Job Discussion Forums

[NorbertRadd]

Life's found me with a bunch of WORLD CLASS non-learners. I had an entire class fail an oral exam yesterday and I've been counseled by Chinese colleagues to fail no less than 5%. One guy said I could fail 20%. I am doing re-testing the next couple weeks.
Geez Louise, I've been a bad student before but I never spent 6+ years studying the same subject. My students can't answer basic first meeting lessons nor ask any of the typical questions, e.g., "What happened?" or "What's happening?" that I do for the daily slide show.
What's wrong with this picture?
Below is the exam I gave them:
1. Please tell me about yourself [10 sentences].
2.What do you do for fun?
3. What do you usually wear?
4. How do you get around town?
5. What�s your timetable?
6. What do you usually eat?

[Super Mario]

I must have got lucky. I taught at two "Technical" universities with not the sharpest tools in the shed, but 90% could handle that exam.

Are you at the Ningxia Tractor Assembly Institute, BTW?
Generally, when students don't/can't/won't learn English, its not that they're totally dumb.
Its just that they can't see any point in it. They're right. Their schools make them do it. Why? Do Idaho supermarket chicks learn Chinese, on the off chance Jiang Zi Min might drop in for some instant noodles?
Its the dumb system, my friend.

[Roger]

I think we need to take into account how our English learners have arrived at the level where we are put to train them to use what they have memorised. This seems to be a quantum leap for all of them since their own upbringing doesn't foster the speaking out of their own minds. Remember, this is a communitarian society!

Thus, I have always fround myself at odds with this concept of "teaching" (can one do that?) of speaking; to give a Chinese person - irrespective of their status, social rank or age - any choice seems to be tantamount to making their lives complicated: walk a Chinese woman down a road and leave the choice of a restaurant to her she will change her mind over which eatery to enter 3 times in one minute! Thus, no discussions where students have to make an educated choice of what to say!

Far better - in my experience! - is to narrow the topic down. And even better is to make them recite poems or entire passages.

That would kill two flies with one pebble: they can actually practise speaking, while at the same time produce or reproduce the English YOU want to hear from them (quality-wise).

The more gifted ones can still be asked to give an interpretation of those poems or song lyricas!

[NorbertRadd]

I hear what you two are saying but I'm not in the backwoods here in Shenzhen and memorizing passages is just teaching them to parrot, which is a language skill but most of the students can't even learn to say: "I must use the rest room" although some do know the word "toilet". Just down the street are several international exhibition halls. If I'm here next fall with the freshmen, I'll organize field trips to the places.

[kev7161]

I certainly empathize with the OP as I've "been there, done that" before. However, just a mild critique of your questions (with the obvious fact that I wasn't in your classroom, so these questions may well be totally appropriate) - -

1. Please tell me about yourself [10 sentences]. (this one's okay - - 10 sentences? I would be happy with 3 or 4!)

2.What do you do for fun? (maybe rephrase to: What are your hobbies? What are your favorite pasttimes? What do you like to do in your free time? More specific using words they may have studied in the past. If "fun" an actual Chinese concept?)

3. What do you usually wear? (Again, more specific using vocab they may know - - "What kind of clothing do you usually wear" or "What famous brands do you usually wear [giving them an example such as "Nike"])

4. How do you get around town? (What kind of transportation do you use? "get around" seems pretty "slang-y", unless you've discussed it in class)

5. What�s your timetable? (Tell me about your daily schedule.)

6. What do you usually eat? (What kinds of foods do you like to eat? Okay - yours was okay as well, just giving you a second option)

Again, I'm not judging, but have you had practice spoken tests in your classes before the actual test? In other words, did you model for them what you were looking for (pronuciation, enunciation, complete sentences, proper grammar, etc.)? Did you pair them up and have one be the questioner and the other be the . . . questionee . . .?

A good strategy to get students talking (sometimes) is to have them "be the teacher". In this case, have some questions written on slips of paper and call someone up to pull out one question at a time, call on fellow classmates, and ask the questions. You could even have 3 or 4 of your more verbal students play "judge" and they rate the response based on pre-determined criteria. You can turn it into a game, competition, or reward based activity based on scores they receive from the judges.

Just some thoughts, although too late for this semester, I'd imagine.

[Super Mario]

Fair comment Kev. I didn't think the OP's post was overly colloquial, but a lot of the time we slip into casual expressions that leave 2nd language users stranded.

Do you "do" breakfast?

[kev7161]

Another follow-up: I love the idea of showing pictures and having students talk about it. It's a tried and true teaching technique that (usually) gets students' creative juices flowing. Instead of saying "What's happening" or "What happened", maybe change to "What do you THINK is happening?" or "What do you see in this picture?" Think that makes a difference? Let's do an example:

Let's say you show a picture of a man sitting on a park bench with a cup of soda. Someone obviously has asked him the time as he has just looked at his watch, inadvertently spilling the soda on himself as he was holding it with the same hand as which he was wearing the watch. (I've actually seen this in an advertisement somewhere - - for a watch? a soft drink? I don't remember.)

If you ask a student to tell you what he sees in the picture, they can come up (hopefully) with a bunch of two or three word sentences. You can even write on the board as a prompt: "I see . . . "

They can respond, "I see a man." "I see a woman." (who was asking the time) "I see a car." "I see a watch." "I see a cup of soda." . . . and so on.
This has loosened them up a little. Then you can move on to "What do you THINK has happened?" If someone answered, "he spilled soda (or 'ke-le') on himself." Then you can ask "Why?" Maybe someone will respond, "he was looking at her watch" (HER because they always seem to switch those two pronouns around). Then you can say, "Why?"

Anyway, you get the idea. Instead of just asking "What happened?", maybe try starting small and then expanding. Maybe they don't answer because they don't know how to express themselves in lengthy sentences and don't want to embarrass themselves. To say, "I see a man." might be a huge step for some of them. As you're doing this, you can start a word map on the board, where one idea can lead to another and another and another . . .

Or maybe they're just lazy and don't care one way or another . . .

[millie]

If you haven�t taught it, why would you test it?

The students are as you find them and it�s important to accept that and build on that rather than criticise them and their learning histories and current needs.

Still, I can understand how your situation may be both frustrating and disappointing

M

[latefordinner]

OP: Whatever happened to the other adverbs of frequency? I would have happily picked "Often" or "frequently", but as they weren't available, I went with the popular drift and decided to blame the teacher. Which is often myself.

I've had my share of unmotivated poorly disciplined students too. One of my least favourite comments came from a middle school teacher. I asked her why junior 2s couldn't do the same things that grades 5 and 6 primary could, and she replied, "Maybe the students at this school are just stupid." Ouch. I don't think I've ever wanted to say that about my own, but there I was walking into the last month, taking over from a dancing-clown style FT. That says it all, no?

Millie, a very good point. (You've made it before, no?) If we know what our objectives are from day one, teaching to the test and testing what we teach isn't a problem. And yes, we don't teach the curriculum, we teach it to the students.

Kev, as usual some helpful advice on technique.