Job Discussion Forums

[Non Sequitur]

You're almost forced back to rote learning in such a circumstance.
Rote is OK for some things and we probably all learned the times tables that way.
Singing is also rote and I use it mostly as a warmup at the beginning of class and as a reward at the end.

[donkeydonkey]

[donkeydonkey]

At my University, the classes aren't streamed for oral English. The classes stay together. So for example, Freshman Accounting class 1 stays together all day and moves from English class to accounting class to math class. Freshman Accounting class 2 stays together all day and moves together and so on. They are categorized by year, major, and ranking. So 14 Accounting class 1 are Sophomores in accounting who were ranked higher than class 2 upon initial intake. The class stays together for all of their classes from freshman year to senior year.

[Non Sequitur]

Presumably the rankings were Gao Kao scores which has no oral English component.
After allowing for the likelihood that better students will achieve across all subjects it seems your students' oral skills will be pretty random.
As to the variation in class size, the main effect is that smaller classes motor through the material at a faster rate.

[JeremyDay]

I'd have to say that a university is setting the teacher and students up for failure with numbers like that. I work in Colombia at the moment as an ESL professor. There are two things that create the biggest impedance to language learning: class size and total classes. Both make the professor in question ineffectual. Both threaten to burn out a professor or make them apathetic.

Whoever it was talking about the energy involved in 60 student classes... you're pretty amazing. I can't do it. I'm even a trained performer. I can't consistently command the attention of classes that size.

I had 24 teacher hours and about 30 to 35 or so students per class last semester. This semester, I have 25 teaching hours and 15 students per class on average. I am 10 times more effective. Hands down. If I found out that a university had more than 30 students per class... I'd go on to the next interview.

[rioux]

[donkeydonkey]

[Non Sequitur]

Not sure of the real world usefulness of 'Dove' as a song title and 'bass machine' either for that matter.
I think generic discussion topics rather than the latest Twitter storm are better. Although I have never had much success with group work, which unless you are actually listening to, generally revert to Chinese. The most able kid is the reporter. He/she gets better and the others stay the same.
12 groups of five to cover a 60-student class. Brrr

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

Even in my classes in the states, I found group work to be generally useless. Others point out that one or two students do the work while the rest sit on their hands.

In the states, group assignments primarily fulfill the objective of relieving the teacher of taking the load off the teachers and placing it on the backs of the smarter kids (hopefully) to teach the slower kids the concepts and skills. Except in the case of high achievers, it fails miserably, Strangely, the practice persists from the primary level to the tertiary level.

I can't see how it would work for Chinese students whose English language skills are deficient. The drones may learn something from the work of other, more competent students, but not much.

[D. Amokachi]

I agree that group work is far from perfect and often leads to students talking in L1, unless the teacher is in earshot. I'm just not sure what else you're supposed to do in this situation? How else are you going to conduct a speaking class with 60 students? Get them to take turns talking to you for a minute at a time?

[Non Sequitur]

There is the other factor, which is the awarding of marks.
So, at some stage you are going to need to listen to the student as an individual.
If you have a book of dialogues you will be expected to use it.
(DON'T criticise the book as that will be reported back to the honcho.)
The dialogues are for pairs of students or occasionally trios. I've found no other methodology than listening to the pairs grind through the dialogue.
Keep class attention by randomly selecting the next pair or trio. This keeps a certain tension and also causes some hilarity if a BF/GF pairing comes up.
The important thing is only to do dialogues in the first 45 mins and make sure the students know there will be something much more enjoyable in the 2nd 45. Learning a new class song, or a pairing game or cocktail party activity are useful.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

I've posted my method before, but I'll give a condensed version:

The speakers work in groups, forming their own dialogs according to my prompt.

Students who are not performing comment on the performers' work in writing (in English) anonymously. That way, everyone stays engaged. (So it seems, anyway).

I have been fairly lucky in that I have worked (mostly) with either English majors or foreign trade students who possess decent English skills.

Where there's low-to-no ability, it's quite rough.

Small classes of under 20 are usually especially good because the low achievers can't hide. When the low achievers see that they are graded upon their improvement, they usually rise to the occasion.

[Non Sequitur]

My approach is similar to Bud's for mid and end of semester assessments.
Much as I would have loved to have been able to ditch the book it wasn't possible.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

Keep class attention by randomly selecting the next pair or trio. This keeps a certain tension and also causes some hilarity if a BF/GF pairing comes up.

That has worked for me in American class rooms. In China, mmmm... it depends upon how engaged they are. I've had a few classes in which half of the students didn't give a ship.

If they're English majors, that'll usually keep them engaged because there seems to be a fair amount of competition among those students.

If you've got 60 students, Class Control and Motivation is usually Priority One. If you can achieve that, probably anything that is at least a little challenging will make them care.

The most dastardly thing I've ever done was to withhold grades from a writing class because they kept giving me trash even though they were excellent speakers. Six weeks into the semester I was asked why I hadn't graded anything. I told them that I wasn't assigning grades until EVERYONE began producing work worthy of an A. Interestingly, their written responses to MY prompts improved drastically in a very short time.