Job Discussion Forums

[Steppenwolf]

Vikdk, why these knee-jerk reactions? What's wrong with my "blanket statement" apart from the fact that you don't want to buy into it? Why must you jump to such a negative conclusion: "old age = senility"? I am sure as a pedagogically trained person you can see the irrationality in your rash judgement!
I never hinted at old age being a barrier to learning a foreign language; I did say, though, that the older you get the slower your language acquisition most likely is. Some may acquire more at a faster pace than the majority but on the whole, grownups with zero familiarity with a target language will prove to be less accommodating of the new language.

I don't think this is because your thought processes are slowing down. Rather, I believe this is for psychological reasons: the older you are the less you are willing to obey. Language learning revolves a lot around willingly repeting and obeying instructions and generally doing someone's bidding. Do you like to do routine work? Repetitive tasks such as conjugating the French verb "etre"? Why do so many FTs abhor the repetitive tasks of learning Chinese - practising writing, for example?

That is, in my opinion, a major hurdle. Remember, some folks do learn a foreign tongue at a ripe old age. Professor Needham (the guy who ascribed rather a lot of technical inventions to the ancient Chinese genius) who became a pillar of Chinese history, is rumoured to have studied Chinese in his 40s.

But you probably won't dispute the fact that a young student learns differently from an older one. In your kindies you are not supposed to teach your kids how to write and read; when they go to primary school they suddenly have to put in a lot of time copying words and phrases - in my mind: mindlessly copying. Especially in Chinese English classes: writing the words they were ordered to learn by rote; how do their teachers test their memory? By asking them to write the English vocables down following the Chinese teacher's uttering the Chinese word.
Children that have gone through this kind of drill until high school won't absorb functional English and their interest is down to learning things by rote just for their upcoming test or exam. Do you imagine they will develop a natural curiosity about any topic they could talk about in English if they can also talk about it in the language that affords them comfort and self-confidence - i.e. Chinese? I don't think so!

Most students even in the West show a marked decrease in their ability to acquire a new language as they get older. But there is a notable difference in teaching goals in the West and in China: in the West kids have built a solid foundation upon which they can construct their own English/French/Chinese house as the situation, the academic needs, etc., require. By the time a Western student has studied a foreign tongue for 4 years (or sometimes 3) they can use that language as a means to study other subjects or to immerse themselves in the language's literature. This is why in European schools students have to study literature in the target languages, and reading helps them a lot - not only in acquiring more vocabulary but in effectively grounding them in the foreign culture they are trying to understand.
That's not happening in China...

[Steppenwolf]

[vikdk]

[Steppenwolf]

[quote="vikdk"]

[vikdk]

[vikdk]

Well I suppose I better stand up to the Steppenwolf challenge and give a few practical insights into how I use Chinese in my kindy classes � you know I don�t want to get hung with that title bookworm

Kids are taught the concept of English/Chinese (we are careful not to confuse small kids with the words China/England at this stage � or you start to produce lovely Chinglish in the form of � �I am China/you are England�) � this takes place over a long period with flags and a bit of L1 explanation and a lot of fun telling the kids, something which they never buy, that I�m Chinese and they�re English (1 or 2 minutes in each lesson � for around 6 months gets this concept to sink in). So when I�m teaching a class of 40+ 5 years olds (in most kindies � kids I�ve been teaching for at-least 2 years) � a typical class warm-up would go something like this �

T(teacher) � I am English......K(kids) � you are English
T � you are Chinese......K � we are Chinese
T � today is English, I am taking English.....K- you are talking English
T � ni hao......K � stop! (teacher) (today) talk English.
T - ni hao is English......K � ni hao is Chinese
T � what is ni hao (in English).......K � ni hao is hello
T � zaoshang hoa.......K � stop! talk English
Ect ect
I go on to use phrases like � ne jiao shenme mingzi (what�s your name) / duo shao sui le ( how old are you) � the kids putting me right by telling me the correct English each time.
We try to use variations so the kids don�t just learn to repeat but learn how to actively join in with a type of conversation (albeit a mass conversation since we never have the time to be able to take each child on a real individual basis) that actually seems to build a five year old�s confidence, since they can actually put the teacher right when he makes a mistake in trying to speak English. Whatever the long term results in language acquisition are in these kind of games � in the classroom situation it certainly can make for a fun lesson � just picture a teacher goofing about trying so hard to speak English � whispering to himself �talk English talk English� (we always use the word talk over speak in our simplified kindergarten English � but that�s a whole other story) - then talking Chinese. To make it really hilarious we have mock English competitions � with the English teacher taking on the kids � and always losing. Part of the teachers unlucky performance is to start blurting off in Chinese � for example giving flashcards a Chinese title � in this kind of situation the kids (or one of the kids) are so quick to shout the English title � to make sure all the kids get it you insist on using the Chinese name � dem kids sure insist on the English one � they want to win � and in this case winning also means a tiny bit of learning, that in the end all adds up!!!!

We have loads of variations on this kind of stuff � China versus England classroom sports meetings with an English speaking kindergarten hooligan element and a loa wai who represents China are really enjoyable. But in actual fact this teaching method is not a particular example of scaffolding but a result of scaffolding �where the scaffolding techniques mainly occurs while the kids are 3 and 4 years olds (remember we�ve been with most of our kindies for over 3 years now) � a process that�s often carried out in Chinese (mostly by my Chinese TA) which brings the kids up to that level of understanding, so that they can take part in these type of lessons in a way that represents an act of communication and not a simple a simple act of near mindless repetition. Without scaffolding � the act of explaining what�s going on, and what�s expected of the children and what communication is appropriate and correct � then instead of kids eager to join in (and learn a bit of English at the same time) � we risk closed mouths and sometimes blank confused faces. And we know all about this, since it takes a bit of time for most our new kids to get the idea of what�s going on!!!
By the way - that warm-up thing - we used it twice today - in both oldest classes of our morning and afternoon kindies.

[vikdk]

On an individual plan my L1/L2 bilingual approach also seems to be effective - as I witnessed this morning on a trip to the zoo with one of my kindies. I had a group of english fluent 5 year olds in tow (fluent as in they have acquired the pronunciation and understanding of enough words - to be able to activly interact in an English conversation. This type of fluency also requires the child to be able to string the words together in different combinations to produce sentences - or initialy sentence like phrases - and have internalised their English to such an extent that they can switch between it and Chinese with no perticular effort). What is most striking in this type of bilingual conversational environment is that when the children didn't know the word in English they would often say that word in Chinese - hopefully while trying to seek out the English translation - but more importantly keeping the conversation alive and not letting it peter-out into that nothing which so often happens when attempting to talk in English to small Chinese kids. One girl perticularly wanted to see a Hippo - and cobbled together this - "I want he ma, where is he ma, what is he ma English". When she got the word hippo - we then got stuff like - "I like Hippo, Hippo in the water"
A strict English only environment doesn't give the kids the scope to experiment like this - With the possibility of kids keeping their mouths closed because a fear of being critisiced if they do let the odd chinese word slip out!!!
By the way a funny one happened today (and actually a bit sad since it involved begging) - some dubious looking monks came up to beg me for money - I answered them in Chinese -dui bu qi mei you qain - which was followed by one of the kids going up to them and saying in English - no money!!!