“Under-qualified” Teachers?

ARE under qualified English teachers taking over Spanish classrooms?

just because they are native speakers it doesn’t mean that they have the ability to teach the language.

Teaching unions are extremely angry with the government’s announcement that it wants to hire more native English teaching assistants for the 2014/2015 academic year. The unions are saying that the native teachers are getting an unfair advantage as they are not required to have the same teaching qualifications as a Spanish national to teach English; also they aren’t required to speak any Spanish.

Carlos Iglesias, head of the primary and high school teacher’s union (FSIE) commented that there are six million unemployed in Spain; among them many teachers who would be more qualified to teach than a native speaker. Although the native speaker may speak the language better this does not qualify them to pass on the skill to others.

“English teachers in Spain sometimes don’t even have TEFL qualifications, they have never taught before and just because they were born speaking it doesn’t mean they should take the jobs of more qualified people,” commented a spokesperson for the association of language schools in Andalucia.