Job Discussion Forums

kevinchen · Joined: 30 Oct 2005 Posts: 1

A couple of days ago , i found this website by google accidently. i surfed this website but really it was just curious what my foreign teachers might think when they are in china.so i spent 6 hours to read some posts.
To be honest, i was very suprised by what i read. i used to think my foreign teachers are willing to talk to us but actually some of them not.i won't talk to my foreign teacher anymore unless i find some better words. because they might not only think our english are poor but also think we are stupid and annoying. i also learned some words that i should never use it in my life such as (" do you like chinese food, can we be friends and Can I ask you question?"")
Some foreign teachers here are so mean, such as someone written'I answer something that sounds like "Gwdbbuppdup." When they look puzzled, I just shrug my shoulders, as if the problem is their listening skills. I've used it once so far and it was quite effective." our english is not that good but at least most of us are honest and hard-studying i really understand my Ft, some chinese teachers have gotten used to overwork without call-back pay, i know it's terrible in ft's view.there is no dout that our educational system leaves something to be desired but that 's not our faults.
i totally agree with and appreciate those people's comments. "language is something that is to be understood as a communication not as an academic discipline - language illustrates culture and society.""They need decent study habits, a decent, conscientious teacher, willingness to trust that teacher, and time. Then they'll DO JUST FINE. ""we should take into consideration that English is a difficult language for their cognitive standards. Ever tried to speak Chinese without making mistakes? "it largely comes from their reliance on those bloody electronic dictionaries. The e-dictionary is also the source of the out-dated terms the come up with, as well." Especiaaly this one "Most of them are just trying to be friendly and are hindered by their lack of English ability. And not all of them want free English lessons.".
i also would like to give tips to some fts. if you don't have time to correct our pronunciation or grammar you could just suggest some good websites for us. someone said "language illustrates culture and society ' as the chinese saying goes"己所不欲，勿施与人" "ji suo bu yu, wu shi yu ren. that means if you want to get someone's respect and understanding you had better do it first. To understand chinese culture and society will make your teaching simple and enjoyable.
Finally. i was hoping all fts could get used to the life in china ASAP and have a wonderful time here.
kevin chen

vikdk · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 1676

Bolloks to grammar and pronunciation � what Chinese students need are more FT�s who actually have something to say!

Rabid · Joined: 05 Oct 2005 Posts: 199

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

[quote=" .
i also learned some words that i should never use it in my life such as (" do you like chinese food, can we be friends and Can I ask you question?"")
Some foreign teachers here are so mean, such as someone written'I answer something that sounds like "Gwdbbuppdup."

our english is not that good but at least most of us are honest and hard-studying i really understand my Ft,
our educational system leaves something to be desired but that 's not our faults.
i totally agree with and appreciate those people's comments. "language is something that is to be understood as a communication not as an academic discipline - language illustrates culture and society.""They need decent study habits, a decent, conscientious teacher, willingness to trust that teacher, and time. Then they'll DO JUST FINE. ""we should take into consideration that English is a difficult language for their cognitive standards. Ever tried to speak Chinese without making mistakes? " i also would like to give tips to some fts. if you don't have time to correct our pronunciation or grammar you could just suggest some good websites for us. someone said "language illustrates culture and society ' as the chinese saying goes"己所不欲，勿施与人" "ji suo bu yu, wu shi yu ren. that means if you want to get someone's respect and understanding you had better do it first. To understand chinese culture and society will make your teaching simple and enjoyable.
Finally. i was hoping all fts could get used to the life in china ASAP and have a wonderful time here.kevin chen[/quote]

Kevin,

it is helpful to experience moments of surprise - they might enlighten you, help you understand what you do not yet understand.
You do not know "FTs" but you had, and maybe still have, certain ideas about them which you now are discovering to be at variance with reality. We call such ideas "preconceived ideas", and some "biases" or "prejudices". Has it ever occurred to you that your Chinese teacher doesn't really know the Western world, our culture and our various languages, or even English? Yet, she (or he) isd "teaching" you our "culture", whtever he or she thinks our culture is; thus you have received a pile of biases. This is not "education".
For example you feel hurt at learning what we think about those questions you have been trained or taught to bombard us with. THis shows the inefficiency of Chinese English teaching; translating your every Chinese phrase, the most common dialogues, into "English", and voila! A Chinese "English speaker" is made. You have learnt nothing about Western culture; you merely acquired the purely academic ability to formulate your Chinese monologues/dialogues into English and you expect us to tick according to your wishes. That's an error, my young friend!

We are human beings and human beings have FEELINGS that we also want to show. Do you know how often we are suppressing our true emotions because we know we are surrounded by foreigners (that is, Chinese nationals)?
How would you feel if you get asked those questions you are so surprised to learn that we don't like them? Would you forgive an ENglishman in London for asking you "do you speak English?" Would you forgive him if he was the hundreth person to ask this question in your own language? I don't think so!

As for Chinese food, it too is an insensitive question and shows your own preoccupation with China; enough said: I don't want to discuss with you whether I LIKE CHINESE FOOD - I have my very own opinion, and I must be given the right to own that opinion, full stop! On the other hand, we Westerners run into any number of Chinese that show no respect for us, that have no sensitivity and that tear into us with rude and biased opinions such as "all westerners are fat and ugly" or "AIDS is a Western disease" or "I don't like Western food" (this is a very revealing "opinion", in my opinion it is a political statement rather than a personal idea).

Anyway, I can understand your feelings as well as I can understand our own feelings; unfortunately, it is next to impossible to affect the preconceived ideas of the majority of Chinese who make up our English classes, and that is in turn rather disappointing at times. Thus we should reap more sympathy from you than you should get it from us!

You said language is communication; our job descriptions are misleading. We come to a foreign country called 'China" and are told the English students there "have studied English for 5 years" - you can even insert '10'. We thus are misled into assuming you all have a solid foundation in our first language; this simply isn't true. You have a very wobbly basis that learners in other countries, developing countries at that! - put in place in maybe 3 years. Go to India, Africa, South America, Europe, and people there are virtually fluent and proficient at English after 3 years. But you are not even half as fluent or proficient after ten years (at university level). Any idea why this is so? I have plenty of ideas - but here is not the room to discuss them. May I humbly suggest you think a bit harder about the role of your Chinese English teachers, the schools and your obsession with exams and degrees?
There is a Roman saying in Latin that goes like this:

non scholae, vitae discimus!
In plain ENglish, this says: "We learn not for school but for life!"

Herein lies a huge quality difference between your education goals and ours; it would seem to me that your educationalists want to deprive young people of the freedom to use their spare time; they incarcerate you throughout your childhood in classrooms, for up to 12 hours a day. To me, this is a serious crime against childhood! And the result is: dysfunctional students, people with hardly any interests beyond their degrees and a future as a salaryman that can support his wive, their kid and their two sets of parents in their old age. You CHinese simply lack a balanced world view, one in which leisure and pleasures rival with industriousness, work, study.

I hope you do talk to other FTs and learn of our furstrations as people working in such an inhumane education system; we are doing this for your benefit.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

[quote=" .
i also learned some words that i should never use it in my life such as (" do you like chinese food, can we be friends and Can I ask you question?"")
Some foreign teachers here are so mean, such as someone written'I answer something that sounds like "Gwdbbuppdup."

our english is not that good but at least most of us are honest and hard-studying i really understand my Ft,
our educational system leaves something to be desired but that 's not our faults.
i totally agree with and appreciate those people's comments. "language is something that is to be understood as a communication not as an academic discipline - language illustrates culture and society.""They need decent study habits, a decent, conscientious teacher, willingness to trust that teacher, and time. Then they'll DO JUST FINE. ""we should take into consideration that English is a difficult language for their cognitive standards. Ever tried to speak Chinese without making mistakes? " i also would like to give tips to some fts. if you don't have time to correct our pronunciation or grammar you could just suggest some good websites for us. someone said "language illustrates culture and society ' as the chinese saying goes"己所不欲，勿施与人" "ji suo bu yu, wu shi yu ren. that means if you want to get someone's respect and understanding you had better do it first. To understand chinese culture and society will make your teaching simple and enjoyable.
Finally. i was hoping all fts could get used to the life in china ASAP and have a wonderful time here.kevin chen[/quote]

Kevin,

it is helpful to experience moments of surprise - they might enlighten you, help you understand what you do not yet understand.
You do not know "FTs" but you had, and maybe still have, certain ideas about them which you now are discovering to be at variance with reality. We call such ideas "preconceived ideas", and some "biases" or "prejudices". Has it ever occurred to you that your Chinese teacher doesn't really know the Western world, our culture and our various languages, or even English? Yet, she (or he) isd "teaching" you our "culture", whtever he or she thinks our culture is; thus you have received a pile of biases. This is not "education".
For example you feel hurt at learning what we think about those questions you have been trained or taught to bombard us with. THis shows the inefficiency of Chinese English teaching; translating your every Chinese phrase, the most common dialogues, into "English", and voila! A Chinese "English speaker" is made. You have learnt nothing about Western culture; you merely acquired the purely academic ability to formulate your Chinese monologues/dialogues into English and you expect us to tick according to your wishes. That's an error, my young friend!

We are human beings and human beings have FEELINGS that we also want to show. Do you know how often we are suppressing our true emotions because we know we are surrounded by foreigners (that is, Chinese nationals)?
How would you feel if you get asked those questions you are so surprised to learn that we don't like them? Would you forgive an ENglishman in London for asking you "do you speak English?" Would you forgive him if he was the hundreth person to ask this question in your own language? I don't think so!

As for Chinese food, it too is an insensitive question and shows your own preoccupation with China; enough said: I don't want to discuss with you whether I LIKE CHINESE FOOD - I have my very own opinion, and I must be given the right to own that opinion, full stop! On the other hand, we Westerners run into any number of Chinese that show no respect for us, that have no sensitivity and that tear into us with rude and biased opinions such as "all westerners are fat and ugly" or "AIDS is a Western disease" or "I don't like Western food" (this is a very revealing "opinion", in my opinion it is a political statement rather than a personal idea).

Anyway, I can understand your feelings as well as I can understand our own feelings; unfortunately, it is next to impossible to affect the preconceived ideas of the majority of Chinese who make up our English classes, and that is in turn rather disappointing at times. Thus we should reap more sympathy from you than you should get it from us!

You said language is communication; our job descriptions are misleading. We come to a foreign country called 'China" and are told the English students there "have studied English for 5 years" - you can even insert '10'. We thus are misled into assuming you all have a solid foundation in our first language; this simply isn't true. You have a very wobbly basis that learners in other countries, developing countries at that! - put in place in maybe 3 years. Go to India, Africa, South America, Europe, and people there are virtually fluent and proficient at English after 3 years. But you are not even half as fluent or proficient after ten years (at university level). Any idea why this is so? I have plenty of ideas - but here is not the room to discuss them. May I humbly suggest you think a bit harder about the role of your Chinese English teachers, the schools and your obsession with exams and degrees?
There is a Roman saying in Latin that goes like this:

non scholae, vitae discimus!
In plain ENglish, this says: "We learn not for school but for life!"

Herein lies a huge quality difference between your education goals and ours; it would seem to me that your educationalists want to deprive young people of the freedom to use their spare time; they incarcerate you throughout your childhood in classrooms, for up to 12 hours a day. To me, this is a serious crime against childhood! And the result is: dysfunctional students, people with hardly any interests beyond their degrees and a future as a salaryman that can support his wive, their kid and their two sets of parents in their old age. You CHinese simply lack a balanced world view, one in which leisure and pleasures rival with industriousness, work, study.

I hope you do talk to other FTs and learn of our furstrations as people working in such an inhumane education system; we are doing this for your benefit.

vikdk · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 1676

Hallalulla - I say Roger for Nobel peace prize!!!

Hey seriously � good stuff this for a class discussion � how many of you guys would dare talk about this in the classroom?

Songbird · Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 2:58 am Post subject:

I second that, bravo, Roger Very Happy

! I have never quite been able to put those kinds of thoughts into words, mind if I quote you in future??

Vikdk- no, I couldn't talk about this in my classes even if I wanted to- like what Roger said, these students (sorry, I have to call them kids!) have told me proudly they've studied for 7 years or so.....but you wouldn't know it. Hell, they don't even know the difference between male and female! They go out at 6am before morning exercise and recite, recite, recite over and over.....sounds okay in theory for pronunciation, but their doing their vocab a sever injustice. My students in particular seem to fear expanding their vocabularies, and even when they take the plunge, all they do is carry around their dictionary (or their idea of a thesaurus??) and memorize this (in typical Chinese fashion).

I think it has a lot to do with their teachers from middle school (and now primary school, now they are starting to learn English even earlier)- it's round and round in circles with bad vocab, bad pronunciation, bad grammar......Maybe I am noticing this moreso, I live in a village on the eastern side of Gansu, before arriving at this college these students have never seen another foreigner in their life, and I would bet my bottom dollar their English TEACHERS in middle school have also never had any instruction from foreigners either. So there's the constant battle with 'delishrs' (delicious), 'famrs' (famous), 'ill' (and they don't know what I'm talking about if I say 'sick') and stuck on 'going abroad' (and not 'overseas') and it goes round and round because no matter how much I/ other FT's chastise them they ignore it (even though they're here to learn, they're not open to changing) then go out, be teachers and the same thing starts all over!

The corruption & bribery doesn't help either. The FT's here are very careful to distribute grades to the students BEFORE officially handing them to the Department, there are many instances of grades being fiddled with to allow the students to continue on. Man, I tell you, being out in the middle of nowhere is so damn frustrating with these traditional students and teachers who hate the idea of change, they hate the fact we don't ignore a mistake and keep going like Chinese teachers, we refuse to let them keep going until they get it right! I was also talking over dinner a week or so ago with another teacher, discussing motivation. We came to the conclusion that none of the students here have ANY motivation to learn English whatsoever. We ask them and they say 'to try and get a job in a small middle school'- I ask, 'Why? Why not aim higher? Why not push yourself and try for a school in Langzhou? Xian, Hell, even Beijing?!' They don't care, it's too hard, they're still so young but have almost resigned themselves to village schools for the rest of their life with no intention of continuing their language studies. It's so depressing!

Don McChesney · Joined: 25 Jun 2005 Posts: 656

Kevin,
I'm sorry to say that whatever you hear or read, regarding spoken English, it is NOT the real thing.
Street English is often crude, violent, poorly constructed and full of ignorance. Accents and dialects add to the problems if you go overseas.
Not all English speakers have University degrees and use language the way you hear or read in your textbooks.
I would suggest the same goes for China and us. What we carefully learn is again NOT what we hear on the streets and in the markets.
Welcome to the real world.

vikdk · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 1676

hey songbird - don't just dismiss your pupils as empty non thinking/caring vessels - a few years ago students at a famous tourist spot confronted very large vehicles and fast moving pieces of metal - many never came back - they must have been able to discuss something to make them want to take such a one way holiday!!!

Mideatoo · Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:23 am Post subject:

kevinchen:
ONLY 20% ARE REAL PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS, ALL OTHERS ARE ..... "FOREIGNERS" WHICH WOULD NEVER QUALIFY AS "TEACHERS" BACK HOME......

Volodiya · Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:43 am Post subject:

Mideatoo, China requires foreign teachers to have a university degree and two years' teaching experience to qualify for the Foreign Expert Certificate. If you're unhappy with that, you should take it up with the Chinese government.

With a university degree certain official, government teaching jobs are open to U.S. citizens in their own country. Among these are temporary, substitute teachers, and TESL positions (second language training, funded by the U.S. government, for immigrants).

A "teacher" is, first of all, one who teaches. If you are paid to do it, you are a professional, in some sense of the word. As in any field, it's always possible to add credentials and certifications no matter where you may be on the ladder of increasing qualifications.
____________________

By the way, that new avatar is a nice addition. Makes following these threads easier on the eyes.... I'm ranking yours, and Cardinal Synn's, tops of the charts.

vikdk · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 1676

maybe if FT's cared and knew as much about sound educational methods and practices - as they did about their FEC - a document which many seem to attitribute the mythical quality of sorting the quality from the trash - then maybe we could deal with the real problems of the Chinese classroom in a genuine manner!

Volodiya how many of your posts have been about the real job of teaching - how many jusy drone on about rule rule rule rule!

what a bore!

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

Just like all FTs are not cut from the same cloth, neither are all Chinese students.

dajiang · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 663 Location: Guilin!

I think it's pretty cool that a student has a say here.
Very refreshing.

Should have more of them reading this stuff and giving feedback like this.
Gives for good discussion at least, and I'm sure that lots of students are in desperate need of discussions like this.

I wonder what Kevin will reply.

Dajiang

vikdk · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 1676

Kev7161 � I think you�ll find many students regard an FT�s lessons as breaktime simply cause they don�t get enough of a break (both time and results wise) � Chinese teachers have a simple method of reminding their class that�s its lesson time by using teaching methods that encourage bowel movements, and making sure the school has a product � passed exams. As for you mate � well you�re just an easy touch � no need to take you seriously at all. To get them to pay attention, then your lessons really have to be special.

Similar stuff used to happen in my dim and distant school days in grammar school 11 plus UK. I can remember a teacher we called the Toad � a disgusting loathsome monster � he had us peeing our pants just at the smell of his breath! Many of the other �masters� were of the same ilk � which resulted in absolute riots in any of classes where we were allowed to be ourselves. Funny thing though I learnt some good stuff in those riots, like self discipline is pretty useful if you actually found the lesson interesting � but my memories of the toad�s classes are just fear.