Job Discussion Forums

[FreakingTea]

I'm in my first year teaching in China, at a university. The job is nice, but the 40-something-student class sizes, lack of resources, and limited potential for teacher development is not the kind of thing I want to stick around for. Everywhere has its drawbacks, but I'm thinking I should apply to work at a private school in the fall. China's great and I don't want to leave just yet. I just hope to have a reasonable amount of transferable skills by the time I leave to teach in another country, hopefully Russia.

Anyway, I've been searching threads and reading up on various school chains, and most of it sounds tolerable except...English Corners. They're optional at my university, but I went to one and it was honestly kind of painful. I love standing in front of groups and delivering lessons, but I'm not the kind of person who can naturally jump into a crowd and mingle like some people can. Having to do that twice a week (or something) on top of a full-time schedule sounds exhausting.

So, what are my chances of being able to negotiate that down to zero or once a week at most? If my chances are greater than zero, do you have any tips for negotiating a contract? And if my chances are zero, then do you have any tips for being better at ECs?

Thanks

[johntpartee]

I hate English Corners with a passion. I'm required to go to one a week; it's my fault, usually I won't sign a contract that requires attendance at those nightmares, but there was another contract point I had to stand my ground about and I didn't want to seem too much of a hard-liner.

Unfortunately, I can't offer any advice, FreakingTea, I can never think of anything to talk about with the students at these things, but at least you know you're not the only one.

[Bud Powell]

The point of English Corners is not for the FT to talk, but for the students to speak in English under informal conditions. Among my favorite topics are dating and superstitions.

For dating, I give a short spiel about what dating was like when I was their age, what it felt like to be out on a first date with someone I hadn't spent much time with, some of the disastrous blind dates, etc..

The FT is a facilitator of activities, not the MC.

[Shroob]

I was quite the exception at my uni, I used to go to all student organised events if I was free. Yes, it can be tedious. Yes, it can be boring. But, I take the view that if the students have gone to the trouble of organising something, the least I could do was show up. Though I made my terms quite clear: No singing, no dancing, no 'performances'. The questions you get asked quickly get repetitive (Do you like China? Can you speak Chinese? Can you use chopsticks?) but to answer takes less than 30 seconds.

The best English corners I went to are when there was a clear structure, not just 'turn up, hopefully talk English, see a foreigner'. There was a discussion point, a theme, with activities organised around these. The students all arranged this and chose everything themselves. Do you have to organise the English corners?

It is possible to have attendance of English corners written out of the contract. I know of a few teachers who have done this. My last contract had something like, 'Attend student activities once a month'. It really isn't an issue for some places. A few contracts I have seen recently haven't even included them.

[johntpartee]

[muffintop]

[Toast]

At my school they aren't (weren't) mandatory, although it was kind of *expected* everyone should occasionally pull their weight and attend one sometimes. Thankfully I worked with a handful of old fart "white knights" who figured it their duty to go over and beyond +++ so they generally picked up the slack.
The first time I did it was just basic chit chat. 4 teachers showed up and around 30 students who were divided evenly among each teacher. From the outset I told them this isn't a class and it's their duty to carry the conversation, not mine to teach them as such. They did a pretty good job of asking me and each other questions and chewing the fat for 40 minutes or so before fading. After a couple of 30 second silences I told them let's call it quits and I came home and watched re-runs of The Sopranos.
The second time someone had come up with the idea of heading out to a park near the school since the weather was decent. I brought my dog for a walk which was a pretty good conversation starter, and most students seemed impressed that he could understand English commands and had better personal hygiene than they did. They patted and talked to him (in something vaguely resembling English) while I sat and dreamed of the bottle of unopened Johnnie Walker in my apartment.
The old geezers have since been shunted off home as a result of being over 60 / 65 and no one seems eager to organize the English Corners anymore. No big loss. Was good to make some contacts with the nerdier students however - they occasionally text to invite me and the missus out for dinner, and are useful for online taobao purchases or movie coupons etc.

[chryanvii]

We have them at our school, and it turns out that we have to be there for 2 hours each week. In addition, we have to organize them ourselves.

This means that some teachers actually think of it as an extra "class" and do a lot of preparation work...setting up movies, games, etc.

I am lucky to have been paired up with a teacher who thinks we should just have discussion based around themed topics, and put the students in a circle.

The problem is that sometimes I get students who complain and say that "we want a less serious english corner". That means more games and activities.

But frankly speaking, I have my own speaking classes to prepare for already during the day. So, I am going with the idea that it should just be an opportunity for students who want to speak english to come and speak english. 15 minutes prep...simply looking up the discussion questions online, and then putting them together into a word document.

Either way you look at it...2 hours really does add up and sounds like a lot of additional time to give each week, in addition to whatever you want to put into it for the preparation time.. 1 hour doesn't sound so bad.

[mw182006]

90 minutes per week on Monday evenings at my uni. Luckily there's some kind of rotation so I am spared this semester. My colleague was asked to submit a list of topics/activities for the entire semester in advance

I'll share my EC experience last semester since I found it rather strange. When things started I was on my own and the only direction from the dept head was 'show up and talk about something. If the students stop showing up we'll just cancel it.' Fair enough, it went this way for a couple weeks and attendance dropped off pretty quick as nobody really speaks English out here (EC is for non-majors but English majors are encouraged to attend). I was then randomly called into a meeting with two older women, one being a friend of the principals who just helped out on a volunteer basis, and the other being a dept head(?) or maybe worked in administration. Point being, the English dept head was not involved. The ladies were nice enough but they had this grand plan to develop the EC into something resembling an actual English course. We then had 'working lunches' every Monday in an attempt to prepare. Classes turned into a grammar hammering for 45 minutes by the volunteer lady, then I basically came in for 'fun time.' The kids looked like a bunch of deer in the headlights, and by the end of the semester maybe 3-5 people were showing up each week. She had good intentions but it ended up failing pretty miserably.

[Bud Powell]

The most successful English Corners that I have been part of had an actual organized club with members who were in charge of planning the event. At one school, I was the only FT to have been invited to one. Not many universities are that well-organized.

It really doesn't have to take much effort to arrive at a half-dozen topics that will get them speaking. You just have to get THEM started. Some EC formats are good places for FTs to develop the ability to speak extemporaneously.

In schools that have had AV facilities, I have brought street photography to the EC and have the students comment on what they saw. It helps them to use the vocabulary that describes their own culture.

I sympathize with those whose students just want to play games. Let them organize the games; those students ---in all probability--- have had few opportunities to actually speak outside of class, so they know the games. Let them choose and organize the games. You can't change them.

The weekend and night ECs should be paid.

Those who don't have time for ECs because they have wives and families and need to be compensated for every school-related activity really shouldn't feel compelled to be a part of these activities, nor should they be compelled.

I wouldn't be too quick to criticize FTs who enjoy English Corners. They can actually be fun, and with a little planning and practice, they can be highly educational for both the student and the FT. They can also help one to develop a good reputation with the FL department and the students.

[GreatApe]

I used to really hate and dread EC's! Mostly because several of the first EC's that I attended were just "conversation" based and dreadfully boring. Others were held at a Wal-Mart which was basically just an advertising campaign for the TC were I worked at the time. Talk about feeling like you were "on-the-spot!" ... I never knew who my audience would be, how much English they could speak, or how old they were going to be. Lessons had to be tiered (and tiered again) to cover kindergartners to business men!

Eventually, I had some good EC experiences. The EC's I attended at other schools became more fun and interactive, and I didn't have to do so much of the work and planning. We used to have a good time in Yangshuo and played games, did scavenger hunts, and a lot of Quiz Nights. Then I moved back to Guangdong and didn't have to do any English Corners at all for 2 years.

Now I'm back to doing them once a week, but they're very short (only 30 to 40 minutes max.). They're also student led, so the students develop the topic and I have a "Student Leader" who tells me what the new topic will be every three or four weeks. I generally just make a PPT and present it to the classes. The PPT contains a quiz on information about the topic and helps to get the students involved.

Sometimes we play "Guess the Word" which I also put on PPT and there are times when I have put game quizzes together such as "Guess the Picture" (which requires students to guess the present particple form of the word which corresponds with the action they see on the screen, and form a sentence). English Corners can be fun, but I still try to keep them to a minimum. They take quite a bit of preparation, but I generally enjoy them and can incorportae pictures, PPTs, music and short videos.

--GA

EDIT: for grammar and spelling

[fat_chris]

The kicker is that English Corner on my university campus isn't even on a corner!

My university is quite big, the English Corner is popular and gets hundreds of people, and there are enough foreigners around who get roped into/freely attend = no one has ever asked/requested/demanded that fat_chris attend the English Corner. Win!

English Corner is on Friday evenings here. Sorry, ain't gonna attend.

The worst are the older twentysomething Chinese who aren't students or even connected to the university but who end up at EC just to prove to everyone how good their English is. Also, they may try to put "the foreign expert" in his place by showing how much they know and how little "the foreign expert" knows. A real drag. Especially because there will be a really sweet shy girl who has just gotten the gumption to finally ask a question and begin a chat making it worth her while…but the twenty something j--kass pushes her out of the way and hogs the spotlight.

English Corners are a great idea but I tend to take the American historical approach to English Corners:

of the students, by the students, for the students

Warm regards,
fat_chris

[Non Sequitur]

If they're compulsory for the FT but optional for students expect a huge falloff in numbers after Week 1.
You plan a cocktail game for 30 and 7 turn up.
Impromptu or unsupported student speech is pretty well impossible.
You need a prop like cocktail questions or song sheets and a ghetto blaster.

[fat_chris]

The English Corner is one corner I choose to cut.

[GreatApe]

Yeah, ... I agree with a lot that has been written here. I'm at an I.S. and I only teach 3 of the 5 (different levels) of classes we have each week, so I generally use EC's as a way to reacquaint myself with the students who I do not teach regularly, and to test, re-enforce, and support the English of the students who I do teach regularly. It's mostly a type of review for students ... getting them to ask and answer some basic questions, have some fun, build a bit of confidence and quit being so shy and introverted.

A lot of it is vocabulary building or at least getting the students involved in a game which allows them to practice some aspect of English that they have been learning or which they already know (Prior Knowledge).

I always love playing Guess the Word because you can actually see the students get extremely frustrated when they know the word in English and Chinese, but they don't know enough English vocabulary to give the physical clues to their partner, so that their partner can guess the word correctly. You hear a lot of stuttering and see a lot of pantomiming. You can see the tension and frustration build-up as the clock ticks down and they're running out of time to score points!

The frustration on their faces reminds me of how I sometimes feel being an English Teacher in China! I only make it a bit worse by taunting them through the PPT from time to time. For example, giving them back-to-back-to-back words on the PPT like: "Son, Soon, Sun" and watching their reactions, or "Raise, Rise, Rose, followed directly by "Reason and Raisin." (yeah, I know! ... I can be a real @ss sometimes)!

I generally give some small prizes such as food, candy, or drinks to the students who are on the winning team (occasionally I'll give some cheap vocabulary notebooks, pens, or stationary or even some DvDs of movies I recently bought and have watched already). They share with each other and have a pretty good time. I rarely spend over 50 yuan when we play games (which is not every week) and the students get pretty competitive and seem to enjoy it.

--GA