Job Discussion Forums

[Old Dog]

Kev, you put great faith in web sites - like if it's printed in a newspaper, it must be true. There's a difference between carefully articulated speech and sloppy speech - and I guess it is true that many people fall into the habit of speaking in a pretty off-hand way. To this extent, it's probably OK to treat the two as homophones in a classroom where success in teaching the two as homophones is preferable to having a class full of students saying klouz and 'klou-ziz. But for your own future professional well-being, it's probably worth noting that some employers might just hear you say klouz for klou(voiced th)z and think, "Oh, dear. For all his virtue, that young man's speech is a trifle careless." I would die rather than befoul my mouth in such a way yet, sadly, I've just found my Concise Oxford Dictionary giving the pronunciation of "clothes" as I've described it above but, I regret to say, with the voiced th sound in brackets as if to recognise that sometimes dreadful things are done to the language. Not even my English-Chinese dictionary does that. I'd like to get access to an earlier edition Oxford to see if it put that voiced th in brackets, say, 20 years ago. I have the complete Oxford at home - but that's a long way away.

[monju]

My Oxford Advanced Learner's lists both pronunciations, that with the voiced th as being British and the clouz/cloz version as being US. Back home in New Zealand people with a strong Kiwi accent tend to veer towards the latter pronunciation too. What about East Londoners, don't they say "cloves"?
This raises a lot of interesting questions. What's standard? Is there a standard? What should we teach our students?
I tend to view the OED as having ultimate authority,in which case either is
okay.

[The G-stringed Avenger]

Hey all,

have had a major reform in my teaching approach and it's working wonders!

Have replaced the blackboard (which no-one could see anyway) with the computers. Have replaced teacher-centred learning with this:

Assign a situation to the students (a conversation with a purpose to it), brainstorm the type of language needed, show them my own model dialogue, then let them go to create their own conversation. They know the situation, they know the requirements and language parameters. They then produce their own conversation using their existing knowledge of English (as university students, their theoretical knowledge is quite high - I'm just making them use it). I patrol the classroom enforcing a "no-Chinese" rule and offering any assistance to students who need it.

I've also advised my students not to memorise their scripts but to think in terms of the situation, rather than "What is my next sentence?"-type thinking. If they immerse themselves in the situation, the words will come and they will start to think in English.

They then present, in pairs, their 1-2 minute conversation to the class. It's a major success so far - they're motivated, interested, they have a purpose for speaking. Even previously uninterested students are taking part, without any external motivation.

In the next few weeks, I will mix book lessons with the odd movie (as a listening exercise and just for relaxation and a break from studying) and the odd lesson devoted entirely to games focusing on their weak points - mainly stress and pronunciation.

Gawd! I'm rather chuffed and proud of myself at the moment, ha ha! But seriously, thanks to everyone for their advice. I'm feeling much better about my teaching now.

Just thought I'd let you know. Thanks for hearing me out!

Later,
the GSA

[waxwing]

What an excellent post. Thankyou.

[benno]

[quote="Roger
Have you studied any second tongue, man?
Your question begs no answer! Bilingual books defeat the purpose of teaching the target language; what they might succeed in doing is to give the learner an illusion of understanding; however, just because you hear the CHinese equivalent of "hippopotamus" you do not auto "understand". You have to picture the animal, and if you have never seen one no translation will be useful.
No, English textbooks with Chinese translations are RUBBISH!
They have an addictive influence - the learner will never wean himself off his first language. But the purpose of teaching a second language is to make the learner independent of his mother tongue as a help.
Acquiring a second language basically is a practical skill in which problem-solving takes precedence. You have to learn to guess, to think of possible meanings, rather than to be served up one and one meaning only for every foreign expression!
Haven't you noticed how hard up our learners are when having to express themselves spontaneously?
The more you expose them to ready-made "solutions" to their English comprheension problems the less they learn to overcome their difficulties.

I deplore that even university students use textbooks with integrated translations! Their own "teachers" never address these students in English - preferring to say everything in their own lingo. That's why they are all mediocre achievers![/quote]

yes thats dead right
i go mad when the students use those electronic dictionaries, or when other students translate into chinese for their fellow students when they get into difficulty, its takes the effort away from learning
once taught in a middle school, where one chinese teacher practically translated everything i said, of course the students only listened to him!!! i told him to relax and take a seat at the back of the classroom, i never use chinese teachers, no point for me (though i can understand how some can)

[Yu]

Roger said

[Old Dog]

G String wrote:

[tarzaninchina]

Let's see, what haven't I taught? Literature and Business English.

Kindergarten under the age of 3 is impossible. There's so little of everything. Older than that, a letter and some words every two classes, different activities, and they love songs with actions. Either way, change the activity every 10 minutes at least!

Primary school, I found the "Let's Go: Starter" to be great, espcially if you have the flashcards to go with it. A few in-class activities like speed-writing letters and pictionary/speed-drawing are great. Plus you can give enough individual attention that they can improve. Having good Chinese English teachers who both teach them separately and work with you are invaluable.

Hallowe'en Lesson Plan for this level:
- wear a costume
- introduce Hallowe'en at a simple level for the TA to translate
- teach: Hallowe'en, jack-o-lantern (make one yourself), ghost, trick-or-treat (give each student one candy after each say it individually), mask
- have students design a mask

Middle school, dang that was annoying! They do almost everything as much as they don't. Too annoying for me.

High school was alright. You can have a bit of fun with that.

From primary to high school, have fun with the Chinese language as well (i.e. have them try to correct yours even if you know how to say it right).

I found the new interchange to be an interesting program, but a little too robotic. Not enough culture, too many topics that completely lose the students, etc. I found that some schools use this because a newbie foreigner can use it and do it fairly well (i.e. a safe book for the school to use). Dr. Ear's is great, but it next-to-impossible to find. It's pronunciation for all sounds and it's great. I use some ideas in their at all levels because students really need to know that breast is not the same as breath. Use examples like that and they will want to change their pronunciation and not give you the BS of just doing what their Chinese teachers told them!

Now I'm teaching both oral and written English at a teachers' college. Discipline problems are non-existent and I can really strut my stuff. Might post my lesson plans for the writing course online given that it's high-class stuff. As for oral English, we use a book, but I hardly use it. I build rapport with my students right off and they learn that fairly quickly. Gotta be indirect about that I find. Then, use a book with some conversations in it, but teach your own situations (see my thread called "Good Conversation") and always ask them about interesting things. Feel free to do cultural things on your own. Build their vocab, willingness to state opinions, etc.

ABOVE ALL: separate cultural differences from reason. If you can do that, students will stop saying 'no why' or tune out after chalking it up to a cultural difference. It's not that difficult.

Man, there's just too much for me to say considering this is just a rip in my bag of pearls....

BTW, let's not turn this into a debate where close is pronounced the same as the things you wear, ok?

[Ace]

Actually I'm not simply teaching English - my classes are 'Speaking' classes (ok, one of the two other languages I learned, Latin, was not spoken much, at least, not in the conversational sense, during my classes...)

I try to improve my students' understanding of the English language and encourage them to use it as a vehicle of communication - hence, I couldn't care less whether they pronounced clothes and close in a very slightly different way (I always correct that final syllable they seem to love, and tell them the words are as near as damn homophones - ). I want them to be able to use their vocabulary in a meaningful way...for the same reason I don't care much about 'elephant' or hippopotamus (a favourite word of mine in Chinese for some reason...but I once had a cute 12 year old very proud that he knew it...I searched high and low to find him one for his birthday).

Sure, those words are easy to guess...I often make that point when suggesting students focus on vocab that is likely to be more useful...I ask - (I mainly teach college students) "What's very big, grey, has four legs and a loooong nose.." and sure enough they're yelling out 'elephant'. Then I look out the window and say something like "no, none out there today...actually, have you ever seen an elephant?"

Teaching a word like 'occur' - and how to use it, obviously, seems more useful to me, especially at near adult level (I was told yesterday "they're only children" but of course, they're 21-22 years old...) "Could I speak to someone in your corporate finance department?"...they're going to guess this? I'm supposed to mime it?

No, I want a Chinese translation...(but there isn't one)

I feel that my once a week class would be much more useful if I was able to get them to first read that sentence with tone, stress and what I think of as 'elision' (it isn't really, should I say 'joining words together?) as well as being able to pronounce the polysyllabic words...then I want them to be confident about hearing and understanding such a question in a phone-call and making an appropriate response...and I'm pretty happy if i can get a "sorry I didn't quite catch that"...

My students are gearing up for CET 6, and some think their English is rather better than it is... one class asked me for discussion today so I said ok, group discussions, I'll come around and listen...you name the topic : "our future" . There was only half an hour left so I suggested, on the board 'What are my goals for the future?' 'How am I going to try and achieve my goals?'

- "I want to have a good job"
- what's a good job?
-"I want to travel to famous places.I want to be a tour guide"
-ok, what about you?
-I want to marry and have a happy family"
-yes, what kind of man would you like to marry?
-..."mmm, a kind man, warm-hearted."

Others wanted to go to Shanghai and get a 'good job'.

I'm thinking about it...and what I'll do next week...but I still think they need to spend some time with a book...reading to understand, listening to correct their pronunciation, stress, tones etc and then reading to each other for practice, before we get to the discussion stage. Brainstorming doesn't seem to work much in my writing class, let alone speaking class, (60 students) but I've given the topic as homework for the discussion next week and hope to get some mileage out of it in terms of fluency and perhaps, vocab...if I don't get any future corporate financiers it won't break my heart, but they're meant to be business students...I fell they could do better...

[The G-stringed Avenger]

[Jolly]

[Old Dog]

So, G String, you are not teaching at Bei Da! Sounds like one of those lower second-stream universities or worse. They're certainly not there to work and are working on the assumption that they'll always be passed in everything and will "graduate" at the end of 4 years regardless. The quality of the Chinese staff will probably not be high and, if you're really out of luck, the staff will be made up of former students of the organization. When this happens, you've generally got the pits. Daddy with strong relationships with the leaders always manages to get a job for his darling - or manages a banquet and envelope with the message, "I'd like you to look after my little boy/girl."

But you sound as if you are making headway even if the vocal minority/majority say they want something else.

If you really want to know what their supposed level is go out and buy copies of the text books they probably used in Senior 1, 2 and 3. Yes, probably the dreaded "Senior English for China"! Glance through those and you'll soon see what vocab. they've mastered and what grammatical forms. In addition, probably most of them are supposed to be doing CET4. If you can get your hands on the materials they use for that, that will help you.

In essence, however, they should have covered all of the basic English grammatical forms and they should have a vocabulary of thousands of words. Sadly, they won't have mastered what you are trying to get them to master, i.e. the memorization of the basic building blocks of conversation. To date, their experience with English will have been mainly to respond to what they see on the written page via a series of multiple-choice questions. Their listening skills will have been "honed" by listening to tapes over the school's p.a. system in Lesson 9 of the day following which the students correct their responses from an answer key at the back of their texts. As for writing, they'll have been expected to write 150 words in English in the National English examination - and this is often regarded as a herculean task indeed!

In their heads, there's lots of English but they haven't learnt to manipulate this knowledge in English. What you are doing is attempting to get them to think in simple English forms, memorize those forms and then to be able to vocalize them automatically without having to go through Chinese. You're really getting them to begin the process of thinking and speaking in English as if they were parrots being taught a limited vocabulary. The great thing is that they are more than parrots and once they've mastered a basic repertoire and have some confidence in its use, they'll fairly rapidly (in a great number of cases, not all) discover that expansion of this core will come easily enough provided there is sufficient motivation. Some, sadly, simply have no ear for English and probably went through 6 years of being taught English in Chinese by teachers who probably spoke very little comprehensible English themselves. In your plays, give them small parts where they have to listen so as to know when to come in with, "What a good idea! Let's go!" - or the like.

But persevere, despite the loudmouths. I think you're on to a good thing.

[kev7161]