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viovio
Joined: 20 Oct 2006
Posts: 63
Location: Chile
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 Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:42 am Post subject: |
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I'm curious... why do Chinese schools hire FTs? Is it because they think they're better teachers or just as a marketing strategy?
Do FTs teach other subjects different than English? |
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vikdk
Joined: 25 Jun 2003
Posts: 1676
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:53 am Post subject: |
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| BTW, there's no charge for the writing tips. |
That's good of ya hamster person since I give all me ill gotten gains to that wolf guy - but as you can see from his last post he's a pretty hard task master 
But then again he's teaching me to write like a real McCoy native speaker of English - and his kinda help don't come cheap |
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Shan-Shan
Joined: 28 Aug 2003
Posts: 1074
Location: electric pastures
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 10:21 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
I'm curious... why do Chinese schools hire FTs? Is it because they think they're better teachers or just as a marketing strategy?
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Chinese speak Chinese; some Chinese English teachers speak something resembling English; a few can manage pretty decent sustained communication; a fraction can both speak, read, write, understand and teach.
Trained FTs bring intimate knowledge of English as well as teaching methods beyond "follow me reading from the book; write down the important words". This is a benefit for students who want to learn how to communicate in English. A Chinese English teacher who only repeats lines from a text book has little ability to teach communicative strategies to students.
After you arrive, and sit-in on a few Chinese English teachers' classes, you'll understand the benefit of hiring hiring FTs (that's not "foreign talker" but "foreign teacher"). |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 10:35 am Post subject: |
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| vikdk wrote: |
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| BTW, there's no charge for the writing tips. |
That's good of ya hamster person since I give all me ill gotten gains to that wolf guy... |
It's fluffyfluffyfluffywuffyhamster, OK? People generally aren't fluffy, and to be a 'hamsterperson' someone would've had to have (have had? Been having?!  ) a go at my genetic material with some radiocative tweezers or something. |
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vikdk
Joined: 25 Jun 2003
Posts: 1676
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:01 am Post subject: |
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Fluffy(wuffy) - you speak awful posh for a rodent  Upperclass animals like you don't usually let me stick me tweezer(s) into 'em - 'specially when they hear me brummy accent (on a par with Ozzy Osbourne's). You gotta go to places like China before you can get away with that kinda stuff - since out here even working-class bat munching head-bangers from the industrial midlands can find a gig or two in a Chinese uni |
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Kurochan
Joined: 01 Mar 2003
Posts: 944
Location: China
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:00 pm Post subject: Others |
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| viovio wrote: |
I'm curious... why do Chinese schools hire FTs? Is it because they think they're better teachers or just as a marketing strategy?
Do FTs teach other subjects different than English? |
Some foreign teachers teach classes like American (or British) Culture, Intercultural Communication, or other culture/communication related courses. I've taught public speaking, and now I'm teaching a class on American film. Some schools have people teach about whatever it is they did or studied back home -- for instance, when I was at Shenzhen U., there was a former lawyer who taught a law class. |
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latefordinner
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Posts: 973
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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Viovio, consider Shan-Shan's reply:
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| Chinese speak Chinese; some Chinese English teachers speak something resembling English; a few can manage pretty decent sustained communication; a fraction can both speak, read, write, understand and teach |
I have to qualify my support for his post, but the sad fact is that the best Chinese students of foreign languages rarely become teachers of those languages. Yes, I've met a few Chinese language teachers who were in fact very good teachers, but they have been the exception. And they have usually been very good teachers in spite of, not because of their training. For most part, Chinese teachers of English are the ones who couldn't score a 5.5 on their IELTS, and so have to make do with being teachers in China instead of students at real universities in the west. Hey, take a look at a CET or TEM exam, and try to guess who wrote it. As long as that is the case, and as long as Chinese will have to pass an IELTS or TOEFL or similar exam to enter a western uni, there will always be a need for us. |
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jr1965
Joined: 09 Jul 2004
Posts: 175
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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| A real teacher is hardly faced with such issues; his job is to broaden his students' grasp of the language, not narrow it down to one variety. Teaching is something other than the mere setting of 'ideal' sound-patterns; if you act as a pronunciation copper who hunts down the students that pronounce 'garage' in the traditional British style you are overreacting and doing your learners no favour - unless they ask you for it. |
Amen.
My second lang is Spanish and I've studied it with native speakers from Spain (Castellano) as well as Peru, Argentina and a few other Latin American countries. Honestly, the only one (at the start) that I could ever distinguish was the Castellano accent (because of the way they pronounce, for example, "San Francisco" as "San Franthisco."). Were any of the accents easier or more difficult to understand? No. At first (and for a WHILE), it was a real challenge for me to understand ANYTHING said in Spanish. Could I have distinguished among a Peruvian, Mexican, or Argentinean accent? No.
I mentioned this on another forum: The best Spanish teacher I ever had wasn't a native speaker of Spanish, and yet I learned more from him about appropriate pronunciation/intonation/word & sentence stress, and lang usage than I did with any other.
I now live in Spain, though frequently speak with people (in Spanish) from Latin American countries. Can I understand the average Spaniard? Yes. Can I understand the guy who lives down the hall who's from Ecuador? Yes. Are there very occasional differences in vocabulary among the different varieties of Spanish I've heard spoken. Yes, just like in English. But then, you simply ask, "What does that mean?" and carry on. |
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viovio
Joined: 20 Oct 2006
Posts: 63
Location: Chile
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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Oye, y has hablado con chilenos? todo el mundo dice que hablamos rarito jejejejeje 
Personalmente encuentro re rara la "z/s" ezzzzpa�ola, pero gracias por apoyar mi punto. |
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Leon Purvis
Joined: 27 Feb 2006
Posts: 420
Location: Nowhere Near Beijing
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:41 am Post subject: |
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| Shan-Shan wrote: |
After you arrive, and sit-in on a few Chinese English teachers' classes, you'll understand the benefit of hiring hiring FTs (that's not "foreign talker" but "foreign teacher"). |
I would love to do that myself, but the way in which the classes are scheduled and where the classes are scheduled, it is impossible for me to FIND a Chinese teacher teaching English. In the foreign languages department, they run when the FTs come looking for help. |
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Kurochan
Joined: 01 Mar 2003
Posts: 944
Location: China
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:54 am Post subject: CET |
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| latefordinner wrote: |
| For most part, Chinese teachers of English are the ones who couldn't score a 5.5 on their IELTS, and so have to make do with being teachers in China instead of students at real universities in the west. Hey, take a look at a CET or TEM exam, and try to guess who wrote it. |
Yeah, I second that about the CET. I was coaching my students in Shenzhen to take the test, and I had to tell them how much I hated it. Why? Because the requirements of the writing tasks were SO bizarre that they would never have to write another essay like that in their whole lives. In fact, if they DID write an essay like that for a foreign teacher, they'd fail. The questions were like, "Will cars have a good impact or a bad impact on Chinese society? Answer in 250 (or was it 150?) words maximum. You first paragraph should talk about the good things, the second should talk about the bad things, and the third should give your conclusion." No introductory paragraph, or anything! I told the students these stupid directions and short length requirement probably existed for two reasons. First, graders had so many papers to read, and second, the graders probably didn't understand English as well as my students. They were shocked, but after watching HK TV all the time, and having plenty of foreign teachers, most of my students did speak and write decent, pretty natural English.
The multiple choice answers were another shocker. There were several questions like:
Joe is going to go
A. here.
B. there.
C. to the store.
D. home.
Students were going crazy trying to find the right answer to a question that actually had several.
One student told me they like to say CET stands for Chinese English Trouble, but I told her it was more like Crap English Test. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 8:37 am Post subject: |
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| vikdk wrote: |
| Fluffy(wuffy) - you speak awful posh for a rodent Upperclass animals like you don't usually let me stick me tweezer(s) into 'em - 'specially when they hear me brummy accent (on a par with Ozzy Osbourne's). You gotta go to places like China before you can get away with that kinda stuff - since out here even working-class bat munching head-bangers from the industrial midlands can find a gig or two in a Chinese uni |
It's interesting how you imagine that I speak "posh" from the way I write (implication: students shouldn't worry too much about how they sound when speaking).
I'm not "plummy", and far from c@ckney either, but if I get really riled (enough to start shouting threats and preparing to act on them) I can on a good night resemble Ray Winstone...or that guy who played the bespectacled crimelord in 'Snatch'.
Oops, sorry, was using your jokey post for a serious purpose then, vikdk. Hope you don't mind. Now, back to the bantering, we should get in a couple of beers eh. Just don't take me to that 'Dave's' though, they can be a bit rough there, and I might get "p*ssed"... |
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dragon777
Joined: 05 Oct 2005
Posts: 163
Location: Christmas Island
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| It really does not matter what accent that you teach children or adults. I have visited Canada, USA, UK, Ireland and worked and lived in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Australia. Everyone in those countries has understood me including all my English, American, Irish, Kiwi, South African, Canadian friends. The only reason some native foreign instructors are hung up on different accents is that Asian academies/schools etc have pushed this difference/agenda. If your students understand you...well you are doing pretty well in my mind. |
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william wallace
Joined: 14 May 2003
Posts: 2869
Location: in between
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 10:50 pm Post subject: Well.......... |
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nil
Last edited by william wallace on Sat Nov 24, 2007 8:02 am; edited 1 time in total |
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latefordinner
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Posts: 973
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| Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 12:52 am Post subject: |
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| Kuro, it's the Chinese Error Test. You've got 30 minutes, find as many mistakes in the exam as you can. |
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