Job Discussion Forums

[gerard49]

Purests will say you shouldn't use the native tongue of the students. Moreover, ESL theory seems to revolve around 4 skills: reading writing, listening and speaking, but no one seems to mention vocabulary and translation. As a student of Mandarin I can tell you that learning the native language of one's pupils will give you great insight into why they have such trouble with grammar, word order and pronunciation.

Take for instance the mandarin "Nin yao shenme di fang qu?" = You want what place go?" and in good English = "Where do you want to go?". This sentence is typical of the problems they have in learning English.

My point is there are many ways to teach conversational English that work. Try new ideas, your students will soon let you know if they are any good or not. Giving students a literal intrepretation of something they would say themselves and some multiple choice possibilities, is just one teaching tool that I find to be successful.

[Wolf]

Interesting. I can't, so I don't. Also, I often don't have to. In class sizes as large as mine, two factors come into play. There are always a few people who don't understand and don't care. Also, there are always a few people who understand me should a translation be necessary.

In Japan I'd often take short cuts with certian problem areas - if I thought that it would help move the lesson along. I'd only try to do it when I had to, and I didn't want my students to rely on my Japanese ability as a crutch. Thing is, many of my students wanted to rely on any and every crutch they could. I'd still do it as a survival tactic (I was working for a private langague school, and the actual improvement of EFL ability was not a primary goal for the administration and some of our students. Yet, I had to keep food on the table.)

When I studied foreign langauges, my beginner teachers were all fluent in my langauge. It's no great leap of logic to see that a beginner might need evil things such as grammar explanations in their L1, explainations of idioms that don't translate literally, etc. Relying on this for vocab is a bit lazy - dictionaries exist - but it has been useful for me as a teacher and as a student.

On a final note, when I taught true beginners in Japan (and even false beginners), my ability to understand them made a world of difference in lowering their affective filter - ie they relaxed and focused on the lesson instead of on the "My-English-Is-Poor-itis" that seems to affect nearly every student I've ever taught.

[Roger]

Actually, our Chinese charges do have grammar explanations given them in their own tongue - by their Chinese English teachers.
The trouble is that our local colleagues are seldom up to the task, and they rely too much on speaking in Chinese for the benefit of their students, so much so that everything expressed in English gets a Chinese translation. Just look at their textbooks!

For a L2 learner to succeed at his task, there must be a limit to what teachers do for him. He must learn to actively seek solutions to communications issues. This involves a lot more than mere cognitive knowledge; he must develop his imagination.
To dissect language into sentences, phrases and words is a relatively new approach to learning; it's been possible only since humankind adopted scripts with which to make language "visible". Until Roman times, - and in China to this day! - whole sentences were and are uninterrupted clusters of sounds with no gaps between them; spaces have been invented as recently as the Medieval Age in Europe!
For a student to understand English, he or she must understand what the whole text is all about (context). Words and grammar come into the picture somewhat later.
I don't think I am doing my students any good service by providing them with verbatim translations of what's being expressed in a text or a speech by myself. I think my students must piece the puzzle parts together. And there will inevitably be some holes they have to fill in with some imagined piece.

[arioch36]

i think there are times that using Chinese in a limited way is an excellent idea...provided that you understand the Chinese correctly, and that speaking Chinese enhances the lesson goal.

We all lament that the Chinese are taught to say, "How are you? fine thank you and you?" So, I talk about ways to say hello in China, qu nar, Chi le ma, etc. and this provides transitions to different ways of saying hello.

there are times that knowing the Chinese meaning can be helpful...spread versus scatter. And there are times thatan important lesson point is being obstructed becaue a key english word is not understood. If I knew the word in chinese, I would say it, rather then spend 5 or ten minutes on something other then the lesson goal.

Other times it is a crutch, especially, perhaps be Chinese teachers with poor english. Other times foreign teachers (myself included at times) speak some Chinese as a ego boost, or for fun, to the detriment of the english learning

[Minhang Oz]

For actual teaching, almost never, apart from the odd bit of vocab. After all, describing "cheese" takes a long time. But in general classroom management, a sharp "ni zai gan shen me?" will bring a much more immediate and satisfactory modification in behaviour than an English "what are you doing?". The nature/level of my students is mostly to blame for my ideological shortcoming: I know I shouldn't do it at all!

[arioch36]

well, you can spend five minutes asking a student "can you see the blackboard" or you kan say (forgive my french) kan bu qing? which tends to get an immediate and more honest answer...especially in the lower level classes/schools

[struelle]

[randyj]

Speaking Chinese in class amounts to a disservice to the students, although a teacher should do so, if possible, in some circumstances to speed up the lesson. If I have an urge to speak Chinese in class, then I must ask myself whether it benefits the students or me. I mean, the Chinese language student within me wants to practice. It is an urge I have to fight.

[NumberOneSon]

My Chinese is fairly limited, so I don't use it in class very often.

I have had Chinese teaching assistants who help when needed,
but I try to use them sparingly. I think Chinese is more useful
at the lower levels and is useful for classroom control.

I mostly use my limited Chinese skills to determine what the
class is doing "behind my back" - which as most of you know
can often be right in your face. That way, I know whether
the students are talking/thinking about class material or some
other topic when they talk to each other.

Since they almost never hear me speak Chinese, they are
usually surprised when I "catch on" to a problem they are
having or know when they are being disrespectful to me or
to each other and call them on it (in English, of course.)

To me, it's fun to keep them guessing exactly how much
I know and actually helps control the classroom better
than if they knew how limited I truly am.

One of my pet peeves is English teachers who insist on
using hackneyed Chinese phrases such as "shenme,
shenme, shenme" in the middle of an explanation or
try to use English class to practice Chinese. Sure, it
can be entertaining, but I don't think it helps much.

[Dalian Veteran]

Even though my Mandarin is very good, complete with the four tones and all, I still avoided using Mandarin in the classroom as much as possible. The only times I used it was whenever the Chinese T.A. is either not paying attention or doesn't understand what I'm saying. Sometimes, the T.A.'s in my school don't know when and if to translate, because so many foreign teachers have different teaching styles.

But even for my Chinese language level, the little emperors and empresses, including teens, can be brutally blunt if your pronunciation isn't 100% fluent, like the Canadian guy Da Shan. In their minds, you either know the language, or you don't. No middle ground. If you blurt out something with even a slight foreign accent, they will all laugh at you. Normally, most teachers don't mind letting the students have a good laugh. But for someone who has studied the language and lived in China for years, plus uses it when communicating with his wife, that can be a slap in the face when you thought you were a Mandarin-speaking stud. For me, it isn't the tones, but the similarity between certain sounds, like "chu" & "qu", "xue" & "shui", "xu" & "shu", and so on. For example, when I say the word for tuition (xuefei), they think I'm talking about the water bill (shuifei).

So, rather than get laughed at, I just stopped using Mandarin in the classroom. But for adult classes, they are more polite and also understand that it is both difficult and rare for a foreigner to speak perfect Mandarin. Having an intermediate level achievement in this language is actually quite good for a Westerner.

[Deborann]

I will be teaching Business classes - do you use your Mandarin skills in these types of classes (if you have them )? Or do you rely on the Chinese TA to translate Business Process Re-engineering??

[Minhang Oz]

Deborann, I wouldn't put money on having a TA if I were you. But I'm sure you'll manage admirably.

[gerard49]

Thanks for all your comments. The point is there are probably as many ways of teaching english as there are ESL teachers. Rote learning of english, or chinese for that matter, is just a "verbalization of words" with little or no comprehension. A knowledge of Chinese albeit a limited one, can give you some great ideas for sentence correction. A variation of "Sentence word order" quizzes is to give the students some poor English which is actually a literal translation of their own tongue
"You when return home?"
" I know how go airport"
"There have very many places can see"
"Finish duty after, I can buy movie ticket"
"I drank fruit juice after still very thirsty"

Get the little parrots to think and you may make some real progress. Then again we're only here for the sightseeing, arn't we?
Gerard D