PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD JAVERIANA

FACULTAD DE COMUNICACIN Y LENGUAJE

CARRERA DE LICENCIATURA EN LENGUAS MODERNAS
LOW ADVANCED ENGLISH

PROS & COS ESSAY

ANDREA SALAZAR LLANO
MAY 22 OF 2015

Pros & Cons of hiring foreign/native teachers for an ESL

class
Ever since I have been studying Modern Languages, and also in my
early high school Ive had tons of foreign/native teachers that either
go to school or university to teach languages such as English. The
point is that the board of directors think this is a huge advantage for
students since they will be learning a language and having constant
interaction with native speakers and therefore, they will learn easier,
but there are issues lying behind this. Those teachers are labeled by
this name, which is not correct, since some of them didnt have the
training required and they are not suitable qualified in order to be
called like this. They are just coming from abroad, and that makes the
board of directors consider that if they know another language they
could perfectly teach it, but the issue is that they do know the
language but they dont know how to teach it.
At school, lots of students are not aware of this situation, since they
find this very appealing to their learning and they dont complain about
anything at all. In terms of speaking, a big part of students take
advantage of the fact of having a native teacher who could talk with
them inside and outside of class, and improve their pronunciation,
fluency and vocabulary. A native teacher could only design
communicative language teaching classes, since he/she doesnt know
in detail the grammar structures because he/she is not a language
teacher; he/she just acquired his/her mother tongue rather than
learned it. However, this kind of method results to be attractive for
students since when learning a language all they want to do is talk and
have fun in class by imitating others or perhaps, making jokes about
others pronunciation.
On the other hand, at the moment of being at university, some
students start considering the fact that they want to have good ESL
teachers, not native people who come and pretend to know how to
teach when they are just foreigners that take advantage of speaking an
specific language and want to get paid for that. This teachers tend to
have very traditional teaching methods since they dont have any idea
of what really is teaching. To be exact, they dont know the vast
relation that exists between teacher and student at the moment of

PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD JAVERIANA

FACULTAD DE COMUNICACIN Y LENGUAJE
CARRERA DE LICENCIATURA EN LENGUAS MODERNAS
LOW ADVANCED ENGLISH

learning. They just came to that specific school or university to teach

what they need to and the rest doesnt really count. Those foreigners
just want to receive money for something they were born with and this
is not acceptable, since there are lots of students studying to become
teachers and obtain a respectable diploma. It wouldnt be good that a
person with a degree in teaching studies all his life to learn how to
teach, and a native person arrives and takes away his job.
To end up, native teachers should not be considered or hired as
teachers since they are not well prepared and they dont now the exact
methods to apply at the moment of teaching. Having those kinds of
teachers at university when you are studying a BA on Modern
Languages is not very convenient because they are not teaching what
we need to learn (the answer to the question how to teach?). I did
found appealing these teachers in my high school, but nowadays, I
want a teacher that gives me concrete feedback not only on my
learning of the L2, but also on my process of learning how to teach,
and I know a foreigner cant do this at all.

PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD JAVERIANA

FACULTAD DE COMUNICACIN Y LENGUAJE
CARRERA DE LICENCIATURA EN LENGUAS MODERNAS
LOW ADVANCED ENGLISH