Job Discussion Forums

[Marcoregano]

Hi all. By Asians I actually mean Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, who seem to have a lot in common, socioculturally speaking. To save time I've selected some of Leeroy's post from the general discussion page:

"There is a big divide, in most teachers' (and students') minds between 'Asians' (which I'm using basically to cover Koreans, Chinese and Japanese) and 'others' (ie. Europe and Latin America).
For example...

Monday, 9.01am.

T: Hey Rosangela (Brazil), how was your weekend?

R: Oh, you know, it not so interesting, because so many my friends they go to this party, you know? But I cannot, because I wait for this man to call me about this thing, but he not call so then I think.......

T: OK, cool! How about you Slawomir (Poland)?

S: Yes, my weekend was good, I drink some vodka with friends, then we go to bar but it's too expensive, so then we......

T: Right. How about you Miho? (Japan)

M: (15 min. pause)

T: Miho?

M: Nice.

T: Why was it nice?

M: See flend. so velly happy.

Suffice to say, myself and the others were enthralled by Miho's engaging narrative...

The above situation is not unusual, generally speaking my Asian students prefer not to make long speeches about things. In fact, compared to their European and Latin American counterparts, they aren't that keen to speak at all."

I actually asked some students during mid-term interviews what they thought about the relative reluctance to communicate with Asians. Eun-mi (Korea) gave me the following insight...

"Europe people prefer to talk about opinions and emotions. But we do not! We like talking about things we see, and experience, places we go and things. Maybe more simple things." " END OF QUOTE.

I teach adults in Hong Kong and have to agree with Leeroy's observations. My students want to develop their English speaking skills, but when given the opportunity to do so in the classroom they simply don't do it - or at least, they seem very reluctant to 'have a go,' even though I put them in comfortable small groups. Perhaps Eun-mi has a point...the discussion topics we give them are often too opinionated for them. So my question is: What do they want to talk about? What works? I need to get my students talking!! (And please remember, these are adults, not children).

[khmerhit]

IMHO: pulling teeth is an easier task than the one you have set yourself.

YES
Movies/home life/friends/relations/cars/holidays/local prices/complaints re school/marks/grades//landscape/hobbies/work/money(briefly)/food/clothes/popularfashion/popularmagazines/tv stars/movie stars/cartoons/movie genres/sports:wrestlingfootballgolfboxing/international/regionalpolitics/cars

NO
Localpolitics(maybebriefly)/whatyoudidontheweekend/anypotentialfacelosssubjects:eg-whatyoudidontheweekend-("stayedathhome"=nomoney!)/abstractthings/domesticsituations/salaries/religion/history(sometimes)/etcetc/

Maybe:: try asking them to write a role play and leave one speakers dialogue blank. Switch roles.

They ask for conversation (Tea-cher, conversaton!) but they want you to do the talking, correct? Aggghhh!!!! Perhaps you could::::

Bring in pictures of movie stars. Get groups to create stories. Pairwork.

Remember----------- only three things count in Asia:

1. FACE
2. FACE
3. FACE

hope this helps a bit

[Albulbul]

"Asian" Do you really think they are all the same ? Are Japanese the same as Koreans ? Are Koreans the same as Taiwanese ? Are Hong Kong Chinese the same as Singaporeans ?

I still find it odd that USAnians use the term "Asian" to mean someone from Japan, Korea or Taiwan/ The geographical boundaries of Asia are wider !

And in the UK "Asian" means someone from Pakistan or India.

Ain't it weird !

[Seth]

Pakistan and India would be 'South Asian.' The reason the far East is called 'Asian' is because of the large east asian population the US has. They identify themselves as just asian, so there you go.

I'm semi-fluent in Chinese so I can listen in on their conversations sometimes. Most of what they talk about is the blantently obvious things they see around themselves. Just chatter to fill the silence, mostly. A conversation at dinner I once heard:

'These green peppers are really green'
'Yes, I like green peppers. I like chicken, too.'
'Today the rice is a little dry.'
'A little. Rice is best when it's sticky.'
'I'm thirsty. This bean soup is good.'
'Yes, very good.'

On and on like that.

[lajzar]

[Marcoregano]

Er...yes, interesting Lazjar but can we please get back to the topic. Seth...what you say is interesting and I wonder how typical that is of dialogue in China. If you think of the same situation in 'Western' terms...they would be asking each other questions....eg. What do you think of the soup? as well as making statements. Your example contains only statements....which to us is a very bland - and unusual -conversational method. The problem is...in a classroom scenario....how can the teacher exploit this so as to get students speaking English. The standard ELT gambit used to instigate class discussion in language schools all over Europe (and elewhere) is to ask for opinions about contentious issues but here it just does not work. It would be interesting to get some input from a bilingual Chinese or Korean ELT.

[Sherri]

I teach adults in Japan. We tend to use topics taken from the news, so it is possible, in Japan at least to get students to talk about more abstract issues. You have to be careful how you set up the activity.

1. Make sure they have plenty of background knowledge. Give them newspaper articles on the topic to read as homework so that they have the information they need to take part in the discussion.

2. Give them time in groups to talk about the content of the article--very concrete, just talk about the main points made in the article.

3. Make sure they have the necessary vocabulary to talk about the topic.

4. Create roles, this way the students are not giving their own opinion, they are giving the opinion of the person (organization etc) they are role-playing. More than one student per role is good because then they can talk to each other to prepare before the discussion.

5. Make sure the students understand the purpose of the discussion. If nec write the purposes on the board. Tell the points you will be looking for in the post-discussion feedback (such as fluency, turn taking, use of new vocab--whatever). Japanese students don't want to waste time just chatting--or I should say the students I teach do not. They want to know what purpose the activity will serve.

6. You can act as the discussion leader the first couple of times if you need to, then hand over the role to a student once they become familiar with what needs to be done.

7. As they discuss apart from taking notes so that you can give feedback, make a "map" of their discussion so that the students can see later things like who spoke the most, who only spoke when asked a direct question etc.

hope this helps.

[Marcoregano]

Thanks for that Sherri but muchof your advice would be too complex or unworkable with my large classes (@30 students). Many wouldn't do the homework so any reading prep has to be done in class - but that's OK with a 3 hour class. However, many of my students seem very awkward with the roleplay concept/thinking out of the box - it doesn't seem to come to them very naturally at all and many of them would just grin like idiots. With this kind of activity some groups will just sit there and stare at each other....drives me crazy....even when i've set it up carefully, provided the vocab etc.

The map-feedback thingy....I'd need to be in 7 or 8 places at once as I have that many groups....it just wouldn't be possible.

I'll keep plugging away though. Certainly, using realia from local mags and newspapers may work....it seems a matter of choosing the right topics (non-contentious) and the right format to encourage them to talk IN ENGLISH.

[Sherri]

Hi Marc
I have done with groups of 30 (that is my limit though!) but they were already "trained". Maybe you could try scaling it down a bit at first to get them used to talking and voicing opinions--in other words, start training them.

For example choose a short article (around 100 words) on a local news topic. I sometimes ask the Japanese office staff for ideas/help on interesting topics since I don't read Japanese and can't always tell what is hot in the news here. Maybe as a first time activity just get them to find the main points (who, what, where , why, when etc) and retell the article or summarize it in small groups. The next time get them to add their opinion to it, just one sentence would be OK, the next time get them to justify the opinion--etc.

As for the mapping, you don't have to do everybody. Just choose one group to focus on each class, and use them as an example. Keep plugging away and good luck.

[Dragon5]

Money and Family

In that order!

[Dr.J]

There are two views on how to deal with this.

1) force them to talk the western way (eg debate)
2) get them to speak in the asian way but in english

I favour a bit of both - they are learning English to interact with westerners (usually) so it's foolish not to teach them how to understand and participate in the culture. Of course, this is stressful for many students, so you have to balance it out with activities that tap into their usual mode of communication.

If you make speaking English naturally their job, ie through role play then a lot of the time they kind of submit and do it.[/i]

[scot47]

To get a sensible anwer you have to pose a meaningful question. Would it make sense to ask "What do Americans talk about ?" Is there any way you could meaningfully answer that question ? I think not.

[shmooj]

Okay so now six of Miss Scarboro's last six posts have been about her(?) website with nothing more informative than that. Perhaps she's just a computer program or, as I suggested elsewhere, paying for the advertsiing privilege.

I digresssss .......

I play tennis and go camping and to the pub and hang out with lots of Japanese. The topics men talk about blow me away. They would not even be tolerated in the UK. Here's a typical one:

"Hmmm. New shoes."
"Yes, they're new."
"They look expensive."
"Oh no. They were cheap. I got them at xxx."
"Oh yes, that's cheap isn't it. I bought a shirt there last week."
"Oh so did my wife."

Or how about this:

"Nice day."
"Yes, nice day."
"Good for tennis."
"Yes good for tennis. No wind."
"Yes, yesterday it was windy wasn't it."
"Yes but today it isn't windy."
"No so it's good for tennis."

Drives me nuts.

But whatever topic I raise, no matter how dangerous is widely discussed. Lord knows what they did for conversation before I came along

Once, we went out to the pub and a friend joined us. He was a policeman but I didn't find this out until two hours in (something that would have been a topic instantly I think in the UK). Anyway, I started asking him all sorts of questions about how to avoid speed traps and the like and before long, everyone else was joining despite having known this guy for years. Maybe they had been desperately waiting for someone else to break the ice... I dunno.

My hypotheses:
*surface conversation is preferable at any time.
*deep/contraversial conversation is fine so long as you don't start it!

[Lynn]

What do Asians talk about? Do you means what do Asians talk about in English or in Asian language? There is a big difference.

My first experience in Japan was as an exchange student. I lived in a girl's dormitory. Japanese girls talk, and talk a lot. We covered all sorts of topics mostly about relationships. Hey, I'm a girl, too.
some topics:
having an affair with a married, but very cute driving school teacher
getting an abortion, the guy was a jerk, but at least he paid for it
wanting to have kids ,but not wanting a husband
"Taro" is such a boring boyfriend, but very good in bed
the evilness of the dorm mother/father compared to last year's
prefered birth control/contraception
parents
school
future

After graduating from college I went back as an adult and a teacher. I mostly talked to older women. We covered such topics as:
workplace sexualy harrasment; the Jpes ladies do not like it.
family
marriage
infedelity-I've talked to several Japanese women about this one

I also have 2 people in my life who are like my guardian angels. They took me in while I was in Japan. They are about 3 years younger than my parents. I was more on a friendship level with the wife, but more on a father/daughter level with the husband. They had a daughter who was born in Aug. 1974, but died a few months later. They never had a girl again. I was born Sept. 1974. Coincidence? I don't know.

We covered more topics than I've ever talked about with my own family.

I've never become close to a Japanese person without using Japanese. I don't really expect to. If a Japanese student tells me she's shy, I say, "you know what? Sometimes I'm shy, too. And it's okay!"

[Freaky Deaky]

God knows what they talk about in their own language, but I bet it's really mundane. It's bad enough in English when I ask a Chinese person where they come from and they reply 'China'. How absolutely thick-as-pigshit is that? Plus it takes them about five minutes to think about it.