Job Discussion Forums

[theoriginalprankster]

I'm heading into my 16th year of teaching in greater China - referring to the fact that I spent my first three years in the ROC/Taiwan, and I'm getting the feeling that the Chinese (yes, I am generalizing) are losing interest in learning English/improving and building their English skills.

However I should explain I've taught/trained different age groups and levels. In Taiwan I taught 6-12 year olds on a daily basis, and some private adult students. The kids were excellent - they'd learnt English in kindergarten. The privates were pretty good too.

Moved over to Xiamen, taught at a vocational college - absolutely useless, lazy bums. Moved onto Xiamen Uni - excellent students. Taught IELTS to pilot cadets at Xiamen Airlines - hard working, motivated, driven.

Then moved onto a quasi international HS in Guangdong - horrible horrible students - lazy, spoilt, unmotivated and malicious. I was glad to leave after a couple of months.

Now in Yangzhou, in the "international department" of a HS. Students are quite lazy, but seemingly not malicious. All are addicted to their phones.

Am I just unlucky, or are the students of 2018 of lower calibre than previous years?

[The bear]

As you yourself acknowledged it's a big generalization, and another thing not to discount is the fact you've taught at different types of institutions. Hard to make comments on trends when the variables change.

That said, one thing that's often noted is that the poorer the student's background, the better the student. I'm sure we've all had the experience of the rich kids who are too cool for school, knowing their family will set them up for life.

[theoriginalprankster]

[Modernist]

I can't claim to have notched 15 years around here, but it seems to me that you are letting your personal experiences bleed too much into generalizations about life overall, for everyone.

For example, I also teach in an international department, not a real international school. However, this school bans phones and even Internet connections. So the students can still ignore their classes, but they have to do it the old fashioned way, via doodling, reading other books, or sleeping. We have some quite bad kids here (lazy, spoiled, obnoxious, etc) as you say, but overall the kids are actually very good. The highest level kids are outstanding, on track for Top 30, or even Top 10 in a few cases, US universities. Of 4 groups I teach, 3 of them are perfectly fine in terms of effort overall, and often outstanding. Only 1 group is difficult.

[geosmiley]

China has several generations of Spock kids, i.e., Benjamin. Hence, the one child policy was revised upward to two. I don't think the sad state of children in China is all about economic level, it's all about grandparents being overly involved while Chinese parents try to get rich as fast as they can.

[Blistering Zanazilz]

[theoriginalprankster]

[cormac]

I found most of the students in the technical colleges to be motivated and hardworking. Then I moved into the "better" language universities, and found most of the students to be lazy and not particularly interested in their majors.

Chinese students with other options (family connections for work) tend to be less interested in their study. Saying that, on average, I find Chinese students to be more clued into their studies than I was at their age.

I'd consider the levels of English and the interest in English to have dropped considerably in my time here.

However, there are still plenty of students here who are an absolute joy to teach.