It's frustrating applying for a teaching job if you're Asian looking

Saigon Gear wrote:

Don't give up. Be proud of your heritage.  Sooner or later a school will come calling.  In the meantime work your connections and keep applying.

Thanks buddy, I totally agree with you there. I've found a job with an English centre already

Tom Lee wrote:

How I wish all these discriminating practices can be minimized so that the rate of growth economically and socially can pick up to elevate the country to a decent level in international standing. Basically , an overhaul in mentality and mindset is badly needed so as to achieve the level of success experienced by other South East Asian countries.

For example? Which specific changes would help do that?

The legal things might change in the short term, but social changes come much more slowly; almost generational.

Do you consider wanting native-speakers as teachers discrimination even though non-native speakers will teach imperfect pronunciation that will hinder the students internationally? Paraphrasing an earlier post, would you want to learn Japanese from an Irish or American or Vietnamese teacher?

Shelf-Agent wrote:

Just to share some thoughts.

I don't think most of Vietnamese schools and Vietnamese parents discriminate Asian-looking English teachers. Like mojoyote has pointed out, if you come to meet the person-in-charge of recruitment face to face, you have better chances if you speak English as your native languages even if you are of Asian descent. Being a parent who has a child studying in an international school and pay a heavy tuition fee (between USD 15K to 20K every year), I surely don't want my son to learn to speak "Singlish" or English with Filipinos accent (no offence) from his school teachers.

Regarding the hierarchy of English teachers in Vietnam which charmavietnam has shared, in my understanding, there is a "historic" reason behind it. After the Vietnam wars, many Vietnamese migrated to USA, Australia and Canada (these countries accepted Vietnamese migrant whilst UK did not). Consequently, many Vietnamese families here have relative living in those countries and want to send their children there for studying and living. All parents who send their children to international school in Vietnam have made the choice to give their children overseas education after school (these children cannot go back to Vietnam education system once they join international school). I suppose it's just natural for parents and then schools to want to have their children speaking English like American, or Australian, or Canadian (so that their children hopefully will suffer less discrimination when they study overseas). Teachers from UK therefore can only blame their government for not being very welcome in Vietnam .

I surely don't want my son to learn to speak "Singlish" or English with Filipinos accent (no offence) from his school teachers.
  Haha , that's what you get when they are also taught by Americans with strong US accents.

In my little city many of the parents of students are so naive they must think Filipino's are NES, or why else would they pay the same money as if they did have a NES , (  the same school has NES ).  After correcting the students of a Filipino " teacher ', the poor innocent kids told me, " but that's the way Ms *** says it it ", I can still see the shock on their faces when I informed them, " Mr Chris, English Number 1 ,  Ms *** is a Filipino, Tagalog , Number 1 ", ( but not always, can be No 2 ), " English Number 2 " , ( but not always, can be No 3 ).
  I notice one new school refers to her teachers as " Foreigners " only. ( I have my suspicions re the " American " ).

cm1204 wrote:

No one says I am "Asian looking." It's either you are Asian or not.

Well, that's arguably open to debate. You could say you are of "Asian descent", but don't see yourself as Asian at all because you share no cultural or language traits with Asia. Official definition for being "Asian" would be to be a citizen of an Asian country, so it's not so black and white.

cm1204 wrote:

What do you mean by "Asian looking?" Are you Asian or not?

Absolutely.  My aunt who was born in England and apparently Anglo-Saxon was "Asian looking" because she had a single eye fold.  That did not mean that she was Asian.

cm1204 wrote:

Again, the point is the grammatical era. Also, why would you make such a random comment to your possible employer? If you are applying for a job, but make a foolish comment like that, wouldn't that raise a red flag? If they offered an interview, you should go in whether you have Asian features or not and blow them away with your English language knowledge. Not say an awkward grammatically incorrect comment such as "I am Asian looking" to an interviewer you never met.

You're applying your view based on what you're used to in your country. In Vietnam, I can guarantee you, most of Vietnamese employers (for teaching English)  won't notice amazing English versus standard English, and they will definitely prejudice against people who look Asian. So I'd say you might actually save yourself from wasting time if you tell them you are "Asian looking" in advance, just saying.

-JohnD- wrote:

...I cannot speak to the preference for Americans over Canadians or Aussies or Brits other than guessing that the American pronunciations are more easily understood worldwide--and that we don't call a cookie a biscuit

This is a huge generalization (even though it was only a guess!). There are parts of america where a brit/aussie (a competent/native speaker of the language) could visit and have no idea what they were talking about. It's not called "southern drawl" for no reason you know. Similarly, if a southern american were to travel to Vietnam (I don't know how likely this is, but go with me on this one) to teach English, how likely is it that Vietnamese students will understand him/her. In UK and AUS there are parts where the accent seems less "clear", but it's also based on the person's schooling, family background, friends etc. So not necessarily a regional thing. it's somewhat narrow-minded to say the american pronunciation is more easily understood worldwide.

As for the example with Cookie and Biscuit. There's other brit English words the VIetnamese are more comfortable with. e.g. lift instead of elevator.

sflxn wrote:

It's a generalization that VN and most of Asia prefer the American accent, but it is true.  Is it because it's easier for them to understand?  In a vacuum, no, that's not true since how would they know which accent is easier to understand?   However, in this world of television and movies, the American accent is what they are most familiar with.  CNN and the Discovery Channel are pretty ubiquitous around the world where ever they cater to business people.  Their primary source of foreign movies are also likely American blockbusters.  Even internet based media such as Youtube is dominated by American accent (even when they're not native speakers).  If the dvd pirates are still in business around VN, go browse the selection.  Other than Vietnamese and Chinese movies, it's pretty much dominated by American movies.  Media is America's primary weapon of diplomacy.  Ubiquity doesn't equate to better, but the end result is hard to deny.

Hardly true I'm afraid (no matter how much information you've been told about me - or how many fake 'likes' a post gets - like yours). Just because there are more american moveies and CNN is everywhere. It's only students of a certain competence in English that can watch these and truly understand the language. For vietnamese students starting to learn, it wouldn't matter if the accent (note that he said pronunciation - but I'm sure he meant accent) is Brit, aussie, American or Canadian. As long as the speaker is clear.

Pronunciation isn't defined by the hue (colour) of your passport, nor the hue of your currency. (No matter how much one loves the green backs)

THIGV wrote:

First of all the cookie or biscuit thing was clearly a joke.  If you couldn't see that you need to lighten up.   
........

Surprised your post didn't get any fake 'likes'.

BTW, a joke on an internet forum is followed by a or LOL, as it was clearly the case here. However, you say tomato, I say tomae-toe would have been a more appropriate joke.

THIGV wrote:

However, I would take exception to the idea that people shouldn't even try.

My sarcasm evidently didn't show through in the post.  My comment was *not* to tell people that they shouldn't try, but to prod them into *not* thinking they would fail.  The only guaranteed failure is the belief that failure is an option, or in the case of this thread, the certainty that failure is the result.

Ciambella wrote:

The only guaranteed failure is the belief that failure is an option, or in the case of this thread, the certainty that failure is the result.

I think it relates to the philosophical thought that we often are our own worse ennemy and that we often create our failures ourselves.

Reminds me of that famous last scene in the books about Miyamoto Musashi (the famous samurai) who was about to figh Kujiro (the samurai with the fastest blade strike) in a final, to the death duel. Well, Kujiro removed his sword from his scabbard and threw the scabbard on the beach where the duel was taking place. Musashi simply turned around and went back to his boat. Kujiro asked him what the heck he was doing, and Musashi told him that Kujiro lost the fight already, by throwing the scabbard on the beach it meant Kujiro believed he would lose, so there was no point in fighting.

Sorry if I did not get the name spellings right, it's been over 25 years that I've read these books!

sanooku wrote:

Can I please have some of the same stuff that you guys are smoking

This is close to being an ad hominem attack.  Can you specify who and where others on this thread have written things that are not true?  In fact the best thing written here is encapsulated in these few words: 

Adhome01 wrote:

It's not the schools, it's the parents.

THIGV wrote:

sanooku wrote:

Can I please have some of the same stuff that you guys are smoking

This is close to being an ad hominem attack.  Can you specify who and where others on this thread have written things that are not true?  In fact the best thing written here is encapsulated in these few words: 

Adhome01 wrote:

It's not the schools, it's the parents.

Just a joke. Relax. Don't' take it too seriously.