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[Old Dog]

Now there's a bone I chew on frequently enough.

The school pays me most handsomely and houses me magnificantly. I arrived by the accident of "relationships" knowing nothing of the place. But once I arrived and they discovered my background and the worth of my work, my streets were to be paved with gold so long as I'd sign a long-term contract and stay around.

Well, here I was and am, hoping always to be useful. I've retired from my first career and to date have put in 47 years in the English-teaching classroom (we started early in those days!). I have an B.A. Honours Degree and subsequent research M.A. in English Language and Literature. I've written several academic texts. I've been chairman of our provinces English syllabus drafting committee. I've been long involved in teacher training, spent 23 years as a Secondary Principal. I'm a whiz at English grammar, and so on it goes. And I spend time occasionally wanting to have what I can offer used in some significant way.

I was innocent enough to think that maybe the teachers of the English Department here would think that this could just be a resource to be used. I've offered inservice activities. I've peddled myself from staffroom to staffroom. I've penned all sorts of analyses of the National Exam English papers. I've constructed comprehension exercise banks, etc. etc. But who cares?

No English teacher ever darkens the door of my classroom. Over 90% of the English teachers have never asked a question about anything. I offer to check their exam papers to get rid of the worst of the atrocities contained therein. I've offered to check those dreadful English exercise papers they are so fond of so that the worst mistakes can simply be ignored. But to no effect. I offer to prepare tapes for their listening exams but they prefer to use the whine of a "cool" young Chinese teacher who affects what he thinks is an "American" accent.

I go into classrooms and find the blackboards filled with spelling errors. I find examination paper after examination paper in which the correct answer is the "wrong" answer. I've found the students asked to make sense of the most outlandish Chinglish. The list of horrors is endless.

I am quite perplexed sometimes. Yet, I am sure, the answers are fairly simple. The Chinese English teachers, for the most part, think they lose face if they admit to not knowing something. The more brazen profess to be teaching not English but Chinese English which, they say, is of a different variety - and, in this, they believe themselves to be experts. And those who select exam papers off some shelf and have them administered without even checking them before hand are just downright lazy.

Each year I suggest that there might be all sorts of ways in which I might be of assistance. But seeking assistance is all too much trouble it seems.
At the moment, the only teacher who ever looks in on my lessons is a Physics teacher who has taken to teaching "Physics in English" as his Saturday elective. So I'm happy about that.

A very prestigious school in one of the big cities attempted to steal me some time back. I'd probably have gone even at a lower salary had they shown any capacity to make use of me. But my interview of the Principal showed me very quickly that, prestigious though the school may be and virtuous as it may be in so many ways, its Administrators appeared to have absolutely no idea of how to make best use of whatever ft talent might be attracted to its doors. They had no inservice program for staff and appeared content to have uncoordinated fts acting in their classrooms as the spirit moved them.

Are others thus underutilized, wasting their sweetness in the desert air? It's such a pity. To be truthful, for all the use them make of me, they may as well be paying me peanuts.

[Old Dog]

Oh, dear! I have no face. Proof-read and all - and yet my effort at "magnificently" was not all that good! Sorry.

[cimarch]

Well, they say you should leave it for 4 hours between proof-readings...

I've come up against this Chinese-English attitude as well, it drives me crazy. I've been dismissed by Chinese teachers because "foreigners do not know grammar and we teach Chinese-English, you wouldn't understand it". When I ask what possible use a version of English that foreigners 'wouldn't understand' is I get blank faces or "they can use it with other Chinese". I've had students gleefully wave their (very bad) text/workbook at me and tell me I couldn't do it because it's Chinglish.

It's not Chinese-English, it's not Chinglish, it's bad English!

As an adjunct to the face thing I think they're trying to delude themselves that they have come up/are coming up with a better version of English that they can be better at than we can.

[joe greene]

[mandu]

you know what its the same in kindergarten as well.
I have worked in kindys since the time i started here in china (4yrs ago).I have got some very good ideas that i could bring to english in the kindergarten.Iam also childcare trained as well.
but the places i have worked at are just not intrested in anything different or new.
so i dont bother opening my mouth much anymore i just do my job as best i can and collect my money every month.its much easier that way and everyone is happy.

i do care about what i do and i care about the children i teach and i care about my job.

also to i would love to be able to go to a work shop every month for teaching english to kindergarten children so as Iam always fresh.but there is nothing like that here.

[Roger]

Pleasantly surprised to find so many suffering soulmates here.
I didn't know the CHinese teachers think so highly of themselves, but I berlieve you... I often tell my CHinese colleagues that something is horribly wrong in the English the CHinese students are exposed to or acquire, from whom???

Anyway, I try to cure them of their bad outlandish English my way. Obviously, conversation classes are not conducive to better and more accurate English. They speak too softly, mangle their sentences to such a horrible extent that nobody even bothers to listen to them.
Clearly, the last resort open to us is writing. Make them write, and prove their incomprehensible English by showing them what it looks like on the surface of their notepads and the black board. If they can make head and tail out of their Chinglish, then they can perhaps explain to me as well...

[Brian Caulfield]

I just blew up on the job because this Chinese English teacher from day one has been ribbing me about my being a foreign expert who doesn't need photocpies or a text . I teach 600 students each forty five minutes a week to show the parents they have a foreign English teacher teaching them. I am not teaching , only doing a show (role plays) . The school brochure is peppered with mistakes in English and is basically incomprehensible . They couldn't ask someone to proof it for them .
Let's face it teaching in China is not a respected field . A little off topic ,but why are all the Chinese brains doing research in foreign countries ?
So this is the rub. Teaching pays little here. We come here and make a lilttle more and they feel insecure about their jobs . For them it is important that the students think they are English experts . They teach structure that is way above the students learning level . Basically they are teaching what they don't know . The learning method is recitation , chorus with a heavy emphasis on grammar. They are not not taught to listen .
Thats why the Chinese teachers run away . They don't know what you are saying even when you speak in your slowed down robotic teacher's voice and act out everything in body language .
They are afraid the students will find out that they are a hoax . It is the same in South Korea . They are just waiting for you to go away . Then no one will see the mistakes they are making .

I have been here only a short period and I notice so many new houses being built , new cars on the road and shopping malls everywhere . Now these teachers who are about 27 years of age on an average see all this new wealth and can't have it . So you have replaced the Koumintang government that ruled China 50 years ago as the enemy. You FT are the ones taking their money and their jobs . My multi billion dollar school just hired two British kids out of high school . They don't care if you are a teacher they just want the student's parents to think you are a teacher . Lets face it if you have good English in China you can get a good job in business and make good money .
Well as a person who has been doing this gig for the last ten years in Asia , I have one word of advice . Don't correct ! Store the students mistakes and later asked them to self correct . It they write to you with mistakes , write back to them in such a way that you show interest in what they are saying but with the correct English . Same with dealing with teachers. Never correct their mistakes directley ! I think it is the difference between being an ESL or EFL teacher to being and English Literature teacher in the West .
Well I am looking forward to the grammar hounds from hell raking over this letter . Only in China can you find such qualified English editors .
Zajian pengyou

[Ben H Nevis Jnr.]

[kev7161]

OH-MY-GOD! I just had this conversation today (sort of). I just finished three periods this afternoon with Senior One kids. It was test day (we have about one a month). The first part of the test is the spelling of our vocabulary words. JUST BEFORE THE TEST, I went over all the words and how they sound. Two of our words were "chef" and "architect". I have repeated these words about 100 times in the past month. I've also corrected their pronunciations of these words about an equal amount of times. I can't believe how many "chief"s and ??? on the tests. I just know the kids aren't listening, don't care, and aren't interested.

Afterwards, I talked to a Chinese English teacher about my frustrations and he just looked at me blankly, with a slight grin on his face . . . I think he just wasn't getting it.

Last term, I too was offering extra services when it came to testing and what not. I was politely rebuffed. This year I know better, of course. But it is mind-numbing how much English so many of these kids DON'T get. And I have a pretty d a m n easy class. I really spoon-feed these kids.