China ESL
An Industry Run Amuck?

(continued from page 9)

by Niu Qiang, PhD & Martin Wolff, J.D.

Training Centers

These students are generally business employees who are in class to improve their chances of promotion at work. They are highly motivated to learn and are a pleasure to teach. The very nature of the student mandates that classes be held in the evening and on weekends which leads to teacher dissatisfaction and a high turnover rate.

Caveat: The above evaluations are based upon the authors' personal experiences; personal interviews with more than 40 FEs, comments made by FEs in Internet chat rooms and from published comments at www.eslcafe.com.

Conclusion:
Nothing is worth doing unless done right
Author: A sage old man

The main objective of the ESL industry is the production of people capable of effectively communicating in English as their second language. As in all production type industry, utilization of untrained or unqualified labor, use of defective materials, inadequate management and lack of quality control results in a defective product.

All ESL schools should be licensed by the Government and should meet certain requirements. (Unlicensed schools should be closed with penalties.) All private school administrators and directors should be required to be certified as having successfully completed a special training course in Education Administration, Business Management and Human Resource Management, in order to work in an ESL school. No ESL school should be licensed or allowed to maintain their license without certified Administrators and Directors.

All public and private Foreign Affairs Office Directors should be required to be certified as having successfully completed a special training course in FAO Administration, Cross-cultural relations, and Human Resource Management. No one should be allowed to be the director of a public or private FAO without this certification. No public or private school should be allowed to invite FE to teach ESL without having a certified FAO Director.

The Government, after meeting appropriate criteria, should approve these certification programs. There should also be a system for revocation of the certifications or sanctions if FE complaints against the administrator or director are found to have merit.

This would infuse the much-needed professionalism into the ESL program and give it needed international recognition and credibility.

All ESL curriculums should be approved by the Government and performance standards for the schools should be established and enforced. Object evaluations or proper quality control measures should be designed, implemented and enforced.

FE recruiting should be overhauled. False or misleading recruitment advertising should be prohibited. FE qualifications should be spelled out and enforced. Compensation packages should be more specifically regulated and enforced.

Upon arrival in China, FE should be given a "Welcome" package that includes the immigration laws of China, customs laws of China, cultural information, basic Chinese expressions, Consulate addresses, location of necessary services, emergency telephone numbers, telephone use instructions, and other information that will assist the FE to adjust to life in China more readily. The FE should also be required to attend a training session to become familiarized with ESL teaching in China and have their immediate questions answered.

If there are not enough qualified FEs to fill all of the ESL teaching positions, the inviting school should be required to pay for the untrained or inexperienced FEs to take an on-line ESL teaching course within 30 days of their initial employment in China.

Teaching ESL in China is an important component of the educational sector of the general economic-business community. It should be subject to the same type of regulation and quality control standards as any other production industry and then some.

The State Bureau of Foreign Affairs has the mandate of: "A. Studying and formulating principles, policies and regulations on the introduction of foreign experts. B. Working out long- and medium-term development plans, examining and approving the annual plans of each institution and organization concerning employment of foreign experts as well as overseas training plans." (1994, Guide for Foreign Experts Working in China, State Bureau of Foreign Experts)

This authority should be maximized to create and implement the type of regulations that will assure the ESL industry produces the best possible product for the future economic and social development of China.