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English teachers in Poland - why are they so unhappy? [89]
English teachers have been complaining about lousy pay throughout Europe for decades, but the problem remains; if the government wants qualified instructors, they'll have to be willing to dig deep and hire NATIVE SPEAKERS!!
Poland, the former Soviet Union, along with many other European countries have been plagued by state-sponsored, non-native English speaking hacks who merely studied briefly in the UK, for longer than most of their students/pupils would care to remember. I know of so many students of mine who'd bellyache to me about how awful their grade school English instructors and how boring their English classes were. Frequently, they'd come to me in order to literally "undo" the poor foundation they were forced to endure.
Pity that only at the university level are native Yanks, Brits or Canadians prerequisite for teaching English language as well as literature courses. The answer though is all too obvious, namely, that the government would have to pay them at least a living wage, if not higher in order to keep them for more than a semester or two.
However the irony is, that of course it's not at the highest levels that native English speakers are required, but instead at the beginning of one's instruction so that the correct pronunciation and usage are cemented by listening to native-born, educated Anglophones.
By college age, it's often too late!
