school-diploma foreign teachers in Taiwan but the master degreed teachers are getting more.
I am not focusing on the connection of certification/training courses/degrees/experiences/whatever and professionalism. I am not saying that a resume is more important than teaching. I just want to express that keeping learning is essential.
I never said modern methods are good or not. I said that qualifications and classes are not always correct. I have not attended an education class in Taiwan but from the way Taiwanese teach English I will assume that this is a clear example of degrees and qualifications not necessarily being good.
Whereas being a native speaker with an arbitrary degree in anything at all does?
Tighter regulations certainly isn’t a bad thing, but it’s only as useful as the regulations themselves …[/quote]
Not necessarily disagreeing with any of the above but…
I went through the university system in Australia recently and the entrance scores needed to study Education are very low. Many universities in Australia now offer remedial spelling and grammar lessons to their first year students, because such things are not taught effectively in the school system. So 12 years of listening to properly “qualified” teachers and students are still at the, “this is a noun” stage. At university, Education degrees do not attract the best and brightest. There are always the highly talented idealists, of course, but they are the exception.
[quote=“Thelonlieste”]
I went through the university system in Australia recently and the entrance scores needed to study Education are very low. Many universities in Australia now offer remedial spelling and grammar lessons to their first year students, because such things are not taught effectively in the school system. So 12 years of listening to properly “qualified” teachers and students are still at the, “this is a noun” stage. At university, Education degrees do not attract the best and brightest. There are always the highly talented idealists, of course, but they are the exception.[/quote]
So … university qualified Australians have completed the remedial English program and the ones without degrees haven’t. Are you saying degrees are useful or not?
