Job Discussion Forums

[bethano]

Hi all,

although I've been teaching in China for a year, I've just had to begin teaching in the adult education section of the college.

My experience so far has been with 18-23 year olds training to be middle school teachers, because that's what they've been told to do. However, my new students have chosen to do further study (though you wouldn't have guessed it from the lack of enthusiasm from some) and complete a 3 year zhuanke course in 2 years. They vary from their middle 20's to late 30's, early 40's.

I have two first year classes for oral English. Last term they were taught by a chinese colleague, so basically text book and nothing else. Now I've come in and want to teach them extra topics as well as use the textbook (it's the poorest prefecture in Guizhou, so the cost of textbooks is a lot to these people).

Does anybody have any ideas on topics which suit these age ranges?

Also, what activities have you found worked best with similar ages? I want to get them to start thinking a bit more.

Sorry if there's a similar post, but I've only got the department computer to use so can't spend hours trawling through previous posts.

Cheers

Bethan

[Roger]

My advice is: earn their respect so they can learn from you. Show them that you know your turf, i.e. your language, including grammar, and don't be too shy in giving them a piece of your mind.

As for topics, sorry, I feel that's too subjective. You will probably soon discover that their major problem is their listening skill; another might be pronunciation. My suggestion is to teach them something novel - to listen to each other give speeches! Yes, they are not used to listening when anyone talks to them as a group. This is a culturally-induced weakness that you have a chance of making them aware of.
Have them speak about things they can confidently handle, but tighten the screws as much as possible. Tell them to speak for exactly two minutes at a time, or give an account in 200 words. Don't allow them to read aloud from prepared papers.
After every student's performance test their peers whether they listened; shame those who failed to pay attention by having them own up. I even ask them to stand up until someone else has answered my question.
Ask their peers to assess the speaker's pronuncation, grammar and comprehensibility.
Make notes of their most recurrent grammar issues; SVA is the first you will come across.

In the past, I used to have enormous success in my classes when I required my students to talk about cheating during exams, and how to prevent that. This is, after all, a problem that they should pay attention to, and one with which they ought to be rather and uncannily familiar with.

[7969]

since my classes here are so large, i have to do a lot of group work. so now i have them discuss a topic in groups, and try to have one student from each group present the groups findings to the class. it works but not great. there's always too much background chatter, often i have to struggle to hear the speaker, and its still hard to get one volunteer from each group. what topics? hard to say.... often you'll find that no matter what you choose, they dont like it. but you have to make them like it. at least for the 40 minute class.

[bethano]

Thanks both for the replies. I'll take these into consideration when I'm planning their next lesson.