Job Discussion Forums

[Non Sequitur]

Looking at posts on this 'Job-related' China forum, I'm wondering if a subdivision is needed.
I'm proposing a 'China-related Teaching and Class Management' forum to run alongside the two existing forums.
This would leave 'Job-related' to cater for job search, visa and contract-related stuff. The new forum would take the load on questions about discipline, time management, assessment, resources etc.
Got an opinion? Please answer the poll and/or leave a comment.

[doogsville]

Great idea! I was thinking about this recently myself and wondering which of the existing two forums would be more appropriate for teaching related posts. Also, before anyone points out there are other places on this and other boards for sharing teaching ideas, I would point out that a lot of them don't take into account the 'uniqueness' of the Chinese education system and the difficulties it presents.

The traditional method of teaching in China is for the teacher to present the material and for the students to memorise it. Most of us are using communicative language techniques which involve presenting the material and encouraging the students to understand it, absorb it and think about how to use it, then to practice using it. Our approach often confuses students in my experience, since they just don't know how to make the switch from one to the other. Any and all ideas that people have tried and found to work would be very welcome!

There's also the thorny topic of textbooks, which are often out of date and culturally irrelevant, but in some cases they are compulsory since someone in the school hierarchy chose them and decided they are a good thing. I teach a lot of business English to both business and translation majors but the books I use tend to assume that the students are already in work and so they are full of exercises that ask students to think about how they would use the language in their current jobs. Not very useful for people who have spent the last sixteen to twenty years in full time education and have never worked.

Classroom management is also something that I would be interested in. How do you manage a class of sixty low level students, most of whom are bored, tired and don't want to be there and give them all an opportunity to leave the class knowing something useful they didn't know when they arrived?

[roadwalker]

Good idea. My first thought was, "No. We don't need anymore forums to clutter up the board." Then the wheels turned a little and I read the reasoning behind it and it made sense. And I agree with all of the reasons doogsville stated.

[muffintop]

Yeah to all above

[Simon in Suzhou]

"Load of questions?" There is what, 1 new post per day on the job-related forum? I don't think another forum is necessary.

[FreakingTea]

I'm always excited by the idea of new forums and things, but I think in this case it would make it more difficult for people to search for teaching-related topics. They'd have to do a search for both forums, and it might not even occur to a newbie to do so. The posts are consolidated here already. I don't think the job-related forum is active enough to warrant dividing traffic. I am sad that I am against it.

[Non Sequitur]

[Non Sequitur]

[johntpartee]

If it were used as intended it might be good, but I don't think it would change things much.

[Non Sequitur]

[Bud Powell]

Cool as long as we know the experience of those who participate.

[Javelin of Radiance]

"Used as intended" probably means discussion of things related to what happens in a classroom. I think a more teaching focused forum is a good idea, but since there are almost no teaching related questions on this China job forum I sort of agree with johnparteee, it wouldn't change anything much. The first page of this forum currently has exactly two (2!) threads out of 43 dedicated to what goes on in a classroom. We might as well rename this the "Can you check this 20 page contract for me" or the "I've applied at Monkey Business Training School, has anyone ever heard of it" forum. Sure there are legitimate teaching related questions on here from time to time but not too often and they get drowned out by all the other mundane questions that get asked week after week.

There are other forums on this site that deal with real teaching issues but judging by the usernames over there I'm guessing few here ever visit, or even know they exist.

http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/

These forums cover any kind of teaching you're likely to come across, but none are specific to countries, which is what I think is being proposed here. They require separate registration, and annoyingly, even if you just meander on over for a look without registering or signing in, you automatically get signed out of here and have to sign back in when you return to the China forum. Maybe a better idea is for this site to undergo a serious re-org, like putting all forums together on one page and under one single registration. As it stands you need one registration to visit the international forums, another one for the Korea forums, and a third one for the Teacher forums.

[johntpartee]

[Non Sequitur]

[mw182006]

Undecided, but while you're at it, can you ask them to clean up the stickies and announcements that are 6-7 years old? Yeesh!