Job Discussion Forums

[Steppenwolf]

Gregor - great words, wise and true, thank you for your input!
What's the point about "motivating students" when they come to class totally demotivated from years and years (Malsol mentioned 12 years!) of mind-numbing rote-learning and unthinking absorbing of vocables without any practical use in students' immediate daily lives? Motivation is the "key" to learning English? Well, that sounds fashionable and fine and dandy PC-wise, but then I would say, there must be several "keys" acquiring English, and "motivation" on the part of the students is perhaps not the most important one.
Do they feel "motivated" to go to those silly tests and exams they have to pass as regularly as we have to pass water? Yes - they want to score! But they know full well (in most cases anyway) their studied English is of no practical use - see their own teachers!

Motivation can only grow up if one has an ideal role-model - here the Chinese English teacher. In most cases, these guys are the exact opposite what with their own problematic attitude to the usefulness of English.

And make your classes as engaging as you can - the more fun they are the more likely many students will find them "a waste of time...we are NOT LEARNING ANYTHING...".
You can experience that attitude when your class has once again been cancelled - "because our students have to take one of them exams, you know...".

While it is easy enough to make them "want" to take their exams (because of the "motivation" they have to pass) it's next to impssible to permanently motivate them to forget their first tongue at least during English practice classes; they are not grown up enough and constantly need their Chinese comfort zone.

[Malsol]

[vikdk]

[vikdk]

[Malsol]

[Steppenwolf]

[quote="vikdk"]
ohhh so we're talking about educational basket cases - students in a coma -

Do you really teach without any intention of motivating your students towards some academic goal �

...can motivate students to sleep, play games on cell-phones and indeed skip the whole event.


how you used peer pressure in trying to motivate better performance out of your students by embarrassing badly performing students in front of the class.

After reading your last - motivation is pointless post -

/quote]

[vikdk]

Steppenwolf - good to see that even you can learn a thing or two off a kindy teacher - after all when you write in one post -

[yamahuh]

[quote="Malsol
Sadly, probably about 90% of the backpackers working as English "teachers" in China feel the same way, clueless about 2nd language acquisition theory. Enjoy your China vacation![/quote]

Aaaand he's off again!

[vikdk]

[Malsol]

[Steppenwolf]

[quote="vikdk"]t you write above (of course with the appropriate L1 replacing Chinese in each individual country) is the same situation that English language teachers find themselves having to cope with in every non-English speaking country? I think its something that you have to accept as

blabhlahblahblah: Vikdk! /quote]

Listen to this Apostle of the Right Motivational Methodology: sputtering a few faddish buzzwords and voila notre empereur enseignant!

Let's face it differently: youknow kids like racing bikes, so you buy a dozen expensive racing bikes - you know titanium frames, ten speeds, the works - and hand them over to the kids and point them to a suitable track (maybe that 500 yard cul-de-sac next to your block of flats, a relatively safe road with no through traffic and no child molesters around) - now if your kids don't use their bikes won't you feel a tad let down?

Well, that is the situation here - special circumstances are created, special venues offered, and special resources used, yet hardly anyone makes the first move, shows any enthusiasm.
They act even as college students as though they couldn't use a potty the right way without you demonstrating it first thing; they will eventually do it after repeated demonstrations, but still reluctantly and many only because of their own peer pressure.

Even so, these kids often have enough energy to complain and to make suggestions: "COuld you find a more interesting topic?" "Please, speak more slowly!" "Please, say it in Chinese!"

Add to these childish ideas the sheer lack of discipline: coming to class for the first time without pen and notebook, perhaps even without any school materials though the bloody cell phone is not missing... it's really only ten percent dependent on what we are doing, and 90 percent of the failure is their own nonchalance, blase attitude, total lack of any interest and self-centredness.
They certainly don't confuse languages - they simply don't feel they owe it to the teacher to make a token effort although they take a pass grade from him for granted! I call this a massive attitudinal problem. Massive because if one such guy is in a body of 50, he will spread his mental inertia across at least 40 of them.

[Hendahu]

The point of my classes is not to teache them to speak english instead of chinese in their free time or between classes, but rather to have a better understanding of the english language and be able to interpret it when needed. I live in China and speak Engish during breaks, but I am still trying to learn Chinese and use it when it is appropriate for me. In perfect world maybe you are right....but I teach in real world. I am proud of the work I do here. My students are able to speak better and understand better once my class is over. That is not a defeatest attitude, but reality. I am not training them to be English thinkers, but rather better english speakers...it does not happen in a semester, but like Confuscious once said, " even the journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step."

[prune]

[Malsol]

[Malsol]