Job Discussion Forums

[J9]

Hey all,

Sorry about the wording of my first post. The English corner is in my contract but I've been at the school for 5 months now and this is the first time I've been asked to do them. I'm mightily miffed because I thought it was just a standard thing that was put in the contract but in reality the school would never get round to organising them, Chinese organisation skills being as they are. Naive of me maybe, but the other teachers have been here for over a year and never had to do them. Oh well I guess I should look on the bright side and think of the 5 months that I didn't have to do them and count my blessings.

Anyway my b'friend is on white monkey duty tonight, so I'm just waiting for him to return and tell me the good or more likely bad news about how it went.

I'm currently trying to organise a meeting with the students to find out what they want and what they hope to gain form it and then explain how the teachers feel about it and hopefully work somethink out so everyone's happy. This will not however include prepping for English corners, nice idea but that changes the conversation corner into a lesson and teaching 100+ students is not an option when it's on a sports field in semi darkness. And like the other guy said, while I love my job and the students, I have no intention of doing freebie lessons. You other guys are far too dedicated for my liking.


J9

[KL]

transmogrification...don't want to cheapen a sixty-four dollar word with a typo!

[oprah]

I do not do English Corner as a freeby// I built it into my contract that the English Corner is extra above my twenty classes a week, and I get paid extra by the hour to do English corner. I have never done one at the school, they are to organize and let me know in advance that they are having one, so far no EC.

[Dazai]

Although a relative newcomer here in China, I�ve had similar experiences to those above in Japan.

So you are organising an -ENGLISH CORNER- to discuss what to talk about in ENGLISH CORNER.

If the answer you get is not, �SOMETHING INTERESTING�, I will eat my robe ( see pic). You J9 as yet do not seem to �get it�.

I think your �MEETING�will go a long way towards learning you.

[oprah]

We are English teachers , right??? Your meeting will go a long way to TEACHING you... for Dazai.

[Dazai]

[J9]

Hey,
First of all I would just like to thank Dazai for the useful post. It helped a great deal.

Well for all of you concerned about my 'meeting' I would just like to assure you that I am no wet behind the ears newbie, and I don't expect miracles. All I am aiming ot do is change the current format which annoys the teachers and the students who don't get the chance to speak any English.
Basically the school does not advertise the English corner so only the students from the foreign language department know about it, the darlings I teach every bloody day. So I'm trying to set up a meeting with reps from all the departments and involve all the students who want to practice their English. There are so many eager students here who have good English but no English teacher and no chance to practice. I want to include them in it and get rid of the ones who just come along to look at 'the foreigner' and ask stupid questions.
I also want a 'meeting', a meeting not an 'English corner' to let the students know that we think at the moment it's a waste of our time and theirs and that their English is not going to improve by sitting next to a foreigner and asking if they like Chinese bloody food!

Many may think me naive, stupid or probably both, but we all hate English corner and have a good moan about it. Instead of complaining, no- as well as complaining I'm actually trying to do something about it.

J9

[Dazai]

J9 wrote:

[PandaBear]

Simple people,

There is nothing, except if it is in your contract, to force you to attend the the ever present English corner. You must make your feelings very clear from the first day. However, having said all that those that you organise yourself can be very rewarding as long as you have control over those who attend as there are many students who wander around all the universities etc all day everyday hoping to catch up with one.

[Roger]

We had this extremely controversial thread "We want a chance to practise English..."; in my opinion these kids DO NOT NEED US TO EMPOWER THEM FURTHER. They should accept their own responsability and create their own meeting places and circumstances to use English productively.

It is not my face that akes them use my lingo; it is their own decision to do so!

They should be weaned from their nanny regime that always whispers to them what they must do, and what they must not do.

Speaking English is as easy as listening to someone.

My suggestion: their own Chinese English teachers should start by using English in giving them instructions and introductions to English grammar, writing, literature, ...

Then, and only then, do they have the stamina to sustain a meaningful discussion!

As of now, these silly organised and highly formal get-togethers are silly social functions. Many double as pick-up places. I know what I mean... I once was asked to run a "lonely hearts English salon"...

In school yards, these English Corners don't function because those kids do not have the habit of listening to each other. Once I watched in bewilderment as one guy after another came up to a teacher and asked the exact same stupid questions: "Where are you from? Do you like CHinese food?"

Come on, no: leave me alone!

[senor boogie woogie]

Hola!

I worked for a place that was ALL English corner. I had a class for 2 hours, and I had to constantly have to think up things to do and talk about.

Then there was the evening class where one teacher goes in front of a class and creates a topic for discussion. The 6 months I worked there we talked about everything under the son, including sex, government, Taiwan, music, just anything. The danger with this format is that the lecturer might come up with something very boring, or do something that you don't know about. You also need to play to your audience, and not talk about things that they have no interest in (travel for example)

The lecturer puts up between 5-10 questions on the board to talk about. Sometimes when I did it, I just put some off the wall stuff for questions like:

1.) What's smarter, a dog or a cat?

2.) If you were all by yourself in the middle of nowhere with a gun in your hand and you see a flying saucer land, and a strange looking being leaving the spaceship, would you hide, freet it or shoot it?

3.) Ask unmarried college women, if they would like to be a housewife, someone who is a primary caregiver of a baby, cooks dinnner and lived in a beautiful home with a nice husband that loves you very much?

4.) Could you kill a stranger for 100 Million RMB?

Lastly, it is OK to BS if you have good people in your group if you had a choice. Some people I liked very much and invited to sit in my group. I got a lot of insight from people about real life and experiences in China.

Now I teach primary school kids. I don't lesson plan for them. Amen.

Senor

[latefordinner]

In this respect, I was fortunate in my first school. All the FTs were assigned English Corners, but the school paid us for them as if they were classes. (An hour of my time, whether in a kindie class or with IELTS students, is an hour of my time.) They used it as window dressing to attract sudents; "Take this course and attend our EC free every week!" We were expected to do some prep, but it was understood that it wasn't a class, so we had a lot of freedom to experiment. I had a lot of regulars, people who actually enjoyed talking to each other in English. (Mind, a lot of them were in the adult classes that I taught immediately after, and the ones that wanted to be there had little difficulty coming an hour early for something that they enjoyed) We had ECs for evey age and ability level. With kids, we mostly played games, and this served as a testing ground for our classes. For most part, it worked as it should. SBW, we would have loved to have had you. I did a few combined ECs, and being able to bounce topics from one FT to another worked very well.

Roger, I hate to quibble with you, but I didn't think the "I want to practice my English" thread was all that controversial. A few of us vented a bit, but that's the norm on this forum. I certainly agree that the biggest obstacles to learning in China are the students' reluctance to take responsibility, and the official sanction of this reluctance. To my mind, the most empowering thing that we FTs can do is (metaphorically) kick their tails into gear. Don't you find that many FTs take a certain mischievous pride in finding devious ways of getting at the kids, of demonstrating that there is no free ride, no easy way out? Ahh, but the politics of the classroom are such that we can't literally kick their tails; sometimes we can't even speak harshly to them in class. Isn't that one of the things that we mostly agree on? (And where, when we don't, we end up arguing from the same crowded side of the coin?)

Learning a language can be as difficult as listening. But enough preaching to the choir...

[Don Smith]

Subject: English Corner
Hi everybody. You are right. English Corners doesn't seem to be very productive. What we are doing is experimenting with many ideas.
We take copies of songs, pass them out and sing songs. We take copies of one act plays with lots of characters and have some students who want to read the plays. We play that game where a group of 10 or so get in a circle and one person begins the story with a sentence then passes the story to the next person who must add a sentence and pass it on. We asked that Chinese Teachers from the English dept. be encouraged to come to English Corner. So the Dean assigns two of them each week to attend and take control of one group. We have two corners a week. one each at the old and new Campuses. Last night it was all freshmen and when they crowded around me I began to point ateach in turn and command. "Introduceyourself, where are you from.etc.." I just kept pointing and they kept responding. We will try something like that again. We are going to publish ahead of time English Corner topics so students will know what we are going to talk about. We will just keep experimenting. Not all is Lost.

Sincerely,
Don Smith
Peace Corps China 10
Western Chongqing University

P.S. I am having trouble editing this. Please excuse.

[Dalaoer]

Preparation for English corner:

1. Stretch and warm-up. If you don't, you'll regret it when you're 90: all those acrobatics take their toll.

2. Rehearse 'my heart will go on'. You'll end up singing it.

3. Take a bag to collect the peanuts that'll be tossed at you. At least you'll get something out of it.

4. Eat lots of beans to ensure a safe escape. Flatulency is not classified as biological warfare in the Convention of Geneva, so it's legally safe to use. Mind you though: it may have no effect on individuals who are accustomed to Chinese toilets, and you may end up poisoning yourself.

[2 over lee]

Just put yourself on autopilot and you�ll be fine.