Topic: destinyeric 's blog Choosing a Foreign English teacher in China

You are painting with a very broard brush here. Yes there are probably people here from America or England (or Australia where I am from) that came to China because it provided more opportunities than were available at home. However to say that everyone is here because of desperation is clearly untrue. Some people are here for adventure, some people are here because they like the lifestyle, some people (like myself came her because this is their partners' home) and there are more possible reasons. But the major problem of your blog is the assertation that many African countries have the same level of native English speaking as America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Let's focus on Australia considering that is where I can speak to the best. White settlers arrived in Australia in 1788 and they all came from England where they and their ancestors spoke English. When they arrived in Australia they continued to speak English until this day where we speak basially British English with some small differences that developed over the last 200 years. As of the last census 81% of Australian's speak only English at home, there is no second language in Australia, the second most popular language spoken at home is Chinese with 1.7%. Many of the African countries that you mentioned have offical and unnoffical second (or even third or fourth) languages and in some cases English might be the offical language of the government but not necessarily of the people. Either way the level of English speaking in African countries is nowhere near the level of which it is in Australia. This does not mean that untrained Australians will automatically make better teachers, they won't necessarily, but you statement of native English and English fluency is just not true. To be perfectly clear, Australian's speak English, for locals or immigrants alike and to say that we have our own native culture and languages is frankly stupid. Of course we have our distinct culture (although one born out of and forever linked to British culture) but our native language is English not "russian, german, italian, japanese, cambodian, thai Arabic, Greek, Mandarin, Cantonese and Vietnamese". Many of those nationalities you mentioned (completely ignoring Australian Aboriginal languages)have very small numbers of immigrants of Australia and the two largest, Greek and Italian, have been in Australia for so long now that English has long become their native language. I went to a school that was about 25% Italian, some of them could not even speak Italian at all and those who could did not speak it at home and their fluency was less than in English. The only reason that Chinese ranks so high in main language spoken at home is because Chinese immigration to Australia is relatively recent and therefore they have not had time to fully assimilate. But once the children of parents moved to Australia start having children of their own the first language will switch from Chinese to English, just like it has done with Italian and Greek. No one is going to disagree with you that appearance is important in China, especially for being an English teacher. It is terrible that a person born and raised in England/America/Australia etc who happens to have brown or black skin would have a much harder time finding a job than a white person, on that there is no debate. And just because someone is a native English speaker does not mean that they will be a good teacher or preferable to a trained teacher from Africa or Asia that does not have the right look. If that had been how far you took this point then there would have been little debate, however other than that point, which everyone in China already knows, the rest of your argument is ridiculous.