Saturday, November 17, 2012

The Native Speaker Hierarchy

The Native Speaker Hierarchy Do those overseas schools see you as a native speaker or not? This will affect your getting jobs within the ESL industry overseas, particularly in countries which do not have equal opportunity employment legislations and where people have insidious ideas of what kind of English teacher would be good for their schools, their students, themselves or their children. Therefore, to them, some are more native than others. Here is their ESL Native Speaker Hierarchy column unfolded. Based on this, you can assess your chances of getting hired in the ESL industry. Yes, it is discriminatory, but they are beyond the jurisdiction of the EOE commission. Native Speaker -AAA class. A white person with blond hair and blue eyes with a British name ( John Smith) and a passport from an “Anglo” country born and raised there, with diplomas and degrees from that country. Such a person will find no ethnic obstacles to being hired at all. Native Speaker- AA class A white person with or without blond hair and blue eyes with a North-Western European name ( German , French or Swedish, Dutch etc.- John Schmidt) and a passport from an “Anglo” country born and raised there, with diplomas and degrees from that country. Such a person will sometimes be asked-“Oh, is that an American name? Are your parents from the USA?” After a few questions, the person will be hired. Native Speaker A class A white (or whitish) person with or without blond hair and blue eyes with an Italian, E-European last name and a passport from an “Anglo” country ( Joe Kowalsky), born and raised there, with diplomas and degrees from that country. Such a person will often be asked-“Oh what name is that? That is not American. Are you really from the USA?” Such a person may occasionally be discriminated against in hiring. Native Speaker BBB class A white (or whitish) with a passport from an “Anglo” country, not born but possibly raised there, with diplomas and degrees from that country. An example would be a Hungarian immigrant to the US who came very young and who speaks English without a noticeable accent. Such people will be discriminated against more often than the ones above. Native Speaker BB class. A black or Hispanic person with a passport from an “Anglo” country, born and raised there, with diplomas and degrees from that country. Such people may be passed off for hiring in favor of the “upper” classes of native speakers in quite a few place. These are not American enough. Native Speaker B class A whitish person who is a citizen of an Anglo country but not born or raised there without a degree from that country. Not easy to find work unless name is changed and the resume is padded up with a couple of degrees/certificates from the Anglo country. Native Speaker CCC class An Asian person from an Anglo country, born and raised there with diplomas and degrees from that country. He does not look American- the HR manager will say- is he an American? But he does not look like one. And the name! This is not an American name. Very often discriminated against. Native Speaker CC class A naturalized “Anglo” citizen, Black, Asian or Hispanic person with a degree from an Anglo country. Hard to find ESL work. Native Speaker C class A naturalized “Anglo” citizen. Black, Hispanic person or Asian person without a degree from an Anglo country. Really hard to find ESL work. Beyond these categories, people are already considered non-native speakers and will not be advertised as such to students or hired as such.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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