Job Discussion Forums

[it'snotmyfault]

[Non Sequitur]

better than just being told "go and talk to them"
So true!

[GreatApe]

I agree with both posts above ... many teachers teach just to the "interested" section of their classes, rather than continually beat their heads repeatedly against the wall of disinterest. It's a sad fact, but on the other hands it's virtually impossible to teach a student who doesn't want to learn, especially when learning requires them to open their mouths and speak.

One of the problems we have at the school where I work is that our English classes don't really have the "teeth" that they need to have in terms of importance and grades. It's something that I'm trying to change. I mean, the students' English grade just doesn't hold the same importance to them (or their parents) as their other grades do (particularly, for example, their Chinese grade)! And this is depsite the fact that the students are enrolled in an International school and preparing to attend university overseas.

--GA

[Non Sequitur]

I know universities in receiving countries are expressing alarm at Chinese students who arrive with seeming English proficiency but don't have enough to survive in a 101 course beyond the first assignment.
I guard against just teaching the interested ones by making sure they all attempt a reading of the set dialogue and doing group things like singing and cocktail games and word races etc.
No one fails but 20 - 30 percent of students finish on 60 percent grade which is the minimum pass.

[dakelei]

Taught at a high school for a full academic year before starting my current uni job. 65 to 67 students in a class. (I did a part time gig at another high school some years back and there around 80 students in a class.) Taught mostly Grade 2 but a little Grade 1. (Grade 3 students, who could really use the help getting ready for the oral part of the gao kao, were of course "too busy" to be taught by we foreigners.) I basically showed up at my classes once a week and tried to get students to speak, any way I could. Did a lot of pair work and tried to do "fun" things with songs, too. Some classes were really good, others awful. I didn't have to give a "grade," thankfully. I taught something like 700 students altogether. The school attempted to make what we FT's were doing more relevant by asking us to prepare students for the Oral English component of the gaokao and I tried my hardest to do that but the classes were too big. We were there basically because the school liked showing us off. It wanted desperately to be the "best" high school in my city. At one point the local TV station even made a short documentary with me as its centerpiece. It was more of a long ad for the school than anything else. Made the school look wonderful.

[Non Sequitur]