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Unread Aug 16th, 2007, 09:11 pm
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Default Re: What level of English should a non-native teacher have?

I am a Filipino and I teach English to Koreans in the Philippines. My country has an ESL Status;Korean students are EFL learners. At first I thought, ESL and EFL people are not so different; this is not true. They are worlds apart. Their path of acquiring English maybe the same but after closer inspection, differences are undeniable.

The question posted is an excellent one. We in the Philippines have also asked ourselves the same thing. Do we need to pass the TOEFL ibt or IELTS first? Is a CELTA certificate necessary?

Since there is no universal standard of "enough English" for Non-native speakers at this moment in history, I would say that the determiner of sufficient English is still what the traditional standards that native speakers have set.

Although this might change in the next 15 to 20 years, I believe that non native speakers all over the world would have to endure the reality that their improvement and acquisition of English is a lifetime thing. There is no certain date that the acquisition of English and improvement in its use will cease.

English is not our native tounge, and just like all things it follow the law of entropy: language that ain't improved, deteriorates,And for us non-native speakers, this is all too true.

If Native speakers themselve, inheritors of the English Language, also need to practice how to speak well, how much more those who only borrow the Language?
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