VietNamNet Bridge – Native English teachers speak too fast that students cannot understand them, or teachers make “strange gestures” as snipping cheeks and touching the bodies of students are the things that occurred at many schools.

Learning English with native English teachers has become in fashion. Therefore, foreign language centers have been trying to hire English teachers in order to attract more learners and compete with other centers. However, a lot of schools reportedly “tasted the bitterness” because they could not find the suitable teachers and had to sack the teachers before the contracts expired, for which they had to pay big sums of money for compensation.

More harm than good

In the 2009-2010 academic year, M Primary School in district 5 of HCM City hired a foreign teacher for its English classes. A contract was signed under which the teachers would get the pay of 95 dollars for three periods of teaching (45 minutes per period).

The contract was agreed to have the validity of one year. However, the teacher was asked to stop teaching just after two months after the school realized that this was not the suitable teacher it wanted. As the English teacher could not satisfy the requirements in both the qualification and working shifts, he was sacked.

However, the school had to pay a heavy price for its decision. The foreign language center, which provided the teacher, raised a lawsuit, asking to pay compensation for the dismissal. As the school lost the case, it had to pay nearly 100 million dong in compensation.

Huynh Thi Tu Nhi in district 12 said that her daughter is going to the Dai Viet private school in Go Vap district, where the tuition is relatively high, at 3.2 million dong a month. Nhi decided to bring the girl to the school after reading an ad piece that the school has English native teachers.

However, Nhi complained, the students only have met the foreign teachers once or two times over the last several months, since the new school year began in August.

Explaining this, Cao Ngoc Sa, Headmaster of the school, said that the school once hired foreign teachers. However, the teachers did not have the work permit; therefore, the school had to terminate the contract with the teachers.

“We have been looking for new teachers, but we have not found any,” she said.

Teachers too friendly, students got frightened

Native English teachers speak too fast that students cannot understand them, or teachers make “strange gestures” as snipping cheeks and touching the bodies of students are the things that occurred at many schools.

H, a Vietnamese teacher at M primary school said that a 5th grader of the school made wrong pronunciation. Then the foreign teacher tried to show gestures to help the student to correct her pronunciation. However, the problem was that the teachers’ hands many times touched her chest. Therefore, the student got afraid of standing near the teacher.

Since some other students had the same complaints about the teacher, the school met the teacher and asked him to change the teaching method. The teacher then felt hurt when hearing that, saying that this is just a simple gesture in the western world.

Finally, in order to ease the worries of students, the school had to terminate the contract signed before with the teacher.

Spending money and only getting worse

According to Van Cong Sang, a senior official of the HCM City Education and Training Department said that the department only has the responsibility of checking degrees and work permits of foreign workers. Therefore, schools themselves need to be cautious when recruiting teachers.

Nguyen Ho Thuy Anh from the HCM City Education and Training Department, advised schools to keep cautious when compiling labor contracts. She said the schools need to clarify the number of teaching hours and other requirements. Especially, they should also set up the requirements relating to the culture and custom of Vietnamese people in order to minimize troubles.

Source: Phap luat TPHCM