Teach English in Kuoxian Zhen - Beijing

TEFL for non-native English speaking teachersI have always been intrigued by the fact that so often native english speakers are preferred as tefl teachers to non-native english speakers. There are many articles to be found on the Internet about teaching English as a second language, depending on the search criteria, and most of them state that ?tefl teachers may be native or non-native speakers of English.? As a non-native english speaker myself, I often recall the variety of English teachers I came across. I often tried to categorise them and choose the best one. There was a Polish professor who had completed his education at Oxford. His language knowledge was by far the best of all my teachers, however he did miss the fact that we were 15 y.o. and being in that class itself was a torture. So when you add 2 hours of straight grammar lectures, who wants to learn English, really? Then there was another Polish teacher who spent most of his adult life in the USA. He wasn?t really a teacher but he became our friend, we had a lot of fun and 80% of our class failed the First Cambridge Certificate exam. Then we had an Englishman who answered the ad placed in the UK media to come and teach in Eastern Europe, ? no teaching experience required? the advert read. He was a car mechanic and to this day I remember each step of the oil changing procedure, not necessarily grammatically correct. It wasn?t until I actually left the country and completed my English language education in an English speaking country that I could honestly say my English was good. Even then my English teacher was not a qualified tefl teacher. I searched the Internet with the idea of finding information specific to tefl courses for non-native ?wanna be? tefl teachers. Do they exist ?, what do they offer ? and how different are they to a standard tefl course? I found that there are no specific courses for non-native tefl teachers. They simply have to know English really well to pass the TEFL qualifications. I also Googled ?qualifications for tefl teachers? and amongst many different requirements that depend on the institution, the country and the level of the course, I found this: ?Some institutions will consider it necessary to be a native speaker with a MA tesol? but the same Wikipedia article states that the level of academic qualification need not be the most important qualification however, as many schools will be more interested in your interpersonal skills. So what makes a good non-native English teacher? From my tefl course material I learned the following qualities of a good teacher (the course does not differentiate between native and non-native): ? A good teacher should be kind and patient. ? A good teacher should really love teaching. ? A good teacher should be lively and entertaining. ? A good teacher is able to motivate learners. ? A good teacher has a good knowledge of his/her subject. ? A good teacher should have good rapport and interaction with the class. ? A good teacher should be able to involve all students equally throughout the lesson. ? A good teacher should be able to correct students without offending them or affecting their motivation. ? A good teacher should know students? weaknesses and try to give help and individual attention where necessary. Does it mean that your origin doesn?t matter and that you should succeed by simply knowing English really well and possessing all of the above qualities? The research conducted by Global English also indicated that even though non-native teachers must try harder, the rewards are clearly visible: ??it´s harder as a non-native speaker, but it might be more effective for teaching later, because we (non-native speakers) are or become more aware of the difficulties students might encounter. Also as a non-native speaker I try harder to make up for this, I guess.?