I don't think any anglophone can understand the pressure. It's not just about disagreement, it's simply about clear lack of first hand experience with the phenomenon. It's a mix of things, and the omnipresent marketing is a part of it and shouldn't be underestimated. It's just like claiming that the pink and blue colours for kid clothes or diamond engagement rings are naturally risen phenomena in the society. No, they are not. These things are now considered normal, you see ads with individual companies and no longer ads on these things in general. But there were huge marketing campaigns that contributed these things becoming so demanded.
It's not that different. The ads on English in the 90's in my country really were just as much ads on the language (back then seen as important, new, cool, but not necessarily destined to win over German), as on the individual schools.
Cainntear wrote:Oh I understand that, but the thing that you don't seem to be aware of is how crappy a career English teaching actually is. Yes, it's a career that's easy to get into, but it doesn't generally pay a professional wage, so it's the middlemen that run the schools that get the cash, and quite a lot of them aren't English speakers anyway.
No, as long as an expat with a CELTA earns more in Prague than a doctor, it is not a bad career. And as long as they are automatically prefered and paid better than the non natives (non natives get only the less prestigious teaching jobs left, such as public schools).
I'd love to get an easy career to take a month long class and then go teach my native language abroad and get all the advantages, instead of suffering for a decade and sacrificing a lot just to save lives. But no, my native langauge doesn't give me that option, I need to do much more to be seen as valuable.
Then there's the soul-crushing phenomenon of finding your life and your social value purely dictated by language, with many people only talking to you to practice their English and losing all interest in the conversation when you try to use their language. It can be really wearing when you can't just relax and unwind because you're forced to always consciously moderate your language during your leisure time in exactly the same way you have to in your work time. And then you move home from Italy not having had any opportunity to really improve your Italian, having never been given your full pay by some shoddy little school that wasn't paying you much to start off with.
But they get away with it, because there's always been a steady stream of "gappers" ready to "do the TEFL thing" for a year that can be sold to clients as "native-speaking teachers", so you're never going to actually have to pay for the full value of a well-qualified, experienced teacher.
So yes, being a native speaker has a certain level of privilege, but the thing about privilege is that it's not a binary thing -- there are many forms of privilege, and many ways to lack it.
What is soul-crushing about that? You can always say no, you can insist on Italian. And are you really so interested in people, who are not interested in you? You can also improve your Italian first, so that there is no objective excuse for switching to English. All of these are bits of advice I got, when I was complaining about the French switching to English. And I am not even an English native.
I totally agree with you, that those not serious TEFL people are a huge problem, I see how than can be dragging even your value down. It is really weird, how many of them even admit going to TEFL just because they failed at something else and wanted a nice expat life
But you can do something about it, I can't. There are professional organisations, there are ways to call out the bad practices, and so on. If the more serious English teachers started complaining about the low quality ones flooding the market, it might change. Breaking the public image that a native teacher is automatically perfect, that would be actually very useful.
tiia wrote:Although I'm annoyed by the position of the English language, I do not agree that there's such an extreme amount of marketing and expensive classes everywhere.
For example, from people I know in real life, I have also just heard of one company (in Germany) that offered language classes for everyone. They offered French, not English.
It varies by country. The marketing is everywhere in the Czech Republic and it is also strongly present in France. It's interesting that Germany and Finland don't have the same amount of English ads everywhere, but rather logical. Both the Czech Republic and France are among the countries with real or perceived bad level of English in the population, and an inferiority complex because of it (the French are in general very proud of their nationality and culture, but they've totally resigned on being also proud of the language). I saw it even during my year in France, people take it as personal failure, that they cannot speak English too well (even if they don't need it at all), instead of actually caring to learn a language of a neighbouring country (even one 10km away) or of an important minority. So, of course the schools profit on this, advertise a lot, and further feed this inferiority complex.
In the Czech Republic, language classes paid by the company or even tutoring in the working hours (!) are a very common benefit. Offered even to people, who don't really need English (otherwise they wouldn't have been hired without knowing it), or those who speak English, but want to improve to face exactly the situation described in the article. Other languages are rarer, but sometimes offered too.
Jinx wrote:He went in and started talking to the employee in English, asking her for help. She replied (in German) "This is Germany, you have to speak German here", to which he responded by yelling "Xenophobe! Racist" at her, and proceeded to call the police on her.
Of all the people commenting on the post, I was the only one who dared to suggest that he learn the German for "I'm sorry, do you speak English? My German is not good."
I'm not sure, but the answer from the employee is definitely quite rude. It reminds me of the former minister of foreign affairs, who once said a similar sentence to a reporter from the BBC asking a question in English. Guess what? The public response was not quite positive.
I think the employee could have just responded in German "how can I help you?".
Well, the situation is rather unfortunate on both sides. The local may have communicated differently, but calling the police just because someone doesn't want to speak English with you (in a country you willingly moved to, knowing it is not an anglophone one), that's mad. Really, such a person should have stayed at home.
Cainntear wrote:tiia wrote:So I have to disagree that people always just see an English-speaking native as free practise. At least here they do this with everyone regardless of their native language.
So as a non-native who's never had the experience of almost their entire social life being dominated by the expectation to offer free practice and free lessons, you're telling someone who's had the experience of almost their entire social life being dominated by the expectation to offer free practice and free lessons that you don't believe people have the experience of almost their entire social life being dominated by the expectation to offer free practice and free lessons...?
I mean, I'm talking about a situation that was horrible for my self-esteem and mental health, so basically you're gaslighting me now.
(I actually spoke almost as much Spanish in Italy as Italian, because one of the people in the group I tended to socialise with was from Venezuela, and she was pretty much the only person who wouldn't force the conversation back into English all the time.)
But the non natives face the same problem. We are expected to offer free English practice too, even if we are not natives, and not teachers. That's what you don't understand. Sure, there are other components to the problem too (such as misplaced good intentions), but the desire of the locals to practice their English is definitely contributing. And yes, it can totally dominate one's life, even a non teacher a non native, if you let it.
Yes, the Spanish natives tend to be excellent at this, I have the same experience. However, I have repeatedly had this experience with Italians too, being accepted and normally spoken to without switching. Perhaps you also had a bit of bad luck on people.
I totally emphatise with you, it does harm self esteem. I lived this experience too. Perhaps yours was even worse, as you are an English teacher, I totally believe that. But you became one by your own choice.
You could have sacrificed your youth and become for example a nurse. You'd surely find employment in Italy, if you had a nursing degree and a solid level of Italian! You'd definitely get the opportunity to really live your life in Italian and improve. But you'd have to invest much more into becoming a nurse first, you'd have a much less comfortable life, and you'd also get a lower salary.