Teach English in BeiliuZhen - Jincheng Shi

When it comes to language teaching, it is commonly accepted as a fact that a native speaker is the best choice (and even the only choice for some companies). After all, this is a person who grew up speaking and writing the language and has used it continuously in daily life. However, one could go as far as to call this a myth. The language skills that a person possesses are a combination of many factors such as education, social and cultural background, their levels of eloquence and even wit, knowledge of proper spelling and grammar, the extent of their vocabulary, a propensity to resort to slang, and other such factors. As unintuitive as it may sound, despite the wealth of knowledge that the internet has made available to anyone with a computer, online communication has led to a degradation of native speakers' language skills, with the rise of smartphones being a form of final nail in the coffin. Although one would think that having a plethora of online dictionaries available at the click of a mouse would lead to an improvement in people's speech and writing, these resources, unfortunately, end up widely unused. To compound the matter further, autocorrect technology has improved to the point that it is starting to replace the thought process behind proper writing. The other disfavor that technology has done, especially to younger people who grew up with it, has been to normalize the use of acronyms and shortened forms of spelling to reduce the number of keystrokes when writing, especially when communicating via text on smartphones. Enter the non-native English speaker. This is a person who, unlike with their L1, has had to consciously and actively learn English as a second language, as opposed to just picking it up along the way since their earliest days. During the learning process, this person has had to figuratively unlearn their L1's structure to adjust their thought processes to think in English when using it, and will thus be more aware of their shortcomings. Correcting these shortcomings, both during after their formal English learning experience is a process that requires understanding what the correct form is and why it is so. When speaking about English teachers, the first assumption is that said teacher has a strong grasp of the English language which allows for near-flawless speaking and writing (unfortunately, for a host of possible reasons, many a learning center outside of English speaking countries has ended up hiring English teachers whose level can be described as mediocre at best, tarnishing the image of non-native English speaking teachers. This essay, however, refers to proficient teachers). Said flawlessness, regardless of whether someone is a native speaker or not, takes practice and study to achieve over time. A great advantage of having learned English as a second language, especially if said learning happened in one's early youth, is that regional slangs will have been mostly or completely left out, resulting in a more "pure" handling of the language. Even if said non-native speaker eventually moves to an English speaking country and picks up the slang, the original unsullied version will be more strongly imprinted. Another benefit inherent to a non-native English teacher is a shared experience with the students. Having had to acquire their English while dealing with the figurative mental noise of their L1, said teachers will understand that thinking in English will not come naturally at first, and will have an easier time detecting when the students are translating directly from their native language, having done it themselves at some point. At this point it is worth noting that when teaching English in a country whose language isn't the teacher's L1, investigating said language's basic grammar structure is recommendable to better understand the students' phrase-forming process and how it will intrude upon their usage of English grammar. Last but not least, cue the elephant in the room: accent. Many will argue that a non-native English speaking teacher's accent will hurt the learning process. However, one must first ask: Which country's accent is the "true" English accent? Someone with enough exposure to English will generally be able to figure out where a native speaker is from upon hearing their accent, and in some cases even have a good idea of where a non-native speaker's teacher was from or where said person learned their English. It is also fair to say that native English speakers from certain regions will have such a strong local accent that students may end up struggling to understand their lessons. My personal experience when visiting the United Kingdom can illustrate this point. Communicating with Cambridge's residents was a simple matter, yet many a native Londoner's English was so densely accented that I still jokingly tell people traveling to London that it may be easier to just ask another tourist for directions. A non-native speaker with enough fluency in English, on the other hand, will tend to have a more neutral accent with few to no traces of their L1's accent, and even then, said speaker will consciously avoid reverting to their L1's pronunciation by accident. In conclusion, whether a teacher is good or not will not be defined by their birthplace, but by their language skills and fluency, as well as their ability to effectively impart the knowledge to students. While job markets favor native English speakers, there is such a thing as a non-native English speaker whose English can be described as "perfect". Some will even be asked if they're American, Canadian, or even British (such as yours truly who is usually described as having an American accent, and for some mysterious reason, occasionally "Irish"). If you, noble reader, are one of them, say it proudly: I am a good English teacher!