I was called in for an interview at a language centre for one of the better known language franchises in Malaysia recently. It was a pretty strange experience. I was made to take a test. Okay...stranger still was that it was a badly constructed test and the things that were being asked in the test really had nothing to do with language teaching at all. Hmmm......
While taking the test at the language centre, I received a phone call for another interview at a university the following day. There, I was asked to give a short sample lesson using just a marker and a whiteboard.
Of the two, the university interview made a lot more sense to me. The candidate's ability to teach is something that should be of interest to the interviewers. In my experience, you don't have to ask a candidate to sit for a test to gauge how accurate their language is. You can get that sussed out during the interview with the candidate. What is more important is if the candidate can teach and engage the learners. We all know people who have a lot of knowledge but who seem to lack the ability to impart the knowledge to others.
It just goes to show that language centers are simply businesses being run by people who have very little knowledge of language teaching and what it really entails. Most are there just to make money and the extremely low rates that they pay their instructors makes it no wonder why they don't attract experienced and knowledgeable instructors who know what they are doing. Are Malaysian parents really that clueless that they are willing to believe that such language centres are actually doing something worthwhile towards the improvement of their kids' language abilities?
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