Job Discussion Forums

[maxand]

[Alien abductee]

yeah, or i could just sit back and watch lame youtube videos 24/7.

[3701 W.119th]

[Non Sequitur]

Don't agree.
My English and Hotel Management majors have either become teachers or now work for foreign-owned companies which maintain English as the official language of communication.
This includes companies headquartered in non-Anglophone Europe.
One E-major from 2004, starts work soon with a major European consulate having worked through high school English teaching and a multinational.

[Non Sequitur]

[shoeshine]

You could use my book, which was written with colleagues for oral English in mind. You can put in as much or as little as you wish. Just work through it, and it's an affordable price.

Eight plays in contemporary English about a Chinese student and his English girlfriend - sort of a soap. My colleague at the International College swears by it and has been using it for all his classes.

'It Ain't Shakespeare' by Sandra Adams with occasional translation by Yuhua Ji from Xiamen University Press. You can see it in bookshops with a green and white cover and picture of The Globe Theatre on the cover.

There are exercises and questions. You can read the plays in groups, discuss them, discuss cultural issues/differences, perform them if you wish. The idea is actually for the students to read and discuss the plays then talk them through without the text; they're NOT supposed to learn it by heart, though they will want to. That's all Chinese students are used to doing. You can compare different English speaking cultures, western cultures. Actually there are too many things for me to mention. Just add your own imagination. No work required on your part except read the intro. and each play unless you want to do more.

Students can make their own plays or do any kind of speaking activity following on from the book. Some of the things that come up are truly amazing (if you know Chinese students). I had a group who asked me 'Is it OK if we do a play involving birth control?' Try getting student to address such issues in class under normal conditions.

My colleague had a class which argued about when Chinese people first have sex with a boyfriend/girlfriend, as a result of one of the plays. There is none of that in the plays; don't be alarmed. But if they want to cover it, no problem for me. I let the students pretty well lead where things will go after a first reading and discussion.

My credentials: professional actress, speech trainer, director, PhD English, MA Phonetics and Phonology and 25+ years working abroad.

By the way, I would never accept 60 in a class. You are going to die. If I were a religious person I'd make offerings for you.

Very good luck to you. I've just left China after six years and hope never to return.

[Non Sequitur]

[Alien abductee]

I've seen some pretty good dialogues and role plays, the main problem I see is they want to keep going on and on and on. Students need to heed the time restrictions.

[Non Sequitur]

Good point.
I put a max of 5 mins and a min of 3 speeches by each participant.

[Non Sequitur]

My former student has now sent me some GaoKao English test papers.
Anyone interested in seeing them - PM me.

[fat_chris]

[Shroob]

[buravirgil]

"You don't like me very much, do you?"
-- Ugarte (Peter Lorre), Casablanca, 1942

I'm unsure what turn the thread is taking... most native teachers defer to FTs for our ability to model the target language and discriminate its production. The complaint made by students and their parents is that native teachers (despite any degree) speak with accents too extreme to provide teachable examples. Authenticity is the jargon and its our currency.

I know posters to the thread know this, so forgive my stating the obvious. As a matter of policy, China (in this case) has afforded FTs because no other solution is of any example. The focus on translation and grammar is in lieu of English speakers among a faculty and the dissension to be engendered were native teachers to evaluate another about whose productive skills were sufficient.

Please forgive, again, for stating the obvious.

What's intereresting, to me, is that, as foreign experts, we're given a wide berth to exercise a range of methodology and technique (or its application in the case of language schools), but I suspect, outside personality, we're a "stock" item. And yet, put three of us together and request a definition of "fluency" and listen to the nuances.

[Non Sequitur]

[Non Sequitur]