Job Discussion Forums

[SimonM]

This term I have two freshman speaking classes. In general I am REALLY pleased with their progress. I have about five VERY talented speakers in the two classes who are just a complete pleasure to teach. One of them just came in sixth overall in the school-wide english speech contest. She beat out several third year students and each of the students competing were selected by their class for having the strongest speaking skills. Most of the rest have made adequate progress in developing their speaking and listening skills. Then there is one girl. She has very weak skills. Today we were doing an activity where the students had to give directions to different places using a map. I was working with her on this activity nearly exclusively because, with the visual aids, it was well within the ability of most of the class to handle without too much trouble. Well after about fifteen agonizing minutes it becomes clear to me that she isn't understanding a word I am saying to her and she simply can not grasp the idea of giving directions. So I pull her out of class and I tell her that I am concerned with her progress. She looks at me blankly.

So I decide to be blunt. I tell her that if she doesn't improve her speaking and listening skills before the end of the term she will fail speaking for the year.

She looks at me blankly.

I rephrase (speaking very slowly and enunciating very carefully) I say "if you do not improve your oral english you will not pass."

She looks at me blankly.

I ask her if she understands what I am telling her.

No, she does not.

So I take her down the hall to the staff office where the dean of the department (who speaks exceptional english as well as putonghua and more than one regional dialect) is and I ask him to explain to the girl in Chinese that she is failing, that her listening skills are seriously below the level of her classmates, that I am certain she is not doing her listening and speaking homework (which I can't exactly check) and that if she doesn't shape up in the next six weeks she will be repeating her freshman year.

So he tells her this as well as describing to her in putonghua the homework she should be doing every day.

Afterwards, as we walk back to class, she says to me that she DOES practice every day. Now I KNOW that this is a lie. I know what the level of English is for a freshman student in the second term who practices their English daily at this school. It's not fluency by any means but if I speak clearly and avoid $10000 words they certainly have adequate English for ordinary conversation, to understand their homework assignments and in general to function within the English department environment. These people are also the same ones who attend the English Corner every week (this girl, on the other hand, never goes) and so I tell her that I don't believe her. She doesn't respond. I don't know if she understood my rebuttal in the slightest. After I got back I deliberately put her in a group with three of the four strongest speakers in the class for the next activity and told them that I wanted them to help her.

I'm a bit at my wits end though with how to get through to this girl. She is not suitable for a university level English program. The dean complained to me at the end of last term that the school had admitted several students who had significantly below requisite grades because they had "important uncles" and I am beginning to suspect that this girl is one such case. Still I don't like feeling that any of my students are really learning NOTHING but I also can't hold the rest of the class back with remedial lessons for one obtuse student.

Suggestions?

[7969]

i've got large classes. anywhere for 48-125 students each. if i had to counsel each and every one that never uttered a word, or showed weak skills, i'd make a second job out of it.

anyway, as a change of pace and now that the weather is getting warmer, i take my classes outside by the small lake on campus for the second half of our 100 minute class. once out there, and once we engage in some free discussion, students that i've not heard a peep out of for the entire term actually speak up and say things. they CAN speak english and while it may not be great english, getting something is better than nothing. clearly, their newfound ability has something to do with not being stuck in the same boxlike classroom structure they've been inside for the past 14 years (a more relaxed atmosphere seems to work well).

it works for me (to a limited extent) so why not give it a try if you can? otherwise, you cant force someone to improve their english. if a change of venue doensnt work, just let it go and the chips will fall where they may. can't suggest anything else.

7969

[SimonM]

I take this class outside for classes on the grounds regularly. I didn't today because it snowed last night. It doesn't help this girl though. Her listening skills are non-existant.

[Calories]

so what? fail her.

[Spiderman Too]

[Roger]

Two questions:
What exactly is she supposed "to practise? daily?

And how do you know she is not doing this?

Let me add this:
Our students are given the most asinine rules by their own teachers so that they won't "waste" their spare time not doing anything academic. This results in uselessly and mind-bluntingly reading aloud from any source of English just so they make those English noises; they are also given tonnes of assignments ("write "chameleon" 20 times, then "camel", then "choreographer"... page after page after page!

I guess your student really doesn't know how to satisfy you because she is satisfying - or trying to satisfy - a host of English teachers whose instructions are not exactly rational!

Recently, I have been going to public schools to pitch in in teaching kiddies again. I am flabbergasted at the insensitivity and lack of sensibility on the part of techers!
In grade 1, they take now "extra-curricular English" without having any foundation in the lingo; the kids are 6 to 7 years old and don't know how to write, but read this: everybody - parents, teachers, bureaucrats - require these poor kids to use a book...
The book has illustrations and the teacher is supposed to read aloud the dialogues, with the kids repeating after her.
Is that useful?
The pictures involve scenes that require the beholder to be literate because you have to read "bookstore" and "bakery" and "fruit shop" etc. Since the pics are not explicit enough, the teacher inevitably will resort to...speaking in Chinese...

There also is an iron-hard rule in place: no child under 8 years must be taught to write the Roman alphabet...
except for the purpose of acquiring Mandarin (with the help of pinyinised Chinese).

I would feel so relieved if my kids could use a notebook or pad and draw new words or objects according to my instructions. This is regarded as time-wasting, though; every minute these kids must repeat after some teacher. The result is that teachers "think up" whhat the kids need to say, and the kids don't understand what their teacher is telling them in English - so she must translate it into Chinese...
A vicious circle!


The kids don't understand the abstract nature of those pictures and texts but they are made at such a preciocious age to "study" English...to what purpose?

You can safely wager now that at age 14 or 22, these kids will have serious COMPREHENSION problems!

As most English students in China do!

[vikdk]

[william wallace]

nil

[kev7161]

This seems to start at an early age. Of my 25 students, clearly 4 or 5 have "selective understanding" - - what I mean is, things that interest them (like Art class, for example), they perk right up and can follow my instructions and do quite well with the activity.

Outside of two students who came from Australia and Chicago (!), most of my students started, more or less, on the same page back in September. It's amazing how much progress some have made acquiring the English language (listening, reading, writing, speaking, pronunciation, enunciation, comprehension) while some have stayed pretty much where they were to begin with. Others seem to be slipping back as our lessons and the English that accompanies them become more complex.

Our "immersion" program is really only 50/50 and some of these students have parents at home that don't utter a single word of English. Review spelling words over the weekend? Ha! Go over worksheets and tests we did throughout the week? Not a chance. *sigh!*

[7969]

well, why isnt this girl learning to speak english better? i'll turn the question around. why dont a great majority of the foreigners living in china for a given number of years ever learn to speak competent mandarin?

because they're either lazy, they think they dont need it, they have little aptitude for it, or they find other things that interest them more.

the same reasoning could be applied to this girl.

7969

[SimonM]

[SimonM]

[Roger]

So I see a little farther now. Yes, your student may be lazy. But laziness is what this education values the most: students who think outside the box provided by the school are not treated nicely...they could be blasted dissidents whose thoughts always colllide with the State orthodoxy...

Seriously, you must bear in mind that your students are not used to taking personal initiatives such as engaging someone in a dialogue in a foreign tongue of all things. They are even less used to writing new vocables into their notebooks.

They learn in a communitarian way: what the teacher himself is not "learning" or "practising they won't learn for themselves either - a few exceptions among her class notwithstand. [/url]

[SimonM]

You see I'm not that jaded yet Roger. Most of her classmates have made adequate progress. Mabey they don't do their homework every night but they at least turn up semi-regularly to english corners and they don't need me to translate my instructions into Putonghua. This one is particularly far behind the whole class, not just the bright lights.

[7969]

how much more are you willing to do for her before you a. see some progress or b. decide to fail her? how much extra attention/help should one student deserve/warrant before its prudent to say, "you just cant cut it here."