Job Discussion Forums

[Wolf]

Hi, all.

I'm not quite sure if I've fallen into a surrealistic movie, of if it's just that China gets weirder in the summer (hence that's why everyone vacations at this time.)

Due to a complete lack of finances caused by grad school, I'm still living at my uni (aside from one short reprieve, here I shall stay.) I'm the only FE left - at any institution around for miles.

Okay, so as such, I've been asked to teach at a week long summer school. Okay, I've been asked to teach at two, but for reason's that I'll get into in a moment, I'm not doing the second one even if they offer me 1 British Pound for every RMB I would have gotten.

My boss asked me to teach a week long seminar. He said it would be six classes a day. When I asked who my students would be, he said they'd be the Chinese teachers of English at the university (not true: they're teachers from nearby high schools.) How many classes per day? I ask. Six. Okay, what am I supposed to teach them? It's just oral English classes - no preparation necessary.

Okay, I'm thinking. No preparation or materials. So, that would mean I'd be teaching several different groups over a week. I mean, no sane, experienced teacher (as my dean has seemed to be over the last 5 months) would honestly expect another teacher to, oh, say, teach the same crowd of people NOTHING for 30 straight hours. No one could drone on for that long, with no lesson plan, materials, etc.

Well, I'm supposed to do just that. Let's take a look at the contact time. I have more contact hours with this bunch in a week than I had with my student classes all term. I found out that this was supposed to be some sort of teacher improvement seminar, oh, after I got there.

Now, the Tiny Voice of Logic and Reason inside my head said:

WHAT THE F*** IS GOING ON IF YOU WANT SOME GUY TO TEACH A SEMINAR THEN ASK HIM IN ADVANCE FOR IDEAS AND GET HIM TO PREPARE SOME MATERIALS AND BY THE WAY GIVE COPIES OF SAID MATERIALS TO THE STUDENTS SO THAT THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO DO BESIDES YAWN AT EACH OTHER BY THE THIRD DAY/15TH CLASS HOUR.

The ol' Tiny Voice of Logic and Reason has had a rough time of it in China. You must excuse it.

Remember, I was told that this was simply a random series of oral classes for a random series of profs, not a well planned seminar. Geez, my "foreinger" status is not literally magic - it doesn't allow me to entertain magically a group of people I don't know for that much time.

The sad, sad part is, I would have helped put together materials and stuff if they had asked. Heck, as I'm actually interested in conducting EFL lessons and I have never done a seminar before, I would have jumped at the chance.

Now I'm not sure if I'll last the week. I "agreed" to do another - but that's at another uni and I'm telling them tomorrow I'm not going. I've really stressed over getting decent lessons for this one. After 2 days and 12 hours of classes I'm running low. I didn't bring a lot of stuff to China. I was moving, so I concentrated on bringing a bunch of clothes that fit. Stupid me.

Yes, I know about the internet, and EFL class materials contained therein. My home PC is toast (power failure ate hard drive) and I had planned to buy a new one, but not until these classes were over. My department has already refused - yes refused to my face after I explained it out - to let me use department comptuers to find class materials (this was several months ago when I first started teaching.) I've got some textbooks (the few I brought plus what the uni uses), but I only have one copy, and the school won't pay to let me make others. If this were an easy to solve thing - or even a difficult to solve thing I saw the answer to - I wouldnt' have posted here.

Yes, I know where I am. But even in the PRC, I didn't think that people would expect a teacher to go into a class that has as many teaching hours as an enitre semester with Blessed F*** All prepared. And then expect them not to stress. Or quit. Or ask for British Pounds instead of RMB.

What's left of my sanity has to last me at least the next 11 1/2 months until I can take a contract somewhere else.

Not sure why I posted, but I felt like venting in a forum where some people might agree that this unequivically absurd thing is absurd.

[Tong Dawei]

Yo Wolf,
I was just telling a friend about my upcoming week's worth of conversational english classes that i have to teach for six periods daily. Then I happened accross this post. Cheers! I'm not gonna fret over this. I'm gonna start off by just talking about myself (40 years of information to pick and choose from) so that they get used to my voice and such. I'll probably have to repeat the same info over and over for various classes depending on their comprehension levels. Gradually, I will begin to enjoin the people into the conversations. You know that you can loose time within the span of a lively conversation and who knows where such conversations will end up at the end of each class. I'm not gonna sweat such a loosey goosey "seminar" atmoshpere. Granted, I may go hoarse two days into this thing but that is the worst that could happen. Don't worry, be happy...

[MonkeyKing]

Wolf, I was in a similar situation last summer, and it was unbelievably stressful...I ended up with a rash and stomach pains that I am sure were summer-school related! I have heard that "oral class = zero prep time" a lot here...unbelievable eh? (but, there are plenty of foreign bodies who will go in there and shoot the breeze for hours straight instead of actually teaching, it seems.)
How much internet access do you have? There are a lot of good ideas for materials-free oral lessons that have saved my bacon a few times at amityfoundation.org. Check it out if you can.
Good luck.

[khmerhit]

Wolf,
cant you set up some communicative exercises to make them do the work (and the learning)? Otherwise its just you talking talkin talkin and trying in vain to get them to speak (Ive done it). There must be an easier way!

[Jacob]

I had to teach high school for a special conversational season during the winter break. The demands were similar to yours. Here's what I did... I spent the first class asking what the students want to learn about. What do they want to be able to talk about or learn in English. Then I took the list, created topics for each class and expanded on that with useful words, phrases, exerpts and questions. It worked out pretty well but there was prep involved. You can do it. Just adapt to their needs and wants to learn.

[Wolf]

khermit and Jacob, thanks for your advice. I actually ended up doing something similar. I have fairly limited net access now - read only more or less as I can't print or even save to floppy at the net cafes.

I ended up using the conversational activities out of my students' textbooks - and a few books I brought over from Japan.

I also started off the class by answering questions about myself. My life's events are so boring that I doubt even a foreinger - starved Chinese crowd could possibly be intersted (plus it's my own personal history. There are some things I just don't tell my students.)

[kathleen]

Start by introducing yourself. Tell them your life story. Let them ask you questions about anything. Give them some sentence patterns and vocabulary with which they can then tell you theirs. Make each student give a presentation. Let them then interview each other. Break them up into small groups to discuss topics and then make each group report to the class.

In short, use your imagination and your own language skills. You can easily fill up 30 hours. It's oral English so get the students talking. Ask them what topics they want to talk about and learn about and then go with it.

I have been teaching adult conversation like this for years. They always give me a Cambridge ESL text, which I think is inferior to my method.
My students have come up with great topics such as health care reform, corporate culture, family life, fashion, managing money, etc. For each topic I am able to teach them at least 50 new words or expressions just off the top of my head.

[ellenjane10]

I like to ask my students to bring copies of Chinese newspapers to class. Sometimes I buy a few myself for this activity. I ask the students to select an article or a photograph and explain it to me in English. They can work in a group or indivdually and then make a presentation to the class and to me. I ask them more questions about the topic. I try to give them a purpose for using their English. Sometimes we call it the "Hot Topic" of the day. Usually there is a fairly good discussion coming from these articles.

Hope this helps.