Skin color should not be used to determine the quality of English teachers

Many native English speakers from all over the world become certified English teachers to make emigration and worldwide travel a certainty. Expatriates are drawn to Hong Kong’s alluring harbor city for its exuberant atmosphere and diverse culture. And not to mention that a significant attraction for moving here is that a large proportion of people in Hong Kong speak English.

It sounds easy doesn’t it? Native English speakers can teach their mother tongue without so much as breathing a word in Cantonese and in return, enjoy an exciting life abroad in “Asia’s World City”.

However, despite its appeals, there are notable drawbacks.

Firstly, there is the palpable pressure from Hong Kong parents as many of them are under the impression that every native English speaker can fine-tune any given student into a fluent and coherent, multi-linguistic superstar overnight. Moreover, if this expectation is not met, the parents are quick to complain that their child is not learning fast enough, often resulting in the withdrawal of their child from the tutorial center.

Secondly, some parents also assume that signing their children up for extracurricular lessons in English centers, for example, will automatically guarantee that their child will succeed in their upcoming English exams. This is a common fallacy. It goes without saying that it depends significantly on what the child takes from the lesson in order to succeed. This means the child must listen, follow instructions and be able to study independently to benefit from lessons at the centers. Often if a child does not receive a satisfactory exam result, the finger of blame is automatically pointed at the child’s teacher for allegedly not providing adequate coaching. The teacher is always scapegoated while the child’s bad behavior or poor attitude is never questioned. All too often, this comes down to most working parents who spend far too little time supervising their children.

I strongly believe a big part of the problem is that many of the children who sign up for English classes are clearly spoiled at home with some just passed off to a domestic helper to deal with. Consequently, English teachers struggle not just to impart knowledge but also to instill in their charges some basic discipline to facilitate learning. In effect, teachers are also expected to teach them the elementary difference between right and wrong. It seems to be a reflection of the laxity of moral and ethical teachings at home which teachers are expected to make up.

The cumulative pressure leads teachers to work ridiculously long hours, with some putting in 12-13 hour days regularly, only to head home and spend more time marking their students’ work. Other teachers sacrifice their spare time to give unpaid extra lessons to some students who can’t keep up.

Although some educational institutions hire people of different nationalities and races, most opt to hire native English speakers in response to the preference of their clientele – the parents. To me this is highly problematic because a person’s mastery of the language is in no way determined by his or her ethnicity, race or nationality, as it is purely a matter of academic excellence. This brings me to my next point: The language centers’ overwhelming preference for white Caucasians.

Parents and educational institutions alike prefer a white person to teach their children because, in their estimation, looking the part of an English teacher is equally important as the teaching itself. This perverse view that English teachers should essentially be white confirms a racial bias in the academia — actually an open but inconvenient secret not much talked about. For example, there is an enormous well-educated South Asian community in Hong Kong and many of them immigrated to Hong Kong precisely with the intention of teaching English. Some even have PhDs in English and extensive teaching experience in their home country which makes them ideal candidates to teach English here. However, they experience great difficul- ty in being hired as English teachers and are usually relegated to the back of the recruitment queue on the basis of ‘wrong’ skin color and ethnicity.

Meanwhile, white people populate language centers and many hold doubtful teaching qualifications. These people then get on with coaching students and attempt to teach them how to pass exams with little or no relevant knowledge of local examination requirements. But South Asian people still get jobs in language centers or schools teaching English but are often paid considerably less than their white counterparts. This forces me to ask: Why is skin color such a determining factor in the employment of English teachers? Might not those people who are perpetuating this anomaly be short-changing themselves in the process?

The author has done extensive professional work in the spectrum of humanities including philosophy and cultural studies. He is a senior teacher for a local language center.