Job Discussion Forums

[Roger]

I am fairly certain you are misquoting me, kimo:
...need to hear a word before they SEE it."

This doesn't make any sense to me. Perhaps I opined - though I can't remember! - that students need to HEAR a word before they SAY it aloud. I wouldn't even feel this was totally unassailable because even us who have a command of several tens of thousand English words don't always hear a word pronounced first before we utter it. Do you know how the Celts pronounce 'loch' as in Loch Nessie?

The purpose of the schools I mentioned is to train students in analysing and thinking the way we expect them.

And, Atlas, I don't see much to prove in your argument: Where, well, we're, were - of course, Chinese pronunciation of these single words must be somewhat confusing! Maybe even a native English speaker's pronunciation wouldn't be unambiguous!
But that's one of my main peeves: That Chinese learn English piecemeal, word by word.

Where is the CONTEXT that gives a clue and guides the student? These words have no meaning unless they are inserted in a meaningful clause or sentence.

That's why reading and writing help students more. You don't understand a joke just by hearing the punchline; you understand it when the punchline contrasts against the whole story.

For example, I dictated a story of 200 words. When I say "dictated", I mean not 200 words but a whole text. Dictating individual words - who is so idiotic as to do that? Yes, Chinese teachers do that...

I read aloud the story a first time so good listeners could already form their mental map of the story. Besides, it was but a slightly modified one read aloud to them earlier in the semester.
The story had one sentence:
"The businessman went down to the beach with a bucket, went up to the lifeguard and asked whether he would be allowed to take some water from the sea..."

Not a single word was new to my students because
a) this was a story in simplified English (1800 words used);
b) we had covered it before, and explained/translated any vocabulary
some students were not familiar with.

Not really surpringly, though quite disappointingly, quite a few students had forgotten the word "bucket". Don't tell me this word is not one of the most widely used ones... if they know vocables like customshouse or passport, then I can't see why they don't know bucket...
What's much more annoying is that those who did not know (remember!) the word 'bucket', chose to write "pocket"...
What goes on in the mind of a Chinese person who thinks you can carry seawater in a "pocket"??? This is nothing to do with poor English skills but underdeveloped thinking! Poor logic!

As an aside, I can't accept that students who have the benefit of hearing a slow and very clear voice pronouncing "...had to walk so much that his feet often hurt", turn this sentence into:
"...had to work so much that his fee softly heard!"

There are foggy brains out there in these classrooms! No amount of oral chitchat is going to clear that fog out of their skulls!
The attention span is so low - courtesy of Chinese "teaching".

[AsiaTraveller]

Roger, I'm sorry. But I keep getting the impression from your postings here that you are an impatient, inflexible, and unimaginative instructor in the classroom. I also am firmly convinced that you never received proper training and mentoring in teaching English to non-native speakers.

I would be extremely frustrated if you were my instructor.

Please prove me wrong! You can start by responding to my last post on this thread (about writing and speaking skills).

Thanks!

[Roger]

Thanks, AsiaTraveller, for the invitation but I politely decline since you are diplomatically overchallenged, which alone makes you unsuitable for the socialising experience that a classroom involves.
Maybe I am a little "impatient" with students who have been prepared and preparing to meet me for ten years, then find out that they stand where a beginner stands.
I am perfectly sure you meet but one TEFL criterion - that of being "sympathetic" to the learner.
You give your learners too much leeway, and that's why their English competency never gets lifted to any reasonable level.
And how can you afford not to be "sympathetic"?
I suppose, you have never had to acquire a second language.

I think, if you don't succeed in changing a student's outlook, his or her way of thinking then you are a failure.
Which student feels emancipated - the one who regurgitates the exact same words that he has read or heard, or the person who is capable of rephrasing things, possibly restating them more adequately?
A student who is able to read between the lines and act and work autonomously must have a higher feel-good experience than the poor guy who is never certain whether he micks the sounds correctly or remembers the exact wording without his own addition to it!

[AsiaTraveller]

Enough about me, Roger.

YOU were the one who elevated "writing" far above "speaking" in terms of value in learning English. I simply asked you to justify this viewpoint, with theory or data if possible rather than by your own anecdotes.

The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence."

And you should let us know what it was in your TEFL training that led you to your conclusions. In my experience, English language training provides a careful balance among the four primary skills.

Finally, it would be useful for us to know how you teach both writing and speaking. That is, if you want us to believe your assertations about the efficacy of each.

[Ace]

I'm with you Roger...I just sent an email to a (Chinese) middlewoman (job-hunting) with the heading "nege nege... jege jege" and she wrote back asking what it meant. I write dialogues in colloquial English for my students, who are never going to get out of China, set in the streets around the school...but if I include a word in pinyin like 'jiaods' , depite the context, it mystifies them. It's the same when speaking with friends...have you noticed they can only focus on one language at a time? You have to tell them "I was speaking in Chinese..."

I find non-English speaking friends, and I have loads although I have no interest in seriously learning their language...understand me well enough to translate to strangers! I've been at a fabulously expensive (I think the wine was French) lunch where a country boy translated for several high-ranking police who wanted to be new friends...the guy at the local vege market has also translated for school officals...and he can barely read!

I think they haven't had the disadvantage of a Chinese education...as someone said, people aren't born stupid...but in China they go to school and...