Job Discussion Forums

[hilary]

I've just started teaching a largeish class of adults. They have limited oral English skills but some of them have quite good comprehension. The textbook is aimed at absolute beginners. Halfway through my first class a small deputation asked me to spice up the lesson, as it were. It was too easy, they said. So I tried an exercise. I divided them into a few groups and asked them to spend 2 minutes or so thinking of random words around the topic of food, then music. One person would write the words down. Then I asked them to nominate one of the group to make up a story using some of the words. As I'd half expected, most of them didn't really manage to do it, and I had to elicit every word from them.

Does anybody have any suggestions as to how I can manage this class? Ideas for games, exercises, etc?

[Roger]

Teaching Chinese adults is no piece of cake. They have set attitudes and set learning styles that differ fromn your own enormously.
I am puzzled by your statement that their "comprehension" is "good"; in my view comprehension is often the weakest of all their skills.
Another problem might be their attitutde: they probably expect you to be their audience. It is incumbent upon you to make them accept that they must learn to listen to each other.
Part of the answer to your question hinges on the materials you are supposed to use. Don't stray too far from them!

Here is a tip you might use: have them form teams of two or three and work on a story to tell the whole class. You could dictate the beginning of a story and let them work out an end to it, preferably by incorporating a tricky phrase where some might slip up. For example, you could tell the story of a person who obeys instructions given him by his friend, on how to meet up in a town the recipient of instructions is not familiar with. He has to take a bus; the bus No. may be 241, but he confuses it with bus route 214... this leads to him travelling to a wrong destination, of course; now what do your students think up of how to solve the resultant problems?

Adult students are ideal only if they are self-payers.

[hilary]

[oprah]

Roger, your information about dictating the story. you do mean dictate the story, right? Do you put the story on the board for them to read? It is hopeful that they can listen while you dictate, but some of them can not listen.. so this is why yoy have the team approach?? Could you please confirm that you actually dictate.. listening skills..

[Roger]

On dictations:
Do I write it MYSELF on the black board? No way! Do they need it to be written there? Maybe./
I think their listening disability is culturally-induced, and it takes a big amount of energy to change it for the better. I won't write the story on the black board myself because they would simply copy it from there, unthinkingly.
I have, occasionally, a student write it on the board, and his peers have to identify his mistakes.
In my experience, students write just any English words that they think might be suitable even if these words make no sense in the context. Why? This is because they are so inured to memorising single words and phrases that they have not learnt to string together any sentence by themselves.
This is a creative process that requires them to think outside the box, i.e. "forget" their first language and think in the target tongue.
In my experience, the first few times are extremely hard on them, but gradually they become efficient and learn to think in whole English sentences. At the beginning, they often "anticipate" the next word or few words - often wrong words because of internalised structures they learnt during English vocabulary lessons.

It is important to teach them to see their own weaknesses rather than to encourage them to speak ungrammatical gibberish.
The stories I usually dictate use a limited vocabulary and are targeted at secondary school students. In fact, university level students have enormous problems understanding these stories using the 1800 most common English vocables.

[Roger]

On dictations:
Do I write it MYSELF on the black board? No way! Do they need it to be written there? Maybe./
I think their listening disability is culturally-induced, and it takes a big amount of energy to change it for the better. I won't write the story on the black board myself because they would simply copy it from there, unthinkingly.
I have, occasionally, a student write it on the board, and his peers have to identify his mistakes.
In my experience, students write just any English words that they think might be suitable even if these words make no sense in the context. Why? This is because they are so inured to memorising single words and phrases that they have not learnt to string together any sentence by themselves.
This is a creative process that requires them to think outside the box, i.e. "forget" their first language and think in the target tongue.
In my experience, the first few times are extremely hard on them, but gradually they become efficient and learn to think in whole English sentences. At the beginning, they often "anticipate" the next word or few words - often wrong words because of internalised structures they learnt during English vocabulary lessons.

It is important to teach them to see their own weaknesses rather than to encourage them to speak ungrammatical gibberish.
The stories I usually dictate use a limited vocabulary and are targeted at secondary school students. In fact, university level students have enormous problems understanding these stories using the 1800 most common English vocables. -