Job Discussion Forums

[dwhansen]

Gradually, I�ve stopped teaching my students in the way the students or the university administrators like or accept. I�ve been teaching at Chinese colleges and universities now for over three years, so have a pretty good feel for all the �truths� about students, administrators, and culture in general. I�ve become defiant, righteous and arrogant. Some of you may recognize this ailment and share my affliction. I have a Masters degree in organizational leadership and teach for only two reasons. The primary reason is selfish. I like to learn continually and to be entertained at the same time. The second reason is that I like to facilitate (not teach) people who are dynamically learning and improving their lives. Here in China of course, there are huge problems with both. I�ve polled the students and have found that they have all studied English for an average of eight years and from 7,000 to 11,000 hours. Their ability is miniscule and their ideas are, ummm, void. Ninety percent of my university students are boring and selfish with their knowledge. The second problem is that ninety percent of them are also not interested in dynamically learning anything new even though they claim to. So, as you can picture, and most of you have experienced, I�ve chosen a difficult path, in possibly an impossible country, and am destined to perpetual frustration. I don�t care. It�s what I do and it�s what I�ll continue to do.

I just finished my first semester at Petroleum University teaching Western Culture and Oral English. This brand new university, paid for by the three big oil companies of China is beautiful and well endowed. My dream to have a big new classroom with Internet connected computer and big screen came true!! After one week, I realized that just because this is a cool new university, it didn�t mean that the students� classroom behaviors would be any �better� than any other students I have encountered here�examination focus, lecture loving, hand phone toying, sleeping, studying for other classes, etc. I moved all four hundred of my students, in every class, into a big room, with no computer, no tables and only chairs and a blackboard�old fashion workshop style. I fought everyone. I forced the students to sit in circles of 4-6 students each, with only their English to Chinese and Chinese to English (critically important) dictionaries and TALK to each other, and to use me for questions. It has been a war of wills. I keep my lectures to one or two minutes.

By the end of the semester last month, about twenty percent of the students had evolved into creative, dynamic, assertive and highly capable self-directed learners with a clear idea of the relationship between learning, ability, and future workplace/life success. The university leaders and administrators hate me.

I�m looking for an experienced FT who has done anything like this here in China, and hope you will give me your experience. By the way, I am not in any way ESL certified or qualified, nor am I in any way interested in teaching ESL to elementary level students. That�s why I limit my teaching to universities, hopefully to engage in interesting dialog about relevant ideas and concepts that are important to my students� future lives. Should I just give up, quit, and go home? Or does one of you share my optimism that I�ll engage twenty one percent next term?

[writpetition]

Dwhansen,
You've got the right ideas in the sense that you've identified the problem right which is that students don't 'use' enough English and take the easy way out. You're right that after 8 to 10 years and sometimes more, of English-learning they're nowhere near achieving reasonable proficiency as they ought to be.
You're right to encourage them to use more English, especially in an Oral English class and to facilitate the process.
However, I feel, you must not look down on them, and I quote, "Their ability is miniscule and their ideas are, ummm, void. Ninety percent of my university students are boring and selfish with their knowledge" - not only is this harsh on them but not right.
You need to remember that they've been brought up and taught in a style that encourages them to be quiet and respectful, especially in the presence of teachers, who they have traditionally held in high esteem. However, this style or methodology has evolved over hundreds and thousands of years and was not necessarily used in language-learning, which requires active participation. There, I think, lies the crux of the problem. It's not easy to shake off thousands of years' of cultural conditioning and adopt a new way of learning and study, not when an entire society, in many ways, still clings to ways of the past.
The students are clever, reasonably diligent, though decidedly this is not true of all and that applies to students all over the world, not merely China. To believe, and say what you did, is to to great injustice to a whole culture and yourself, too as you will lose the bigger picture. Chinese have been great and perhaps, the greatest, inventors and that surely is a sign of their ability and ideas. Please look at the vast range of inventions credited to the Chinese and you will see what I mean.
It is to your credit that you've been able to motivate a fifth or so of your students to make some headway. Therefore, you certainly must not give up. Perhaps, you need to just 'give in' a little. Please take the history and culture of the students into consideration and begin to mould students into shapes that you want. No potter can make useful things with his clay if he's intent on beating the clay and berating its qualities, can he? He just needs to understand the nature of the raw material and, like all things in life, there are diffferent types of clay too and having understood that, work in the way that might produce the best results.
A teacher is not good merely because he has great ability or knowlegde. A good teacher must be like the potter. In addition, he must be a lot more. But above all, he must be wise.
Cheers!

[rickinbeijing]

Read your initial post with much interest. I'm glad to know you prod your students to think for themselves but are you doing so within reasonable limits (i.e. cultural, social, and academic)? In other words, does the manner and pace of your lessons overwhelm many students or are they resistant for some other reason? Many Chinese are passive learners because of a passive educational system. Do you find yourself unnecessarily provoking administrators? You don't want to be seen as arrogant, or demanding of preferential treatment. And you don't want to raise the ire of your waiban in the process. A question: how do you know that one in five of your students has benefited from your instruction? After all, that is actually a surprisingly high percentage as you characterize it. Since you don't have the EFL background, what makes you confident that your approach is culturally appropriate? Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to give you the third degree here. Just curious. Please bear in mind that the colleges you have taught at do not generally receive highly motivated students, as a key university would. And the simple, hard fact is that many Chinese students (including some at key universities) have little interest in learning English. This apathy goes beyond culture: it is in the univeral nature of the learner to dislike what he or she is not interested in. Would be glad to continue this dialogue with you.

[Roger]

I thoroughly sympathise with you and would say much the same, in similar words as you have done; I find no offence in the words you chose as I often tell students "I think you are boring!" They don't mind so much if you say it the right way.

of course, itis not their fault to be so vegetable. They have normal human beings' intelligence. Their intelligence gets stifled from an early age on. I doubt they "invented' so many things sometimes credited to them though I am also convinced they have a creative streak in them; their streak is, however, an exploratory, trial-and-error kind of experimentation problem solving style. I noticed this in my home a number of times when handimen had to give me a hand at repairing faucets or putting a door on the other side of the frame: it became painfully obvious to me that logical, deductive, analytical thinking is alien to them. They understand things intuitively. This is evident in their approach in medicine: try to understand how acupuncture works - no one can satisfactorily explain it as yet, but we know it does wonders under certain circumstances. It does deserve respect; however, it does not deserve to be regarded as the sinecure that simplistic people sometimes take it for.

I changed tack with my CHinese English learners the minute I realised what a huge chasm separates their theoretical "knowlsedge" of English and their practical skills. Chinese are a tad elitist and bookish, above doing the dirty work involving their hands and speaking a language properly. Learning a language is still memorising it for exams, not for future reference. Please, ask any of your students, and you will readily hear they are obsessed about passing exams, not knowing the ins and outs of the language or even mastering it. What they may be opining is what they have learnt through their classes - "we need more oral practice..." and then, they will passively lean back in their chairs. In a nutshell: it's all about big words and zero action. And yes, you can safely attribute this to local culture.

There is another point youmight consider: if they are at your Petroleum University it must be a top institution that merits a special honours' place in the ranking of universities.
Ask your students whether they enrolled for your course, or whether they are there because they wanted to study at Petroleum University. What amazes me time and again is that students tell me WHERE they studied, but not WHAT they studied.
The place where they studied is of prime consideration, what they studied is of secondary importance.

For instance, two days ago a young man started talking to me about his fantastic university; turned out that he was highly disillusioned with his studies (social science) because it wasn't what he originally wanted to study; however, his scores were not high enough for him to pass admission exams for other universities where he could have specialised in medicine, which was his ideal subject.
Thus, the guy enrolled at Xiamen University only for its national ranking, while the subject he studied is of no relevance to him at all.

[dwhansen]

Thanks for your comments. To answer writpetition, I insist that it�s true that my students are selfish with their knowledge. I understand the reasons�Cultural Revolution and many other cultural excuses. It�s not just in class�I understand that too; about relationships with teachers, but what bothers me terribly is that most all of them do not share information with one another outside of class, they don�t work or study interactively, and even dorm mates and classmates rarely coach each other. Your potter analogy was beautiful and it was also quite accurate. I really have become somewhat of an impatient brute!!

Rick in Beijing, thank you also for your ideas. Yes I move too fast. I know it. I�m so worried about MY students facing a WTO C-party induced cultural, economic, social, and occupational change�a very fast change is coming even though everyone denies it. I can�t change China, but I care deeply about my students who care to �be� someone besides a slave. By the way, the oil industry recruiters were here interviewing all of my seniors. A handful of the boys got bad looking low paying jobs. All the girls were told, �there are no jobs for girls in the oil industry�. It broke my heart. Sure these are forces all over the world, but these are MY students and so easily, they can develop skills that will enable them to get good jobs at decent pay�regardless of their exam scores or diplomas. I pity the ones without guanxi. You asked if there are reasons why they resist. There are many reasons that both you and writpetition probably suspect. I�m an overbearing, arrogant, non traditional, self righteous American man. I speak about any topic to the degree that �some� of them are interested�Taiwan/Iraq, safe sex, women�s rights, democracy (I certainly don�t push the current American model), any religion that comes up, etc. I�m careful to give a balanced view of all, but my students are mostly prejudice against America and my American ideas, so they oftentimes only selectively hear me. When I detail the bad things about my country, they feel shame that I�m not patriotic. When I say something that Americans do well, like make bombs and movies, they reject me for being elitist.

Yes, you are right, the system �conditions� passive learners to be passive people. We all know why it does too. And yes, I provoke, and yes I provoke the leaders, in what I believe you would judge, to an unnecessary degree. I do. And yes, I lose many students, and thanks for understanding that twenty (not five) percent of my students make huge improvements, and that is an excellent result for a FT in China. Their mid term and final exams are a simple letter that they write to me explaining the ideas and experiences�ummm, and provocations that I�ve given during the term that they outright reject, and those that they have incorporated into their lives. The rules of this letter are quite specific. I disallow the words we, us, duty, delicious, famous, and maybe. I require that they use the words I, me, and my, and describe their activities only. These letters are fantastic. It�s possible that they fool me sometimes, but not often. They tell specific study and social activities that they do now that they didn�t do before. They and their roommates can observe the huge changes they develop in confidence and ability. For example, I have passionately discouraged them from reading aloud or silently to themselves (for a number of reasons we can get into). I passionately encourage them to meet and make friends with students outside of their class, dorm, and major. I encourage them to speak in English about �real� things, not just mother�s love, Chinese food, or famous this or that. The twenty percent DO IT and love it. It�s a massive cultural change for them and they love it.

Also, you are dead right about apathy. Most of them did not directly chose their major, whether it be English or the others. Many hate what they are studying, including English. They are sooooo bored and see no relevance between their studies and their life. My BA is in geography ferchrissakes. We are always laughing about how silly that diploma was for me. But then, I explain little things that I can do with that knowledge, ways that I�ve applied that degree to jobs I�ve had in marketing, advertising, technical sales and shipping. Whether they are �stuck� studying economics, law, international trade, or English, I walk through individually with each one of them who care to, how they might use their studies in almost anything they may do in the future.

Roger, thank you also for your perspective. Yes, famous universities are more important to most students than the other ones. Coming from the west, I understand that this is an operating force there too, but for damn good reason. The quality of the education itself is oftentimes �better�. Also, the contacts made at the university with classmates and teachers is valuable in their future lives�sounds a little like Chinese culture�relationships and guanxi.

[writpetition]

Dwhansen,
Let me talk about the 'selfishness' point - universal, that's what it is. As regards the selfishness of Chinese students - In a country of nearly a billion and a half where education, for a long time, was a reserved 'commodity' for the truly best and more importantly, the truly blessed knowledge was and is power. To share it is to lose whatever little advantage one might have or perceive to have.
BTW, to carry on with the selfishness bit, I have practically pleaded with the eslers here to help me in my job serach (and you can read some of my previous posts here, if you like) and all I got by way of an answer was from Nolefan, who asked me to contact a recruiting agency, who in turn chose to reply with a frozen silence, a freeze that still remains intact. Kids who don't share knowledge v/s grown-ups with a better understanding of the world? - decide, who's the more selfish. I wasn't asking anyone to give up his/her job for me, was I? I merely, wanted info about universities, preferably, that were willing to hire non-white, non-blue-eyed, non-blonde-haired, non-US/UK/Canada/Australia/etc, or equal-opportunity employers.
Sir, selfishness is the stuff of human bones!

[oprah]

This is a great thread of information, observation, sharing , communication. I get the kids when they are leaving home for the first time, coming together to make new friends, fresh at first, then worked and drilled to form the type of students you are talking of. ... and so how can I contribute to help to mould or impact their lives, or is the system too great to have any lasting impact or effect. With big wide eyes they tell me I am their first FT ... At first they do not speak, but as time goes on I see the confidence grow to speak, and I only allow sentences, not just a few words.. so I see the impact at this stage in their lives... increased confidence. We try to widen their vision. So college students are not a piece of cake, sounds like..

[Roger]

writpetition:
It is saddening to read of your complaint against us China hands. You assume we all know "good" employers? You must be deluding yourself. I don't know "good" ones, merely "better" ones than the mediocre rest.
I like to help TEFLers in their search for a stable and mentally rewarding job; my experience shows, however, you get even shafted by employers you have very good rapport with.
We are yeast here, not the flour that makes the bread. As yeast we are only tolerable up to a maximum extent. Our presence here should institute change, as is the mission of NETs in Hong Kong: to bring about change to fossilised classroom teaching. Unfortunately, change is resisted by just about everyone in the pie except ourselves. Our students don't want change, our employers watch over us with an inordinate amount of suspicion, and parents don't trust us either. Every class is supposed to have at least one monitor, and one of the students is supposed to report back to the school on us. If you trample on one of the CHinese holy cows you are in hot water.
This is an arch-conservative system obsessed with its survival struggle. Our students should become "self-confident"? Why/ it's not my mission to infuse in them a false sense of self-importance just because they happen to be talking to me; I try to enhance their overall self-esteem rather than their perceived lack of confidence in using english. That's illusory so long as their own teachers never talk to them in English.
You are doing a Donquijote battle against hundreds of windmills in China. Even if your employer gives you free rein in your class there are still the parents to deal with. These parents have the mindset inherited from their teachers raised during or before Mao's terror during the Cult Revolution. There is little respect for teachers left now. Teachers are idiots for being idealists. Ask any normal school graduate! at least in Guangdong they are without such illusions.
Parents have never learnt to make choices as regards their kids in terms of what's best for them; they subscribe to a pretty uniform national idea of what education is for: to get a well-paid position. Thus, attending school is not for becoming educated; it is a means to show one's patriotic inclinations and Chinese upbringing. Quality doesn't matter much even though there is an official ranking of universities. few of them pass muster before critical eyes. What matters is MONEY. Four or five years ago, the authorities stopped free education; it is free in name only. Everybody has to pay, and for the vast majority, i.e. the peasants, this is a matter of survival or death from starvation. Hence the guanxi and greasing of palms overproduction now. Why can some parents send their child to England costing him at least 10'000 pounds a year, when a peasant family have to borrow money to pay a 1000 yuan tuition for one of their children? You must know that more than one third of China's population lives on an income well below 10'000 a year. Some don't even make 1000 in a single year!

[rickinbeijing]

While I concur with most of what Roger said in his most recent post, I must say that he is more than a bit pessimistic. I don't think you're quixotic for wanting to prod your students. Teachers everywhere (not just in China) must confront bureaucratic intransigence since the culture of learning is universally conservative. In China, it is merely exacerbated by authoritarian politics. And Roger exaggerates, probably unwittingly, the degree to which parents of the Culture Revolution impress on their children the wrong attitude toward teachers. In fact, that generation of parents is now past not present (it ended in 1976). The current generation of parents, in addition to being practical, also includes many who while not idealistic do see merit in the intrinsic value of a good education. So struggle on, comrade, and take the China Old Hands (including myself) with a grain of salt. Oh, if you haven't read Salzman's "Iron and Silk" or Hessler's "River Town," get them next time your at a foreign language bookstore in Beijing or Shanghai. They are written two decades apart but are both uplifting and view the Chinese in a more positive light.

[writpetition]

Apologies, Roger, for sounding like I was complaining against the regulars here. That was not the idea. My intent was to show that selfishness is a trait that is natural and that there is no innate difference on this score between say, Chinese students and foreign teachers.
I did not assume that all people here knew 'good' schools but I did assume that some of the participants on the board here were in a position of strength and influence and could possibly, if they were in the state of mind, provide some guidance or in the very least, infromation. What I got instead, were a couple of brusque, thpoughtless and even rude posts.
Where, then, is the difference?

Man is a mouse who must guard his cheese!
Take a bite of it, when he does please.
It's hard to tell when a new cube'll be found
And when it is, he may not be around.
It's a race to eat and a race to sow,
The rest's unimportant, a mere sideshow.

Say cheese!

[Ger]

"I have a Masters degree in organizational leadership and teach for only two reasons. The primary reason is selfish. I like to learn continually and to be entertained at the same time. The second reason is that I like to facilitate (not teach) people who are dynamically learning and improving their lives."

My question to the original poster is simply this, to what extent are you concerned with the learning objectives of the learners (I mean they do have to pass examinations as a result of being at university) as opposed to simply asserting/practising your own leadership skills over the administrators and students (and anyone else who will tolerate it) there?

Are you not in an ESL/EFL teaching role rather than in a position as organizational leader?

[Madmaxola]

[dwhansen]

Ger, thanks for writing and you raise a very important point. You wrote:

My question to the original poster is simply this, to what extent are you concerned with the learning objectives of the learners (I mean they do have to pass examinations as a result of being at university) as opposed to simply asserting/practising your own leadership skills over the administrators and students (and anyone else who will tolerate it) there?

That's quite funny about asserting leadership skills in China. There's only one leader in China, Hu Jintao. Everyone else, including us are followers. I learned after one week in China that I would have two choices in how to behave and teach here. One choice is to "follow" the traditional expectations of a teacher. I decided against this because it was boring for me and didn't help the students much. So I decided to assert/practice as you say, my own classroom style. The truth is that I really don't give a damn what the 100 million or so "leaders" think or say about me or my style. In fact, at any time, I'm fully prepared to be taken from my home in the middle of the night and hauled gently but firmly onto an airplane. Get this, I'm serious about this, I show great disrespect for the education "system" here because it doesn't seem to have much built-in feedback/improvement cycling. I demonstrate my disrespect. Given what some of the other posters have written, I believe many of us teachers here understand that we can either be part of the problem or part of the solution.

Now, about learning objectives. Without going into detail, I'm sure you'll agree that the university has none, the chinese teachers seem to have plenty of them for the students, and the students' LO's seem to be only to memorize lists of words and other BS to pass an examination. I explain very clearly that I'm sorry that they, the students are put in this situation where they must constantly focus on the next examination, but I really don't care about that. I explain clearly that if they want to master the english language, get the hell OUT of the university, take all your parents' money, buy books, tapes, and seek out other like-minded friends who also want to master a foreign language. Short of quitting the university, I give them my classroom where they can freely and deliberately indulge in, play with, explore, and improve their ability to functionally USE the english language for meaningful purposes. When they "follow" me, they make great improvements, learn plenty from everyone in the room (fellow students), my role becomes a simple facilitator and occasional subject matter expert, and the students develop a new style of life that breaks down all the old barriers that imprisoned them and retarded their learning.

I have met many Chinese people who have self-taught English and have mastered it in less than two years. They lead themselves. In fact, now that we're on the subject, that's one of the only things that I actually "teach", self leadership...something like "independant, responsible thinking and behavior. Yes, you might say that I'm insensitive to the local culture. In fact it's because I'm acutely sensitive to the local culture's influence in retarding my students growth, that I encourage them in this direction.

[hesterprynne]

As far as the boring students part goes- I made a 2-sided handout for my students. One side has ten common Chinese conversational openers that will turn off a foreigner. The other side has ten conversational openers that might work. I have tried explaining the spirit of the document, but perhaps memorizing specifics of what I want or expect is easier for them.

[dwhansen]

Two lists, huh hesterprynne? I'd like to see them...Do you like chinese food? Do you miss your mother? Can we make friends so I can practice my oral english? I say, "No, I like hamburgers, No, I put my mother out to freeze in the snow so I could eat her later, and No, you don't practice your english here in my class, so why should I take my free time to baby you through it some other time?!"

On the positive side though, I've given my 3,000 plus students only two things to memorize in my three years. The first was:
"War, huh!
What is it good for, absolutely nothin!
Say it again..."

And the second thing was a question they could ask upon approaching a foreigner on the street:
"I speak english well enough and I'm a local here, so if you'd like me to help you with something, I'd be happy to."
I tell them to be prepared to hear a cold, "No", or a little warmer, "No thankyou". If so, simply say, "OK, goodbye" and simply walk away. They might also begin a wonderful relationship with a foreigner, helping them and practicing english at the same time. I warn the girls though to be careful with this kind of question addressed to a foreign man. We hear similar stuff all the time from prostitutes.