So I was speaking on Skype to a guy who now works at the school I used to work at back in Vodkaberg; he says they have only four native-speaker teachers now. That's the lowest number I can remember since 2004. It was only a few years ago that we had more than ten.
There aren't however, only four teachers.
In addition to a few Russian teachers of English , there's a teacher of Spanish, one teacher of Italian, and one teacher of Chinese there now. . .
The profession of English teaching is dying faster than an HIV-positive crack whore. With a defective heart valve.
4 comments:
Have to disagree on your last point. Over the last 30 years or so (even more in Europe) most of the world has invested too much time and effort in the English language to let that happen. People take other languages more out of hobby and curiosty than anything else. I haven't seen or heard of any multinationals changing their official operating language from English no matter where their based out of, even French ones.
What's next Chinese? I heard the same kind of hoopla in the 80's when Japan was supposedly taking over the world and they made better products. Everyone wanted to learn Japanese and look what happenned.
China's in for a big fall, there's alot of fundamental problems with their fast growth that's beneath the surface. Interesting that western investor have so much praise and optimism about the place. Understandably so given that 20 or so years ago they were riding bike and living on rice. Hell, if they earn just a nickel a day more, there GDP skyrockets. However, transparency from a communist regime, Western investors are living in their own potemic village.
Good luck in Saudi America!
you answer your own question -- over the last 30 years or so, people have invested a lot of time and effort to studying English - so now, most of the people who need it already speak it. To get really competitive job positions, speaking more than 2 languages is a benefit.
will be a large market for teaching children, of course. get out the puppets.
Actually, it's only three native speakers -- unless Mr. TEFL-over-the-top has really come back :-/
Not in China. These chinks only care about English. No other second language matters at all. When they are rude to me, I sometimes curse at them in Russian or French. Nobody has a clue.
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