Job Discussion Forums

[eslstudies]

As a few posters here never tire of pointing out, I'm not in China currently. I teach [mostly] Chinese students in an Australian high school.
Consider.
In one class, there are 8 students from the same private school in Zhejiang. Their parents are rich. Their school has 10 "foreign teachers". These kids have been exposed to native speakers on a daily basis for 10 years. Their English, both spoken and written, is abysmal.

Two recently arrived and two ongoing students are from various locations: Dalian, Liuzhou, Kunming, Baoding. From public schools. No "foreign teachers". Their English is very good. They can converse. Their reading ages are on average 5 years above the others [who come in as 2nd or 3rd graders].

Once Chinese education wakes up to this ongoing waste of money - scam is too cruel - the "teach in China" option may start to shrivel on the vine. So might the $$$ can buy a good education notion.

[InTime]

RE:
...the "$$$-can-buy-a-good-education" notion
...long live nouveau riche!!!

RE:
explaining the THAT
...key variables include:
*intrinsic motivation
*curiosity
*self respect

[boubou]

Private VS Public, now let's put it this way, little princes and princesses that go to private schools don't give a damn about english because daddy is rich. Little farmers kid or normal everyday what ever workers kid know that he/she needs to learn english to get out of that social status. I've worked in both public and private middles scools (short term contracts) Not to say, they both have been exposed to foreign teachers for aproximitly the same amount of time (a bit less for the public) Public middle schoolers english was +++++ Private middle schoolers English?? Horrible, some of them can't (or barely) can read. I have a few fast-really primed to learn english kids, they would equal to the middle school I tought before... Always put Daddies money in the factor of learning.

[william wallace]

Very true, very sad.
Cheers in Aussie-land

[vikuk]

[Neilhrd]

Not all foreign teachers are brilliant and some who are are prevented from using their talents by administrative incompetence or political interference. Neither are all Chinese teachers of English useless contrary to what many people in this forum seem to think.

It is possible , although certainly not common in this city, for a bright, motivated student to learn reasonable English without a foreign teacher at a state middle school.

In my experience students who succeed in doing so have three things in common. Firstly they have lucked into a class with a good Chinese teacher. Secondly said Chinese teacher has been allowed to teach and not stifled by bureaucracy, incompetence or corruption on the partof his/her superiors and the school administrators. Thirdly, and most importantly, the student has realised that English is not an end in itself but a tool with which to access other areas of knowledge, or other countries and cultures, in which the student is interested.

The sad thing is that getting into a good or bad teacher's class is pure luck. Yes there is corruption and many rich parents bribe principals to get their child into what they are told is a good teacher's class. But what the average school principal or administrator knows about education I could write on my fingernail so this is usually a waste of money. The absence of any credible system of school inspection or testing means that neither the principals nor parents has any idea who can teach and who can't. Incidentally that applies to foreign owned private schools just as much as Chinese state schools.

On top of that the looping system used in state schools in China means that decisions taken at age 6 about which teacher a child gets are usually irreversible.

I also agree with other posters that a growing number of rich kids in the cities believe that daddy's money and guanxi mean that they don't have to work in school.

Add all these factors together and in Nanning you get a grossly distorted view among parents, and many students, about which are the best schools.

The result is that when the rich kids emerge from their clueless, but hugely expensive, elite schools at 18 and want to cash in their privileges and go abroad they suddenly discover that IELTS and TOFEL can't be faked, dumbed down or bought . That's when they turn to foreigners for help when it is already far too late.

[Ona Nizm]

Mr. eslstoodies,

IGCSE (ESL) results out just today: of my 45 students (who I among others have been teaching for under a year) 18 got grade As, 20 grade Bs, 6 grade Cs, 1 a D. Overseen by CIE. A lot of thse students came onto the course with very poor English and not much motivation to boot. A lot of effort by NSs and NNSs alike has garnered such great results. Just one example. Your point was what exactly? A very empirical comparison you posit - maybe you're just a sheet teacher.

[arioch36]

Trying to ruffle our feathers? If they all come from the same school, is the problem the 10 laowai, or the school? I would say obviously the school. The school alllows or doesn't allow a teacher to his best. If a teacher is underperforming at a school wthat takes in a lot of money, can't they higher better teachers?

Here in my city, the most expensive pre-k, k school, with its own fleet of buses, pays the minimum, has mostly Filipinos working slave hours, and not one laowai from the U.S, U.K., Oz, or Canada with any experience.

I have found the children of the rich usually are better because their parents spent so much money on teachers. But here I think it is pretty obvious it is the school. And how are these children coming to your school? Their parents work in Oz? Which children have the better work habits? First you have to look at the parents, and then the school.

However, if the parents are not working in OZ, then this is some kind of scam/payoff that so many of these children come from one school??? Then I would suggest the biggest culprit is your school, then the other school.

But overall, money does buy the better education. The gap between students of the rich and poor, rural (poor) and urban (much richer), grow bigger evey year here in China.

[eslstudies]

Well, Onanism, you certainly do justice to your screen name. You might like to elaborate on that jumble of acronyms so that your boasting takes on some meaning. Those results placed on any normal assessment bell curve should set alarms ringing somewhere as well, unless of course it was a particularly soft exam. Did it feature multiple choice and cloze exercises which all but the total English illiterate can do?However, if you teach to a standardised test, it's easy to boost results. I taught an IELTS group in China and saw their results up considerably and across the board. How? By teaching them how to do the test. Their English didn't improve much, but they got the results they wanted and the school was impressed. However, anyone who really knows education also knows that such results are BS. Witness CET4 and 6 as examples.

Neilhrd wrote:

[Ona Nizm]

ESLstudies: Let me see: "a jumble of acronyms". OK:

ESL = English as a Second Language (know that one?)
IGCSE = International General Certificate of Secondary Education
CIE = Cambridge International Examinations (as in the University of Cambridge - know that one?)
NS = Native Speaker (of English)
NNS = Non-Native Speaker (of English)

"I taught an IELTS group in China and saw their results up considerably and across the board. How? By teaching them how to do the test. Their English didn't improve much, but they got the results they wanted and the school was impressed. However, anyone who really knows education also knows that such results are BS."

I know a little about education. How, for example, to achieve good test scores AND to develop creative learning experiences wherein Ss (Students) are motivated not only extrinsically but intrinsically as well. Results are, in and of themselves, not necessarily BS if Ss are approaching the learning tasks in an active, 'deep' way and not purely in an instrumental way. It is possible to juxtapose short-term goals (i.e. passing an exam) with long-term ones. I am not "boasting" - I was lucky with the bunch of Ss I had plus great support from the institution I was working within. The key is to understand Ss learning goals and capitalise on them.

[JJ711]

[eslstudies]

Good to see that the author of this:

[JJ711]

[eslstudies]

Hi
Seriously, if that's a serious question I'll answer it. Be aware of the difference between EFL [in China] and ESL [in an English speaking country] before replying. One clue: context.
But I cannot see the link between the quotation from my first post and your question. Is there one?

[Ona Nizm]

Eslstudies kind of wrote:

"I teach ESL, he teaches EFL. Cambridge is to the EFL world as McDonalds is to the hamburger. Notice they're careful not to addend "university" to any of their EFL products, not even the CELTA. They'll take the money, but don't want to sully their name by associating with academically inferior products.
My original post was about comparing students from two systems within the one country, and their ability to actually function both at school, and in the larger world, using English in an English speaking society.. Onan seems to have missed that."

I do like the way that some teflers take these dichotomies they learn on their two-week certificate courses and reel them out as if they explain a lot. In the next post, this eslstudies patronisingly says "be aware" of the difference between EFL and ESL. So "I" teach EFL and "you" teach ESL right? And I seem to have missed the point because you have made over-arching assumptions based on the comparisons between two tiny arbitrary samples - how empirical of you.
Like most dichotomies the EFL/ESL one is oversimplified. Yes, context is all-important, but what exactly do you mean by context? My students, for instance, study in an English language-rich environment where all their subjects are delivered in English. All of them, bar none, are applying to study at UK and US universities next year. So, am I teaching ESL or EFL? What is your meaning of "context" eslstudies? You obviously have a problem with the concept because that quote of mine you reproduced would have made sense if you hadn't taken it out ... of context. Idiot.
Oh, and look, I am holding the course book I am teaching "IGCSE ESL" and it says .... wait for it ... UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE International Examinations on't front cover... carelessly "addended" no doubt. (Oh and with the crest and everything). And get this: all of the IGCSE certificates come "addended" in a similar way.
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