English (as a foreign language) lessons at school in Israel

[tcatt]

For any Israeli mums out there...?!

I have a general question about your kids English lessons at school.
Do you care whether your kids have a native English speaker as their English teacher or not? And if you do have an opinion, could you let me know why? It has been a topic of discussion amongst local mums recently and I'm wondering how others think!

A million thanks in advance

In theory it shouldn’t matter but given there are so many native English speakers I’m surprised there’s a need for non native English speakers in most of the country. I would prefer an English speaker. I would also imagine that there are often a fair number of children who already have fluent or good English so I would want to be completely confident that the teachers English was up to scratch. I’d be pretty peeved if my children already had a good command of English came home speaking incorrectly. Having said that, Israelis do tend to have pretty good English grammar generally but the accent can be very strong.

Not answering your question exactly, but I know that until recently (and perhaps even ongoing) there was a shortage of English teachers in Israel - a relative was offered a teaching role with no teaching qualifications on the basis of being a native speaker. I think I would prefer a native English speaker as a teacher, but I'm not sure whether I'd prefer a native speaker with no teaching experience over someone with pedagogical experience.

I am not in Israel but I am ESL teacher. I am a native speaker but often need to ask my non native speaker colleagues for help .

For example I will know instinctively that the correct sentence is 'it has been raining all night' not 'it has rained all night' but not necessarily why this is the case.

My colleagues have studied English to a much higher level and in much more detail than I so can break down and explain much better.

There are pros and cons to both imho