Who are the teachers

TheParser said:

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Hello, goodstudent:

(1) "Nitpick" is a verb that means to point out every little, unimportant mistake. I never nitpick. Why? Because I know

that I also make mistakes in my posts, and usually the kind teachers here do not nitpick. They ignore my "minor"

mistakes.

(2) So I am not nitpicking by making the following observation:

I noticed that in your post, you have consistently failed to capitalize "English." I think that I have read that in some

languages, people do not capitalize the name of their language. (And they also do not capitalize the first-person pronoun

"I"!) But if you do not capitalize "English," it is really noticable.

OK, I had better stop writing before someone nitpicks this post.


HAVE A NICE DAY!

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I do not know that I need to capitalize English until now. I will remember to do it in future.

Why is TheParser not a teacher? Who are the teachers?

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

goodstudent said:

Why is TheParser not a teacher? Who are the teachers?

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He is not a teacher because he didn't choose to be a teacher or he didn't happen to be one but in my opinion, his responses to thread show that he is on par with any other teacher in this forum.

There are lot of wonderful teachers in this forum like 5jj, Rover_KE, emrs2d2 etc

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

goodstudent said:

Why is TheParser not a teacher? Who are the teachers?

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This is the 'Ask a Teacher' forum. People who post questions here assume that anybody responding is a teacher. That is why we ask people who are not teachers to make this clear. Some of the non-teachers, TheParser for example, often post very helpful answers, and, unfortunately, some of the people who claim to be teachers post unhelpful answers.

Generally, however, the system works. Non-teachers who make a point of following forum guidelines and admitting that they are not teachers show us that they are honest, and that their answers should not be accepted automatically. Members who visit the forum regularly soon get to know the 'not a teacher' members who can be trusted. If people who claim to be teachers regularly give unhelpful answers, we do ask them stop answering questions.

Don't forget that some of the questions asked cannot be answered definitively. There is no 'Academy' to regulate English; sometimes even those of us who are native-speaking teachers can do little more than give our opinion. In such cases, a non-teacher's opinion may well be as valid as a teacher's.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

Does teacher means that they are a real teacher teaching English in real life?

I have a suggestion, why not put the word "Teacher" under the username of teachers. For example, 5jj has the word Moderator under the username. If 5jj is a teacher, you can put 5jj, Teacher, Moderator

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

Is it that important to you to know whether someone is teaching English as a profession? I only ask because there are non-teachers here whose grasp of the minutae of the English language, and their way of expressing it, is phenomenal. There are teachers (mostly native speakers and some non-native) whose knowledge and advice is occasionally less impressive or useful than that of the non-teachers.

If you click the words "Member Info", two lines beneath a username you will find this information anyway. Yours says "Student or Learner", mine says "Teacher". I teach much less than I did when I worked in Madrid as a full-time English teacher but I still have students. I am more than well aware of the fact that quite frequently a non-teacher's answer is much better than mine.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

I am just curious about the word teacher only. I actually thought maybe someone has to pass through some test in this forum to become a forum teacher. As long as the answer helps, I am happy about it. I actually thought if someone is a teacher, they could just display Teacher . And if someone is a student, it could display Student, and anyone can also add the "Not a teacher" under the username, just like the word "Moderator", one look at it I will know it is a moderator. It will make the forum cleaner as there is no need to always repeat "not a teacher" all around the forum. Just a friendly feedback only, can ignore it, maybe I am the only one who is confused about this "not a teacher" thing.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

goodstudent said:

And if someone is a student, it could display Student, and anyone can also add the "Not a teacher" under the username, just like the word "Moderator", one look at it I will know it is a moderator. It will make the forum cleaner as there is no need to always repeat "not a teacher" all around the forum. Just a friendly feedback only, can ignore it, maybe I am the only one who is confused about this "not a teacher" thing.

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You are not the only one that thinks this is a good idea.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

BobSmith said:

You are not the only one that thinks this is a good idea.

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The previous version of the software here did display the poster's status. Even then they still wanted people to state "not a teacher," which I thought was redundant.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

This is a personal response. I am writing as 5jj, not as a teacher or moderator.

From time to time we get complaints from non-teachers who object to what they seem to regard as the onerous task of typing in 'Not a Teacher'.

I have to say, I have little sympathy. This is not a chat forum, it's an 'Ask a Teacher ' forum and, as I noted above, people who drop in normally assume that, in such a forum, their question will be answered by a qualified teacher. Any member is welcome to answer questions but, if they are not teachers, we ask them to state this explicitly, so that new members will not assume that the response is guaranteed to be correct.

The system is not perfect. We all know that some people who claim to be teachers are not; we know that some genuine teachers give incorrect answers sometimes; and we know that some non-teachers give very sound answers. But, as I also suggested, long-term members soon get to know those people whose responses are normally accurate, and those whose responses are sometimes dubious. The requirement for the 'Not a Teacher' disclaimer is useful for casual visitors - and we have many of them.

We have to accept, unfortunately, that many people do not actually read forum guideline policies, and do not click on 'member Info' or read our signatures. That being so, the present system seems to me to be a reasonable comprise between a completely free system, in which any Tom Dick or Harry can post what appear to be authoritative responses, and a highly regulated one which, in my opinion, would harm the fairly relaxed atmosphere of usingenglish.com.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

I think the previous forum version is better. It shows the member info without clicking on it.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

I support everything 5jj said, but I do agree with goodstudent that having "Teacher", "Student or Learner" etc directly under the username instead of "Key Member", "Member", "Moderator" etc would be more useful.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

emsr2d2 said:

I support everything 5jj said, but I do agree with goodstudent that having "Teacher", "Student or Learner" etc directly under the username instead of "Key Member", "Member", "Moderator" etc would be more useful.

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Sometimes I find that the replies of non native speaking teachers are not on the par with the native speaker's(not teachers) replies. Honestly speaking, as a active member of this forum, I can recollect four to five non teaching but native speaker contributors of this forum but hardly a non native speaking teachers(maybe due to my poor observances of happenings in this forum).If there has to be a category of teachers and non teachers then, in my opinion, there also has to be a category of native and non native speakers.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

Request to moderators: Please start this as a new thread(From the post where the discussion of teachers and non teachers started)

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

There is a specific section of the forum for suggestions by members: https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/comments-suggestions/

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

david11 said:

Request to moderators: Please start this as a new thread(From the post where the discussion of teachers and non teachers started)

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Good idea. I have done so.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

5jj said:

This is a personal response. I am witing as 5jj, not as a teacher or moderator.

From time to time we get complaints from non-teachers who object to what they seem to regard as the onerous task of typing in 'Not a Teacher'.

I have to say, I have little sympathy. This is not a chat forum, it's an 'Ask a Teacher ' forum and, as I noted above, people who drop in normally assume that, in such a forum, their question will be answered by a qualified teacher. Any member is welcome to answer questions but, if they are not teachers, we ask them to state this explicitly, so that new members will not assume that the response is guaranteed to be correct.

The system is not perfect. We all know that some people who claim to be teachers are not; we know that some genuine teachers give incorrect answers sometimes; and we know that some non-teachers give very sound answers. But, as I also suggested, long-term members soon get to know those people whose responses are normally accurate, and those whose responses are someyimes dubious. The requirement for the 'Not a Teacher' disclaimer is useful for casual visitors - and we have many of them.

We have to accept, unfortunately, that many people do not actually read forum guideline policies, and do not click on 'member Info' or read our signatures. That being so, the present system seems to me to be a reasonable comprise between a completely free system, in which any Tom Dick or Harry can post what appear to be authoritative respones, and a highly regulated one which, in my opinion, would harm the fairly relaxed atmosphere of usingenglish.com.

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The problem with the argument, IMO, is that a poster’s attributes (is a teacher, is a native speaker, country of origin, etc) are self-reported, and are readily available to the reader - casual or otherwise. Requiring more from an answerer is akin to taxing a donation. The person receiving the benefit should be responsible for this, albeit small, burden. If the reader can’t be obligated to the “onerous” task of clicking a link to find out the veracity of the answerer, the obvious middle ground, and painless solution, is to have the site’s software make clear the answerer's (self-reported) qualifications, if only in the case of not-a-teacher.

Not a teacher,
Bob

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

BobSmith said:

The problem with the argument, IMO, is that a poster’s attributes (is a teacher, is a native speaker, country of origin, etc) are self-reported, and are readily available to the reader - casual or otherwise. Requiring more from an answerer is akin to taxing a donation. The person receiving the benefit should be responsible for this, albeit small, burden. If the reader can’t be obligated to the “onerous” task of clicking a link to find out the veracity of the answerer, the obvious middle ground, and painless solution, is to have the site’s software make clear the answerer's (self-reported) qualifications, if only in the case of not-a-teacher.

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An even simpler solution, given that the forum is 'Ask a Teacher' would be to delete all responses from non-teachers.

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

Excellent point. Also, many teachers are not foreign-language teachers, but literature teachers -- and they know an awful lot about the language, though they may not have come across as many relevant strategies for EFL/ESL students to try.

emsr2d2 said:

Is it that important to you to know whether someone is teaching English as a profession? I only ask because there are non-teachers here whose grasp of the minutae of the English language, and their way of expressing it, is phenomenal. There are teachers (mostly native speakers and some non-native) whose knowledge and advice is occasionally less impressive or useful than that of the non-teachers.

If you click the words "Member Info", two lines beneath a username you will find this information anyway. Yours says "Student or Learner", mine says "Teacher". I teach much less than I did when I worked in Madrid as a full-time English teacher but I still have students. I am more than well aware of the fact that quite frequently a non-teacher's answer is much better than mine.

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Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

Just out of interest, where would a Pre-service teacher be listed in all of this? Technically speaking a Pre-service teacher is still a teacher...

Re: Does everyone knows what is ASAP?

Unfortunately, software upgrades don't please everybody. This one gives a leaner, cleaner look, but it does that at the expense of displaying all the information available. However, it is just one click, and there are other clues.One thing about software is that you end up being forced to upgrade- if not, you end with with an unsupported version that breaks down and stops working. I'm afraid that's the nature of the beast.