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it'snotmyfault
Joined: 14 May 2012
Posts: 527
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 Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 10:39 pm Post subject: |
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| I've just started a writing class too, one of the students got copies of the last five years CET exam papers for me, very useful. |
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RPMcMurphy
Joined: 22 Aug 2012
Posts: 90
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 1:36 am Post subject: |
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Avoid writing classes like the plague. Why?
Administrators are happy to cram 60+ students in a class.
Unless they are headed overseas, the kind of writing you teach will be at total odds with what they've been taught thus far, so you are wasting your time.
Many/most expect detailed corrections from you. This will take many hours. Like most students, they will look at the grade, ignore the corrections, and make identical mistakes next time. |
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7969
Joined: 26 Mar 2003
Posts: 5782
Location: Coastal Guangdong
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 5:58 am Post subject: |
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| RPMcMurphy wrote: |
| Avoid writing classes like the plague. Why? Administrators are happy to cram 60+ students in a class. |
My writing classes all have between 33-36 students. Some are bigger and others smaller. Larger classes don't always mean the job is impossible.
| RPMcMurphy wrote: |
| Unless they are headed overseas, the kind of writing you teach will be at total odds with what they've been taught thus far, so you are wasting your time. |
Some of the students I've taught in the past ended up working for Chinese companies that had to deal with foreign companies. The language of communication is almost always English and often in writing. Being able to write coherently in English can be a useful skill in China as well as out.
| RPMcMurphy wrote: |
| Many/most expect detailed corrections from you. This will take many hours. Like most students, they will look at the grade, ignore the corrections, and make identical mistakes next time. |
I'm glad most of my professors in university didn't have this attitude, or I might have just given up and dropped out. Some students will ignore corrections or the grade, and others won't, and in that way the students here aren't too different from anywhere else. At least my students aren't logging onto ratemyprofessor.com and threatening to kill me because they got a bad grade. As for taking many hours to do your job - here's a little secret: once you get a good system in place then the amount of time spent preparing, assigning and correcting homework can be minimized. This includes scheduling and varying writing assignments so that you're not overburdened at any one time. In other words, it's important to have basic organizational skills (should go without saying any teacher needs this).
Everything you wrote above smacks of "you can't succeed so why bother trying?" |
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xiguagua
Joined: 09 Oct 2011
Posts: 768
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:11 am Post subject: |
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| RPMcMurphy wrote: |
Avoid writing classes like the plague. Why?
Administrators are happy to cram 60+ students in a class.
Unless they are headed overseas, the kind of writing you teach will be at total odds with what they've been taught thus far, so you are wasting your time.
Many/most expect detailed corrections from you. This will take many hours. Like most students, they will look at the grade, ignore the corrections, and make identical mistakes next time. |
Yeah? So I guess teaching in general is a waste of time, even back home. 
My classes have no more than 30 and the students here are quite exceptional. If you have a real job teaching anywhere, you have to grade papers. Yeah, maybe teaching them a REAL writing style is different from what their used to.....but their also used to Chinese English teachers speaking Chinese all the time in English class and using poor grammar and Chinglish. So I guess we better not waste time correcting them right? It seems your only real qualm is having to do work. Then my advice to you is to stick with comedy routine and guitar. |
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RPMcMurphy
Joined: 22 Aug 2012
Posts: 90
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:28 am Post subject: |
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| xiguagua wrote: |
Yeah? So I guess teaching in general is a waste of time, even back home.
My classes have no more than 30 and the students here are quite exceptional. If you have a real job teaching anywhere, you have to grade papers. Yeah, maybe teaching them a REAL writing style is different from what their used to.....but their also used to Chinese English teachers speaking Chinese all the time in English class and using poor grammar and Chinglish. So I guess we better not waste time correcting them right? It seems your only real qualm is having to do work. Then my advice to you is to stick with comedy routine and guitar. |
Grading papers and sticking a letter or number on does nothing to improve writing. Some real racism in this post: Chinese teachers speaking Chinese [shock, horror]. Chinglish, whatever you think that means. Are you a trained teacher, or on a a self-righteous one year sabbatical from Walmart? Research into the teaching of writing shows that correcting papers is a waste of time, so you find different ways of improving student writing. Do some homework sonny.
And its "they're", not "their"; not a typo as you did it twice. Unless your Chinese is better than your English, how do you know Chinese English teachers use poor grammar if they speak Chinese all the time? |
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xiguagua
Joined: 09 Oct 2011
Posts: 768
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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| RPMcMurphy wrote: |
| xiguagua wrote: |
Yeah? So I guess teaching in general is a waste of time, even back home.
My classes have no more than 30 and the students here are quite exceptional. If you have a real job teaching anywhere, you have to grade papers. Yeah, maybe teaching them a REAL writing style is different from what their used to.....but their also used to Chinese English teachers speaking Chinese all the time in English class and using poor grammar and Chinglish. So I guess we better not waste time correcting them right? It seems your only real qualm is having to do work. Then my advice to you is to stick with comedy routine and guitar. |
Grading papers and sticking a letter or number on does nothing to improve writing. Some real racism in this post: Chinese teachers speaking Chinese [shock, horror]. Chinglish, whatever you think that means. Are you a trained teacher, or on a a self-righteous one year sabbatical from Walmart? Research into the teaching of writing shows that correcting papers is a waste of time, so you find different ways of improving student writing. Do some homework sonny.
And its "they're", not "their"; not a typo as you did it twice. Unless your Chinese is better than your English, how do you know Chinese English teachers use poor grammar if they speak Chinese all the time? |
Man you're cool. I hope I can be just like you. Thanks for correcting my writing, too bad it will do nothing to improve my writing in the future since correcting me was a waste of time according to you. I'm actually surprised I made that mistake since I almost never do. But i'm happy now you feel so good about yourself. I'm sure now your life is complete. |
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RPMcMurphy
Joined: 22 Aug 2012
Posts: 90
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="xiguagua"][quote="RPMcMurphy"]
| xiguagua wrote: |
Man you're cool. |
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theoriginalprankster
Joined: 19 Mar 2012
Posts: 895
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 10:39 pm Post subject: |
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I'm going to be teaching basic news writing, and with some trepidation. I still have two weeks to put together my semester outline, and plan the first three-six (of 13) lesson plans.
I'll have five 90 minute classes/week (same lesson plan) with 20 students to a class, freshman of varying English levels.
I'm going to try my best, but I'm not spending hours marking papers.
And if the job truly sucks I will hand it to a more willing/competent teacher at the end of the semester. |
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RPMcMurphy
Joined: 22 Aug 2012
Posts: 90
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 2:07 am Post subject: |
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Given the class size of 20 this is quite achievable and could be good fun, if properly organised. Having a PC/laptop with a data viewer in the classroom will certainly help. The site below is only one example of why: PowerPoints, templates, story examples etc.
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/english/englishD9.htm
Make sure you use class time to work 1:1 with students. This way you can pick up on errors before they are committed to a final copy, as well as being a far better way of teaching composition. Pairing them [i.e. two students working on and writing one story] is also a good exercise as well as being time efficient. I guess their end-product will be a self penned newspaper story, so make sure they do a thorough journalist's job on a campus or local issue, which they should enjoy.
Their final product should be largely error free, and well researched and written. |
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theoriginalprankster
Joined: 19 Mar 2012
Posts: 895
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 10:25 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for that Mr McMurphy.
I'll be spending next week researching and lesson planning. I've been teaching for 10 years, just not Writing.
I'm sure I'm up to the task. Gotta get out of holiday mode though - four months of relaxation softens the mind.. |
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