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Q: Is there a regulator/inspector for English language teachers here in China

If not, why not.  It's been suggested by some, that the standard of English teaching is pretty low here.   Has anybody any answers as to what might be the cause?

 

Would having regular independent inspections of teachers practice help to improve standards?

 

 

11 years 23 weeks ago in  Teaching & Learning - China

 
Answers (10)
Comments (19)
Posts: 703

Shifu

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I understand where you are coming from. Too many schools in China and not enough qualified teachers; that is the reason.
Nothing can be done, the employers have the right to hire anyone they want for the most part.

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11 years 23 weeks ago
 
Posts: 4495

Emperor

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I are the regluator.

diverdude1:

Regulate A+ avalable 1000rmb. Satesfact guarented.

11 years 23 weeks ago
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lokethebloke:

Why are you taking the piss?   Are you a teacher?  

11 years 23 weeks ago
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diverdude1:

no real reason, just making a joke. no offense... :-)

11 years 23 weeks ago
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lokethebloke:

Is it not a serious question?

 

11 years 23 weeks ago
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11 years 23 weeks ago
 
Posts: 1420

Shifu

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Where were you this summer? The government just had a 100 day crack down on expats in China, and one group of people that the government was targeting were foreign experts who were here teaching without the proper certifications. I'm skeptical of how well it worked.

 

Look at how regulation works in other industries here. I currently live in Shenyang and about two months ago it was announced that the government was going to start regulating local businesses to try to curb the amount of counterfeit goods on the market. Nearly every business in the city closed for a week. I'm not even kidding, the entire town shut down. Working people couldn't find places to eat lunch because the shops and restaurants throughout the city had all been closed. Now, there probably are a lot of counterfeit goods on the market, but before too long reports started to surface on the types of fines that were being issued. One business was reportedly fined 12,000 USD for selling chopsticks without a logging license. Apparently, this crack down was just an excuse to collect bribes and  fines from people as a means of making up a budgetary shortfall for the city. This is an extreme case, but I'm sure similar things happen in other industries. China supposedly has the most stringent environmental regulation in the world, yet the air quality here is terrible. A smoking banned has been levied against public places, yet people smoke everywhere.

lokethebloke:

I'm talking about quality of teaching, not whether somebody can forge certificates etc.   I'm talking about a regulatory body that can monitor standards of teaching.   People who would be willing and able to sit in a class, marking, if you like, the teacher's performance and reporting back to the authorities, headmaster etc.

11 years 23 weeks ago
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mattsm84:

You think you're talking about that. You're really talking about people that are going to shake down your employer for a bribe after you've given your lesson. 

11 years 23 weeks ago
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lokethebloke:

I'm not a teacher, I don't understand what you're talking about.

11 years 23 weeks ago
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andyinshenyang:

To be fair, the reason the local government here in Shenyang are cracking the whip is because they need to generate some revenue for all of the building work required for the National Games happening here next August.  This has lead to many shops being too scared to open for fear that the smallest misdemeanor will result in a whopping great fine. It wasn't just Shenyang either, I know it happened to a lesser extent in Anshan, JInzhou and Panjin. More importantly, my favourite chuanr place was one of them! Bloody governments!  

11 years 23 weeks ago
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mattsm84:

But is all the work that's being done required? Most of what I've seen amounts to a new coat of paint on some of the older apartment buildings and uniform signage along He Ping Da Jia. 

11 years 23 weeks ago
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lokethebloke:

What's that got to do with teachers trying to self regulate and improve the standards of English teaching?

11 years 23 weeks ago
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mattsm84:

You didn't say self regulate. You said a "regulatory body" that would conduct "independent inspection" and that would then later report to "the authorities."  These are your words, please own them. I presented a counter example where in another regulator body conducted inspections of private businesses in the that city that I live. The results were a disaster. I then supported this example with two others that were less dramatic, but more common, namely the inability to regulate air quality or enforce a smoking ban. Perhaps if I had given a set of examples from a third country that you maybe hold lower esteem on a topic that had much less to do with the one that you seemed to be broaching you would have understood. But like you said else where, you're a little bit "simple." 

11 years 23 weeks ago
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lokethebloke:

Sorry my mistake, I'm getting confused in my old age.   Why the hostility, I haven't threatened to kill anybody?

11 years 23 weeks ago
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11 years 23 weeks ago
 
Posts: 2186

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Before any regulatory body can work corruption must be tackled as it negates the point of any inspection / regulatory regime.

However, if that can be done (huge step there), then they need inspections yes, but they also need to encourage peer inspections, in the UK teachers are actively encouraged to monitor their peers, they will then pass on (often in a written format) advice and criticisms, this is NOT seen as a way to weed out the less able, but of ways to improve teaching. It is this culture of incentive to improve rather than punishment that works. Basically for an inspection regime to work it needs to be non-threatening (although obviously it has to have teeth and that is a fine balance), more carrot and less stick.

I fear that in China this will be problematic for a few years to come at least. As I said, if corruption isn't tackled it's a non-starter, but even if it is the balance between encouragement and punishment is very fine and from my experience of Chinese management, many principals and fellow teachers would struggle with that balance.

mattsm84:

Yes, this is what I was trying to get at above.

11 years 23 weeks ago
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11 years 23 weeks ago
 
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You must be joking.  Anyone who is a foreigner that speaks English without stuttering is recruited to be an English teacher in this country. How long have you been here in China?

lokethebloke:

Three years and still an optimist.   Why the hostility?

11 years 23 weeks ago
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Frankly_Speaking:

Not being hostile friend - just realistic.

11 years 22 weeks ago
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11 years 23 weeks ago
 
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Thanks Hugh,  

 

Didn't realise that it would be so difficult.   Niave old me!!

 

Just know that in my trade/profession we do it all the time and it does a pretty good job of weeding out the useless but more importantly improving standards

 

Does no harm to talk about it though!!   Planting seeds is good!!

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11 years 23 weeks ago
 
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Hit the wrong button twice, sorry.

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11 years 23 weeks ago
 
Posts: 2186

Emperor

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The problems with a regulatory / inspection regime are huge and complex.

 

1. What do you want it to achieve, i.e. what are the aims, OFSTED in UK was supposed to raise education standards, all that happened though  was that it encouraged schools to teach to exams rather than teach the subject, they then had social roles of the schools, anti-bullying, every child counts et al tagged onto their role, making their role confused. Also at the end of the day Universities and schools say the kids have better exam results but do not have the BASIC level of intelligence they need.

2. How are they funded? If a school pays for an annual inspection this cost will have to be passed on to the 'customer' so you have increased fees and how do none fee paying schools pass on the cost, if it is absorbed by the tax payer then taxes go up and that's not fair on those without children.

3. Is the inspection body local or national, if the former it is more in tune to local requirements but every province has different standards making it difficult to identify good and bad schools across the nation, if the latter especially in a nation as large as China it is too bureaucratic and remote.

4. What are it's powers? Too Draconian and they won't work as you'll have too few schools left, too soft they won't work as they won't be effective.

5. In a profession that is short of staff, what is the level that will keep the good teachers here and improve the poor teachers, without scaring even more of the staff away, a very difficult balance.

6. These inspections almost always generate an exponential amount of bureaucracy, and an inordinate amount of time preparing for inspections and filling out paperwork when the job is supposed to be teaching.

7. Particularly with English, what should the standards be? So before any of this starts you need a curriculum or standard model to cover the entire region that is subject to inspection, if that is national you need a national curriculum and that is expensive to design and who / what designs it (please not a Chinese designer of English) and one model fits all techniques rarely work. But WHAT English do you teach? IELTS / TOEFL is a ready made model but it has flaws, it encourages overly complicated speech patterns (in my opinion) and the Chinese system of teaching tons of vocabulary and grammar without a sound understanding of the usage is equally flawed.

8. What schools are subject to inspections? All of them (small schools will close as they won't be able to afford the bureaucracy), only the government schools (many of the problems will remain as the schools that avoid the inspection regime will continue as they have, over a certain size, (many schools will lie / cook the books to avoid inspections.

9. How are the inspections carried out, are they planned and announced, if so the schools will prepare (as they do in the UK) and you may not see the real problems, unannounced, then you will severely disrupt the teaching (remember the students) and you will open up another avenue for corruption, (i.e. someone in the inspection office can make a nice earner by contacting the school to be inspected.)

10. CORRUPTION

 

Inspections / regulatory bodies can work but they need careful consideration and should be designed and controlled by qualified teachers with the benefits of the students in mind, NOT by governments, either national or local.

lokethebloke:

Thanks Hugh,   

 

Better get started then.   Any expat teachers want to set an example?

11 years 23 weeks ago
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Hugh.G.Rection:

Actually Loke, you've raised another point there, (yes I do realise your point was tongue in cheek).

Few if any expat teachers are going to raise their heads above the parapet, because they know they'll get their brains blown out! Anyone who was to try and start this type of thing would likely be blacklisted by the employers and perhaps even accused of organising a Union, so a few months in a Chinese jail and deportation. That would look kinda 'interesting' on a CV!

11 years 23 weeks ago
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lokethebloke:

I keep forgetting what country I'm in.   But  I am allowed to dream, aren't I.

11 years 23 weeks ago
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11 years 23 weeks ago
 
Posts: 660

Shifu

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They already have one. If you want a legal working visa, you must have a Foreign Expert Certificate. For any industry. Albeit, rather easy to get one for teaching, assuming you have a degree. That is actually the best they can possibly do.

 

I dont think everyone here teaching has formal qualification, but out of those, there are many good and bad ones. But most of them work at private language schools. Other than the visa process, the government shouldn't (and wouldn't want to) regulate them at all. If the school has low quality, the school will never gain success. If they are hiring high quality teachers, then they can grow and will be able to pick and choose only those with some qualifications. That is how the market works. Introducing government control is insane; these schools are private businesses.

 

If you mean only the teachers in public education and universities, then that is fine, but still wouldn't work. Those schools are not required by law to provide a native speaker as the english instructor. Many schools have teachers, but most of them just have contracts with private schools to send out their teachers a few hours a week.

 

Trying to control all the schools around the country, and having only qualified teachers (who would obviously require higher pay) would cost an idiotic amount. If they wanted to improve something about public education, then making sure the non-required native english speaking teachers are qualified would be the last thing on the list to throw million of dollars on.

lokethebloke:

I see your point.   Much more complicated than I thought.   In Britain we do have quite a few trade associations that tend to regulate standards.

11 years 23 weeks ago
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11 years 23 weeks ago
 
Posts: 4

Governor

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The last thing China needs is the equivalent of Oftsed (UK Education Standards Office).

In the UK schools are inspected i believe once every 3-4 years, and have to achieve certain "standards" but these are somewhat  subjective and very much depend on the  visiting inspector at the time. i.e The standards awarded are a little "fluffy"

 

It ends up with UK school teachers spending more time doing paperwork to please the Ofsted inspectors than actually doing any real teaching. The schools want to achieve "Excellent " status obviously, but the emphasis should be on the teaching quality not just another statistic.

 

I'm not saying inspections are wrong, on the contrary , I believe there should be some framework in place to ensure  at least a standard of English is being taught. But not so vigorously enforced that the very quality of teaching suffers as a result. 

There are many excellent teachers around, those that can and are permitted to improvise to make their lessons more enjoyable will certainly be in demand.

 

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11 years 22 weeks ago
 
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