How to choose a foreign language school or tutor

Choose among schools where teachers pay a lot. Schools are usually run by businessmen, and the salaries of teachers in them are about the same. I once went for an interview to an English school, which offered a salary 2 (!) Times higher than the average in Moscow. The methodologist talked with me for 3 hours! It became clear why the salary is high: they are looking for and trying to retain qualified personnel. I didn’t go to work because I suddenly started earning more as a tutor, but for many years I recommended this school to my friends. The high salary of teachers indicates that the school owner is most likely a former teacher himself, worried about the result of his work. This is about schools, and if you are looking for a tutor, try to find one who once worked in such a school.

Why is a good teacher difficult to choose? To begin with, there are really very few of them in the modern market. Every year, thousands of qualified teachers graduate from foreign language departments, but smart people rarely go to work in the profession. They go to such positions where knowledge of a foreign language is one of the requirements. A pretty typical career of a clever graduate of foreign language is to work for a few years for a penny in a translation agency, gain experience and then go to a promising position in a serious organization as some kind of manager for working with foreign companies. It is in the TEACHING that usually go to two girls from foreign language, who have no particular desire to develop. In universities and courses, they pay little, and only tutors with a name really earn good money.

It is often advised to choose a teacher based on the fluency of his speech in the language he teaches. This is almost the same as choosing a weightlifting trainer based on how much iron the trainer himself can lift. According to this logic, one would have to not take a steam bath and just take a native speaker - they speak sooo fluently. But a native speaker is usually a very stupid teacher. He completely does not understand how the learner thinks, but he naturally thinks in his native language. There are good teachers and translators who cannot boast fluent speech in the language they work with. The article "On the development of speaking skills" (my first post) discusses in detail the mechanisms for the development and maintenance of speaking.

I can tell you how I choose teachers in my school.

To begin with, they are given a complex dictation of the Russian language. We do not pay attention to punctuation, only errors in words. What does the dictation of the Russian language, you ask. I declare responsibly: the ability to feel the native language and understand it directly correlates with the ability to work with a foreign language. Thinking mechanisms are sewn up in the native language, a person thinks in terms of language. As a rule, the more a person develops native speech, the clearer he thinks. A fact from our practice: most English teachers in a complex dictation of 97 words make 5 to 15 mistakes.

The second test that our teachers pass is logical tasks. Simple. An intelligent village peasant with three classes of the parish would have done quite well. We don’t specially give complex ones: in a stressful testing situation, even a smart person can get confused and not decide. We give 3 tasks and expect from the candidate that he will solve at least one. 90% of Moscow's English teachers do not solve a single one. Some right there during the testing are satisfied with tantrums: My experience is that logical thinking skills are required in any teaching.

Interesting fact. These first two tests cut off 90% of candidates, admin tests Elena. Some time ago, I had a dialogue with her:
- Have you noticed that if a person writes dictation well, he, as a rule, has problems solved well? And if not a single task is solved, then the dictation is inundated.
“Of course I did.” Apparently, a person has either brains or not.

The next stage: we ask candidates to translate several sentences from Russian into English. Many teachers who are fluent in English may not fundamentally understand the most important BASIC things about this language! The test reveals this instantly.

Most people express their thoughts very crookedly. At the household level, this is not very noticeable, but it becomes more obvious if you need to explain any complicated thing. Before accepting the next candidate for the position of teacher of English, I ask him to hold for me personally 40 minutes of classes on a given topic. And I’m watching not so much for his methodological methods (it’s easy to correct it later), but for how he formulates the thought, I write down moments that could be understood in different ways. Most often, the lesson has to be stopped after the first 10-15 minutes: people demonstrate a criminal inability for the teacher to express thoughts. After that I make a decision - a specific case of correction lends itself or it is better to say goodbye right away.

If in the Tretyakov Gallery on April 1 replaced the masterpieces of painting with low-quality copies, most visitors will not notice anything. Because they value masterpieces of painting at the “like / dislike” level. They may like a daub, for which they kick out of art school with kicks and DO NOT like a masterpiece. This is NORMAL - they should not be understood, this is a difference between a professional and a layman.

Just like that, the average person is not able to discern a talented teacher - he simply does not have evaluation criteria. In order to formulate these criteria, you yourself need to work out a teacher for several years, and at least for the first time under the guidance of a good mentor. I have these criteria, so I have many times refused employment to people with advanced degrees, an impressive resume, looking very authoritative and representative. Students would like these people, but I understood that they could not cope with work. On the contrary, sometimes he hired plain-looking young people without merit because he saw that this person has potential.

Many people simply have never experienced quality teaching work in their lives, even if they think they have.
A good teacher is a rare combination of personal and professional qualities. In order to become one, it is not enough to understand the subject yourself. The fact that this complex and important profession was made so prestigious and low-paid is a tragedy, for some reason not recognized by society. AND! There was no one to teach me to build a causal relationship ...

PS In my VK account (see profile) there is an interesting postscript to this article.