I do not know that I need to capitalize English until now. I will remember to do it in future.Originally Posted by TheParser
Why is TheParser not a teacher? Who are the teachers?
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
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.
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
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.
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.
You are not the only one that thinks this is a good idea.
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.
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.
Last edited by 5jj; 11-May-2012 at 21:25. Reason: typos
I think the previous forum version is better. It shows the member info without clicking on it.
Posting Permissions
