Job Discussion Forums

[Shan-Shan]

While watching 西游记 today, it dawned on me just what the average FT, regardless of ability/intention, is -- the school's 弼马温. We're given a position that we believe is of importance when in reality it's just filler. The irony is, many FTs could ou dot their counterparts in "English battle", much like 天齐大圣 himself was able to out maneuver the machinations of the elite in heaven after having eaten 蟠桃 and 老聃's (I believe it's his) 仙丹.

It is a shame that with our abilities to teach and speak/write English fluently, and possession of an awareness of the language that not every CT has, we aren't better exploited.

Personally, I don't see the point of having Chinese English teachers at all should an adequate number of qualified FTs be available (though given the wages, I doubt that numbers could ever be satisfied). While I was a student, my university's Japanese and Chinese teachers were all native speakers. None had MAs yet they were still able to teach and motivate students quite well. Even with their imperfect English, and tendency to speak the target language, students were still happy to attend class.

Should Chinese schools continue to remain blind to the benefits that an FT has over a CT, a little tweeking of the average FT might open the schools' eyes. Perhaps training FTs to speak at an intermediate level of Chinese would make us more valued/useful. Many beginner's are afraid of "real English", and prefer to have grammar/vocabuarly beyond their ability explained to them in Chinese. Knowing about English seems to satisfy many a students' desire to learn English. FTs who were able to provide this service -- along with leading students to an acquisition of English in English for those who prefer to learn a language in the context of the language itself -- could cover the responsibilities of both the Chinese and Foreign English teacher. Then we could do away with the dichotomy, and all be happy FHCSCTs (foreigner-who-can-speak-chinese teacher). Trying getting your students to pronounce that one!

I'm sure this will materialize soon since every school seems to offer "free" Chinese lessons as part of their incentives package. The usually short-sighted universities of China are actually looking far ahead in this respect.

[no_exit]

The Chinese teachers are trained to teach, but only to teach within their system. They're not trained in motivation of the students, student centered learning, of how to use the language for communication because those things aren't considered relevant to the Chinese educational system.

It isn't the fault of the Chinese teachers that they don't teach in a style more agreeable to us, and from their perspective, they're doing what is most important to their students' success, preparing them to pass exams. I don't like that approach any more than anyone else, but I think it is unfair to disparage the Chinese teachers, who, in fact, are extensively trained (even my colleague, who is also an accounting teacher at Yunnan Normal University, attends conferences and seminars regularly, and she has been teaching for 20 years), simply because they work within the Chinese system.

Besides, I honestly do think that the students' Chinese teachers are better at preparing them for their standardized tests than we FTs. We can teach them to actually use English, to speak, read, write, and listen, but the CET, the PET, and the college entrance exam can all be passed by people who can't actually speak English. This is because they learn test taking strategies from their Chinese teachers, learn how to specifically prepare for certain questions, and learn ridiculous vocabulary words that no FT would ever think to use (I remember, about three years ago, a friend of mine was preparing for the TEM4, the Sophmore level test for English majors, and among the words on the practice test was "terpsichorean," which I had to look up in a dictionary because I didn't have a clue what it meant). Chinese teachers don't believe that FTs can really grasp the strategies for prepping these tests, as they are designed by Chinese people. Ever looked at a standardized test and realize that TWO of the offered answers would be completely appropriate? However, the Chinese teachers can justify exactly why one of the answers is correct, and even if the test is technically wrong, questioning it is not an option. I think most of us would go nuts trying to prep our students for that kind of nonsense.

It doesn't help anything to look down at our Chinese colleagues who, whether we agree with their approaches or not, have success within the confines of the Chinese educational system. For most of our students, this is all they'll ever need. Revolutionizing language teaching in China can't happen without a complete overhaul of the system itself, and it wouldn't do for Chinese teachers to all teach like FTs and have students that can hold a relatively fluent conversation in English but flunk the college entrance exam because they never learned the word "terpsichorean."

[Shan-Shan]

I certainly agree about the inanity of the English tests students are forced to endure. Preparing thousands how not to be able to speak a language is a sad commentary on China and its educational ways. Just this past week, a 25 year old student of mine needed fifteen seconds to pronounce "occasionally". That's what ten years in the Chinese education trenches gets you.

Instead of an overhall (as that would likely require another revolution, something I'm sure few are interested in at the moment), an awareness that being able to communicate in English, along with passing worthless exams, ought to be found. Who/Whatever makes decisions about English education in China needs to realize that communicative ability in English in addition to linguistic mastery is of great importance, and that classes stressing the ability to use English should be included wherever English is being taught. Of course, given the current mind-set, these classes would need to have examinations; otherwise, students would continue viewing them as pointless. The shock of suddenly being spoken to in the second language, and encouraged (by various means) to use it, is very real. I remember back in my highschool French days, I happened to have the misfortune of being among the first group of students subjected to an old French woman and her thirty minute "oral French class" in a closet of a classroom once a week. The school system only back then began to realize that speaking competence, and not just learning grammar rules and vocabulary, was actually part of learning a language. China might soon catch on as well. Though old French ladies should be avoided. After all those years, I still can't tell the time in that blasted tongue.


Western devised English tests, like IELTS and TOEFL, include speaking components. From what I understand, this is rather new, non-existent a decade or so ago when standardized English tests only included listening, reading and some amount of writing (please correct me if I'm wrong). There are likely many who still feel that communicative ability is worthless, and only view learning a language as mastering forms without necessarily having to know how to string meaning together in extended utterances. This, though, is changing. China may very well stop chopping up English into "important" (mastering multiple choice questions) and "unimportant" (being able to use English) in the future. Perhaps by then the FT Android invented by my grandson's grandson will be in every Chinese classroom.

[vikdk]

shan-shan - as interesting as your arguments are - you rather ignore the limitations of schools - whether they be in China or elsewhere.
Linguists - indeed scientists, artists, musicians - are not produced in schools - but here their skills are nurtured and supported (indeed schools are often the places of introduction for these subjects) - the schools themselves eventualy handing over the student to the examinator for the official product - official assesment through an educational score-sheet. A national system of quality control which aims to shunt a person off to their next destination in life. This is a fact of mainstream schooling that rings both true for China and western educational systems - but a fact that is best viewed with regard to how much emphasis is placed on the exam and how much on the nuture and support!
No real linguists, scientists, artists and muscians are formed through hours and hours of dedicated self-study - there is no getting away from it - to be good at this kind of stuff takes a fair bit of work (work which can be made a lot easier though encouragment and support) - far more than can be accomplished in any ordinary classroom. But dont worry - so many students here seem to be genuinely interested in learning English (it is possible to spot the odd live face amid that sea of corpses) - creating a situation where a good teacher like you should be able to catch some of these wannabe English speakers in the nick of time before local educational methods extinguish the last smouldering sparks of desire. In this way you'll be able to give to this school system something it seems to be in very short of - an ability to nuture and support in way that is not dominated by the specter of an educational score-sheet - a place where helping hands are really needed - after all the local troops are already massed on the examination front-line

[2 over lee]

Interesting thread, some insightful comments--and in your case
shan-shan, I suspect u are feeling a little frustration at being able to speak Chinese well but not having anybody give a hoot. I understand that.

If I could bring in another angle-- currently I am studying third year Chinese at University. We have two teachers--both of whom encourage us to wake up in the morning and read Chinese aloud! As I have had the benefit of living in CHina it does not upset me too much that this course, the last paper before Chinese majors get their degree here in NZ, is virtually devoid of an oral component.

Now in grammar class this is understandable--but the Chinese teacher's absolute inabilty to teach a conversation comes under scrutiny in the tutorial. In my tut I am the only male--so I try not to dominate, however given my fellow students can barely mutter a simple sentence after three years full time study--I do sometimes suggest a role-play to the teacher. We almost got there last week, the target sentences were on the blackboard-but time was up before we could talk in pairs. The teacher was visibly relieved that the laowai did not have chance to practice in a fashion which was not completely parrot like.
The class has some very able students in it, mostly NZ Chinese--it is the three NZ European women who have come through learning a couple of thousand characters by hard work that I feel sorry for. I contrast this to my 2nd year Spanish class where the instructor always speaks in Spanish, and the entire class therefore can speak quite well themselves.

Another problem is when a student asks the Chinese teacher a question, such as---'oh can that word be used to mean whole-saler?', the teacher will answer no--she has no concept that as a language teacher she should then say what the word for wholesaler is! Even if shock horror, this vocab is not in the ruddy text book.

I know Celta methodolgy is much maligned--but heh, I can see its use.
Rant over.

[China.Pete]

"That's your Chinese English teacher (at least where I am). No training in how to teach a language whatsoever (archaic or otherwise)." -- Shan-Shan

While I agree with many of your points -- and, in fairness, you are equally critical of what many foreign teachers are doing -- I cannot quite agree that there is no training methodology at work here for Chinese teachers.

1. Much in Chinese education can be traced back to the need to prepare scholars for the imperial civil service exams. These tested students mainly on the ancient Confucian texts. Not what Confucius meant, mind you, but just what he said (wrote learning).

2. The next great influence came from the 19th-Century Christian missionaries, who introduced Western-style schools to China. Of course, these were "Western" in the context of the early 19th Century (the grammar-translation approach to language learning).

3. The Maoist revolution rejected Confucius per se. But while the curriculum may have taken on a more modern form under the influence, first, of the Soviets, and later of the West, the Confucian-Christian missionary mindset persisted (teaching to the exam, with college entrance exams, etc. being substituted for the ancient civil service exams).

4. The 1980s saw the opening up of China to the West. Foreign teachers are the monkey exhibit in that opening. We are here as an exhibition of Western people and culture to the Chinese, to satisfy their curiosity and sense of importance, if you will, in the same way that Marco Polo and the others served to gratify the ancient emperors.

We may feel that our purpose here should be to share our modern teaching approaches with China's educators, but is it necessarily the case that this is what most of her educators expect -- or even want -- from us?

[vikdk]

[Shan-Shan]

Vikdk -- you are correct about how satisfying it is when someone from the languising mass shows enthusiasm, and/or comments on how the alien approach of the FT has made learning English both a more enjoyable and successful exercise.

I do realize that nothing is going to change anytime soon. Hollering here, or anywhere, at least allows us to share our thoughts, reappraise what we've been thinking, and make some small differences in the little hovels afforded us by the institutions for whom we add prestige (perhaps), entertainment (maybe), and a slight glimmer of another way of doing things (I hope).

It is a shame that many private language mills are so dodgy. It is in their compounds that more experimentation is allowed, and expected, in the language classroom. Plus, the seats are not bound to the floor! Teaching at a university, in my experiences, is more stifling; the students, too, are often less motivated given the grade-less designation of many FT classes.

After no_exit's comments about the obscure vocabulary on some English exams, I've concluded, though I could be wrong, that English exams at colleges are put together by English teachers afraid of losing their jobs to upstart grads with a decent command of English. Hours are spent late into the mornings combing dictionaries for the longest, and least used, words of the English language to be added to exams as a means to hold back both confidence in studying, love of learning a foreign language, and a high grade which might be threatening to those cloistered in the English Dept. The disillusioned grads then choose to forget about English, forget the pain -- much like I did after grade 11 French.

[vikdk]

[no_exit]

[no_exit]

[vikdk]

Don't worry no-exit it looks like the KES post was fuelled by pangs of nostagla - he was surely harking back to days when these forums would house the pontificators supreme - real life characters who would muse over the pronunciation of nut species or encourage us to use that old witch Florence Nightingale as a pedagogical role-model. But good honest robust postal combat days. where one could also have a real go at the authors of these posts without fearing being reported to the mods and thereafter threatened with a banning order. KES must have written a whole sackfull of posts during those happy times - never used - mouldering away - so why not ocassional drop one or two of them into the threads today. Good idea KES - they certainly brighten things up and give us a great alternative to our usual pontificating stodge

[Steppenwolf]

[vikdk]