How did this teacher get to be a teacher?

[AtheistChase]

I live in Latvia, and this country we basically suck at english.
This teacher thinks that "disguise" is pronounced "disgeeze" in america, pronounces "north" as "norse" and when i call her on it she says that "norse" has a D in it.

Should this teacher be allowed to teach?

[Babar]

You're lucky. When I was in Egypt, my English teacher pronounced it "Lang-goo-shay Study". Then she said "Excuse my American accent". Our physics teacher asked us to "my-yurr the height", and our chem teacher pronounced haemoglobin in such a mind-boggling way, I'm at a loss at how to put it down to letters (and all this has nothing to do with the egyptian accent! All these teachers had their own weird weirdness).

[AtheistChase]

This reminds me that somewhere in the world there is the worst doctor.
And somebody has an appointment to him.

[Stupot]

I think it is difficult to fully trust a teacher who doesn't natively speak the language they are teaching.  However it depends on the person.  I'm learning Japanese at the moment, and I have two teachers.  One is a native Japanese lady and the other is an English guy who studied in Japan and in Japanese.

I trust him.  He might not be a native but he obviously knows what he is talking about.  And in many ways it is a bonus having an Englishman teaching us because he has been there in our shoes.  For every query we have, he has had the same query and he knows best how to answer it.

But having the Japanese lady teach us is invaluable.  I would be severely pissed off if I'd paid all this money to be taught the language entirely by a non-native.  If I had to have one or the other, I would go native every time.  But the current situation for me is perfect and I wouldn't have it any other way.

[SpacePirateCaine]

Language is a tricky thing. I'm kind of like Stupot's teacher insofar as I have a degree in Japanese Linguistics from a relatively well known university for Linguistics in Japan. In general, the linguists who have mastered a language as a second are actually far more qualified to teach about the language than native speakers, even though natives are more likely to be accepted because they've been speaking the language themselves for their entire lives (usually). This isn't to say that it's always the case - a lot of the time any jackass with a degree can get the job because they're called for - It's duly the case for English in the rest of the non-English speaking world.

What you should expect to see is the people who have gone through the process of language learning (as opposed to aqcuisition) will have a much more solid grasp of the grammar and its structures because they have had a point in their lives that they are forced to think of the language in terms of quantifiable rules, and are more likely going to be able to break down a language into its base parts. A native speaker, on the other hand, will be forced to take a skill that they already have and try to break it down into segments, which is a much more difficult task because we're faced with our own language issues and have trouble looking at something that seems 'natural' from a detached standpoint.

An ideal setup would be one person who has taken the time to master the language through tertiary means, and another who is a native speaker, so that you have a solid theory base as well as someone who has the 'clout' for being a native, who can give you the colloquialisms, and teach you how to speak incorrectly, correctly.

I have a feeling that your teacher has a language block, so to speak - possibly even a very mild type of paraphasia that screws up their listening/language reproduction. They can't tell that they're saying it wrong, and may think that they're hearing one thing that means another - it's the only reason I can really think of that would lead them to believe 'norse' has a 'D' in it.

[Andail]

I'm an educated English teacher, and I'm certainly more qualified to teach grammar, literature and linguistics than the average native Englishman, even though the latter is undoubtedly better than me at speaking and understanding English in general.
Knowing and teaching are two different things.

Speaking of which, I intend to take a Celta certificate this summer just to prove to potential customers that a non-native can still be a good teacher.

[DoorKnobHandle]

Being good at using and being good at teaching a language might be two different things but it's impossible that a bad user is a good teacher. I've had "teachers" (actually all the way up to linguistic professors for English here at university) tell me or the group things such as not ever to spell "nonetheless" in one word (make it three words always) or that the idiom "to bite the bullet" doesn't exist and and and. The list is really endless, these are just the two most recent things. One of the worst "teachers" (ironically, he's the English linguistic professor) regularly translates German idioms and sayings into English word by word which he then delivers in his thick German accent.

So, yeah, bad teachers are everywhere, even at a higher level of education (ie. after high school or ecquivalent).

[Babar]

I noticed that a lot of teachers here, especially for before high school, are just people who've completed their Bachelors in college, and need to make a few bucks before getting a "real" job. They have no training (formal or otherwise), and no real desire to be teaching children. And in some cases, they are complete dunces (outside of the subject they studied in college)!

As far as teaching a language goes, I've noticed that a non-native speaker many times makes a mistake pronouncing words that they've never heard used on tv or radio outside of print (usually slightly older words, or 'SAT words').

[SpacePaw]

SpacePirateCaine - And why didn't you mention japanese-english :3 It's like another language lol :3

[ManicMatt]

I used to have an English teacher who made so many mistakes when she wrote on the board that many of us would have to point it out to her. Oh dear.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I guess I was blessed with technically proficient instructors at my schools, though in college it was pretty obvious that some of them were just there just for the paycheck. 

[Kastchey]

SpacePirateCaine - And why didn't you mention japanese-english :3 It's like another language lol :3

And that might just work as a hint that having a native speaker as a teacher might not be enough for efficient learning (unless they are bilingual and/or well taught in linguistics, then maybe).

As a non-Indo-European language, Japanese is way far from English, much further than say, French or Russian is. Literally everything is different (hence the famous Engrish), from the most basic grammar to the general semantics, to the point that it beats all the classic European ontology with a stick.

In an addition to what SpacePirateCaine and Andail have said:
An average native speaker, having no clue about the differences between their own language and the native language of their students, has no chance to fully understand all the language problems the students are having. This might result in a total inability to clearly explain grammar and style of their own language to foreign students.

While native speakers remain more reliable in pronounciation and word choice part, they are not always the best pick for the whole language course, especially for those students who are not much capable of intuitive learning.

[Andail]

I'd like to add the age-variable here.

For teaching children and young teenagers, your pedagogical skills are far more important than your knowledge of the subject. Having done too much language studies will probably render you overqualified and eventually depressed.

For teaching on high-school level it's more important that you're a fluent, eloquent speaker/writer with some teaching tricks up your sleeve.

On an even higher level, it depends on the discipline. I don't think you need to have a perfect pronunciation to teach grammar (even though it will increase your credibility) and some professors in linguistics or semantics - or some of the more obscure branches - I've met were so introverted and unsociable they just barely communicated at all. They'd mostly mutter some technical terms and you needed to pick up the good pieces.

[AtheistChase]

I would rather be depressed and a genius, than be blissfully ignorant, but that's just me and TheAmazingAtheist.

I point out mistakes to my teacher a lot. I don't think i'm qualified to teach english, but i think i know better english than her.
I can pick almost any accent, i can tell a pun, and so on.
She has a strong latvian accent, don't look it up it will make your want to rip off your ears to escape the torment, and doesn't know a pun until i spell it out.
But i wouldn't want to be a teacher anyway. Too much responsibility.