Job Discussion Forums

[MichelleV]

I am the first foriegn teacher at a middle school in Hunan province. My students are 15-17 years old and seldom participate. I have told them that questions are good and mistakes are okay. I have also told them that speaking english is the best way to learn english and that this will help them with their exams. They are smart students and understand my lessons, they simply just don't want to participate! I don't know how to get them involved. Any advice?

[moderntime]

I put my students into teams for the semester. When they ask a question or answer a question, they receive a point. You can also take away points for speaking Chinese in class, or being late, or having their cell phone go off. It's amazing how well the students perform when their competitive streak is put to good use, and the students also learn a lot about teamwork and collaboration.

I also awarded prizes at the end for the teams. You can have some nice prizes for the top teams, and some silly prizes for the bottom teams.

I did this for university students, and they still love it. It's all rather good fun, really.

[jammish]

[tw]

Tell us something about your lessons. What do you do or try to do? How many students in a class, etc. etc. etc. The more we know the better we can help you.

[dajiang]

I know the feeling.
I got some classes that have a higher percentage of students that do not want to participate, while most are pretty good though. Just got to accept the fact that lots of the students don't actually want to learn English or be in your classroom, interesting though it may be.

What helps is trying to change the culture of your class. This is very hard to do, and takes lots of time and consistent behaviour (structure) on your part. It helps if you have your own classroom for that, since you can shape it as you like. Chinese classroom culture is as you probably know very passive on the students' side. Teacher lectures, students listen (or sleep). Then you've got the whole face-losing thing. Also you've got the universally Chinese collective attitude to deal with, which adds to the pressure of not wanting to stand up and speak by the students. To change all this is almost to demand the impossible, yet we need it if they ever want to begin to learn English.

Students have no way of knowing how to behave, but since you are very different from their Chinese teachers, they know that something else is also expected from them. They just don't know what. If you got your own classroom, you can try and make a double U-form with your tables. It encourages discussion much more. Also they don't have to rise when they speak, just got to raise a hand when they want to. Being laid-back yourself helps too, And explain to them that you can sit on a desk for instance, and be much more informal than your colleagues. They should try to understand that the distance between teacher and student is far closer in our culture than in theirs (Power distance). (You can actually do a lesson on culture as it's defined by Hofstede using easy examples of course - http://stephan.dahl.at/research/online-publications/intercultural-research/hofstede%E2%80%99s-cultural-dimensions/).

Anyway, getting into that is quite complicated, but it does help to understand why many students don't seem to want to participate. It's because they do not understand how, when, and often in what.

Having music before and after class (if you got your own classroom) helps too. It relaxes everyone and presents a stronger feeling of entering a different place from what they're used to in school. It's like you classroom is an oasis of English, and outside of it there's the real world with its Chinese cultural mold waiting for them. If your classes are too large, there is little hope that you can accomplish this, but then there's little hope of them learning much English either.

I don't have my own classroom anymore (different school) and my classes are way bigger now, so I just use my rules and humour to keep em looking up. I explain that sleeping in class is very rude, and I consider it an insult. Otherwise I just try my best, and for now it seems to work. Oh yeah, and keep your English classroom language simple. Lots of them have no clue what you're saying, even though they say they do.

Good luck to you.
Dajiang

[Mydnight]

Ever tried of using a cattle prod?

[Songbird]

Be gentle with them! As you said, you are the first foreign teacher they've had, so you will need to slow your speaking RRRIIIGGGHHHHTTT down, pronounce every word precicely (think English!) and relax and have fun. As someone here said, they will be hard nuts to crack for the first weeks. Also, they don't ask questions because that's their culture- they DON'T ask questions. How many are in your classes? 60? 70? 80? Exactly. They are so used to their Chinese teachers just giving them a lecture that there simply is NO time to ask questions, and if they're at the back they're simply forgotten about. What subject exactly are you teaching, oral? If so, FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT the admin to break your classes up to smaller groups, no more than 30. Too bad if they don't like it, there's no way they'll even learn from a foreigner in a class that size.

I'm in my 3rd week (though admittedly I'm teaching college level students so smaller groups!) and it's only been this week, today's lessons actually that they've started feeling more comfortable with me, having a joke, even 1 girl using sarcasm (which is a complicated thing in English!)- there's still another couple of classes that need to open up more, but they're coming around. I'm also in the boonies, if you're in a city it might be easier!

[xinpu]

some things that work for me.

1. Group Presentations: the fear of standing at the front with nothing to say and everyone laughing at them is considered worse than actually having to speak.

2. Role plays: if there's one thing all students like it's putting on small role plays and being able to joke about a bit. Give them a solid structure to work within but with just enough scope to be creative. For example give thema dialogue, get them to practice it them ask them to change the key details. The better the level the more freedom to change it you can allow.

3. Name cards : get students to write their names on paper, use it like a deck of cards and suffle through to ask students questions. This ensures all particiapte rather than the 5-6 whose names you know / have decent english.

4. Team games: university kids but think 13-14 year old attitude to team games.

works for me.

[robward]

My girlfriend and I are very new at this teaching game but this is our story so far and how we've dealt with it.

We were told we'd be teaching grade 1 and grade 2 classes, I agreed to take grade 1 classes because I thought, they'd be a little harder to control and let my girlfriend have the grade 2 students who I assumed would be use to a foreign teacher and be better behaved.

Turns out it's the exact opposite. The grade 1 kids are great but it might also be that there is a Chinese teacher that stays in the class sometimes but in grade 2, there's no other teacher in sight.

We teach 20 classes per week, all different students so we struggled all week with trying to get them to ask questions or participate. We figured the first week, since we are new, we'd let them dictate how the class went. We told them we wanted them to ask us questions about our home country, about us, or really about anything. I just wanted them to talk and learn about us. Getting them to actually raise their hand was like pulling teeth.

I don't know how but it hit me during the second class of the second week. After the first student was brave enough to raise his hand and answer the question I had asked, I asked him to pick another student in the class. This worked perfectly, no standing there for 2-3 minutes with blank stares... they all know each others names and for some reason, they find it fun to pick on the kids who aren't paying attention.

It's worked so far and my girlfriend says it's working for her as well. I do like xinpu's third suggestion, I'm going to try that out next week I think.

[Outsida]

[xinpu]

Outsida, you seem to have described my 4 lessons this morning to a 'T'.

I was teaching 'asking & giving directions' this morning and had a shocker - chatted to the leader of the english teaching group about the problems and she came up with a decent solution I'd never heard of.

Those students who refuse to 'work in pairs' - get them to stand at the front of class and prepare for the task (e.g practicing a dialogue). No slacking off, no sleeping, no nicking the answers from the class geeks....no comfort zone just gotta do it or they remain there.

ok - it's very 'chinese' solution but given the siutation I'm in (meiyou respect from the students) I'm willing to give it a try.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

[kerrilee]

I have uni classes of 60-90 and they always complain that they don't get enough speaking practice!!!!! I am teaching from a reading book! The class of 60 are unmotivated undergrads in the 3rd year of a 7 year course and the postgrads are in the first of a 3 year course (classes of 90........) Any ideas for classes this size? The postgrads are actually pretty motivated, but the undergrads leave class early or sleep! I want to get them speaking more I am fed up with the sound of my own voice! I have tried getting them to read the text to each other in small groups, which works a bit but they say they want even more practice! Any other good large group ideas....Thanks

[Shan-Shan]

Last semester I had classes of around the same size, though was fortunate enough not to have a textbook to follow. You could do the same for a portion of the class (that is, put the textbook aside). Prepare some activities thematically, lexically and/or grammatically related to a lesson from the textbook. These tasks/activities would be done orally, and in groups (which could interact/meld into something larger depending on what you've prepared)

Choral repetition with the teacher, or reading from the text aloud, only affords students a chance to practice exercising their pronunciation. My advice is for you to devise some work for students where they themselves need to invent language along free or strict guidelines depending on their abilities/requirements for any possible exams. Most important, in my view, is that the activities be meaningful, have some kind of purpose. This will instill motivation -- without it, the tiny floodgates of stored linguistic knowledge which need to flow (i.e. be used, implemented) to avoid stagnation and forgetfulness will have a difficult time opening.

Students are asking for more time to speak -- give it to them. With such large classes, and likely limited abilities, a "free talk" in groups would be a waste of time. Tasks designed to elicit what has previously be learned will help recycle the old while, hopefully, cementing the new linguistic knowledge which the students have recently encountered.

Keep the linguistic requirements of each speaking portion somewhat simple, but always new and related to points already presented by you and the textbook. Students will be more responsive to an oral exercise if they view it as having a cognitive and linguistic "reason", and not just blabbing without a direction. Those who are aware and critical of their learning, that is. Most may still just prefer that no one disturb their daydreaming.

[xinpu]

kerilee:

You know the real problem is that they do not see the point of speaking to each other in English just you. ...anyways...

Have you tried team based puzzle solving? Most of the students I've taught love puzzles and team games are always popular.

Something I did that worked well (class 50 ish)

Use an internet based crossword generator to put together puzzle based on previously learnt vocab.

Students work in group of three or four to solve it. (Class of 60 that 20 copies - so managable). They should do this in English (but probably won't) then the team that finishes first gets the reward of being asked for the answers by the other groups (there's your speaking component).

Success or failure depends on the words you choose - got to pitch it just right.

As a follow up get them to produce their wn crossword and test other groups.