English Native Speaking Teacher or Indonesian Teacher?

This time, on this post I would not write something about a piece of English grammar but I would write an article of choosing a teacher between an English native speaking teacher and an Indonesian teacher instead. This article, hopefully, will help enlightening the students coming from Indonesia and other non-English speaking countries, especially those who are still confused of choosing the right teacher, so you will come up with a wise and reasonable decision.

Actually either a native English speaking teacher or an Indonesian teacher has its own downsides and upsides. A native English speaking teacher may have a better coverage of vocabulary, especially that of current slang vocabulary, but a native English speaker mostly does not have a good command of Bahasa Indonesia (our native language). That, to some extent, would hamper the transfer of knowledge to the students especially the beginners and the intermediate students. But perhaps the advanced students will get more benefits if they learn from a native English speaking teacher, that's correct! But if you are a beginner or an intermediate student I believe you will benefit more from an Indonesian teacher. Why's that? That's because a novice at English needs more than just vocabulary to improve his or her English. The grammatical section for the beginners is more effectively explained in our own language, something that usually cannot be done by a native English speaking teacher!

Another downside of contracting native English speaking teachers is that the skyrocketing fees! Usually native English speakers ask for fees a few times higher than their Indonesian peers do! But those higher fees, unfortunately, are not necessarily attributable to better quality of teaching. However, some professional first-rate experienced long-standing native English teachers can offer superior teaching methods and drills for advanced students particularly if they speak Bahasa Indonesia as well.

But of course, to be fair and square, I would like to expose the downsides of Indonesian teachers too (in teaching English). They usually have less coverage of vocabulary especially that of slangs, idioms and phrasal verbs. An Indonesian teacher also usually has poorer understanding of the sense of the language. For example, there are some Indonesian teachers who say 'Good Morning' at 2 AM when he or she is about to leave somebody. The correct phrase should be 'Good Night'. He says 'Good Morning' because in Indonesia after midnight, no matter whether he first sees someone or he is about to leave someone, one will say 'Selamat Pagi' or literally translated as 'Good Morning'.

That is all for the brief explanation on how to choose the right teacher between a native English speaker or an Indonesian teacher. From the above explanation you can easily understand the advantages and the drawbacks of each. In a nutshell, choose your own right teacher according to your needs and, last but not least, your budget! ;)