Job Discussion Forums

Mister Ed · Joined: 13 Oct 2003 Posts: 32

This document was sent to me by Martin Wolff, whom some of the longer-standing posters may remember as MW, amongst others.
It is essential reading for everyone on this board.
http://teflchina.org/jobs/intro/Niu_and_Wolff.htm

shenyanggerry · Joined: 02 Nov 2003 Posts: 619 Location: Canada

It should be required reading for every current and would be EFL teacher in China.

kimo · Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 668

Mister Ed · Joined: 13 Oct 2003 Posts: 32

Kimo, it was sent to me as a courtesy, as was a first draft, as some of my observations from Daves were used in it.
I certainly wasn't asked to put a link here. People can make up their own minds about it's content, but it definitely gives a better overview than anything else I've come across.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

It is a good piece, as far as I can say (read through it in a whirlwind, would love to get a tidy copy of my own so I don't need to access some website).
But, I too found a few claims to be at variance with reality or my own perceptions. The F visa issue is a minor one.

To begin with, the number of FE's in China seems to me to be highly exaggerated; I don't believe there are any 100'000 expats teaching at any time in China; at most, I would put the number at 20'000.
Just visit Manchuria and count the white or black faces teaching English there! And that's one of the more developed part of China. Most of us are in Guangdong, Shanghai, Peking, Jiangsu, Fujian, Hebei, SIchuan, Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Shandong, Xinjiang - in that order, with very few placed elsewhere. The majority are based in Guangdong, but i reckon there are no more than 10'000 to 15'000 here. Does Shanghai play host to another 10'000??? Not likely!

Schools: I have no experience with those three tiers of universities, but I know practically all levels btween preschool to tertiary education and language institutes; I am at odds with the claim that "middle school students" are the "most industrious...and disciplined..." etc.; this clearly is not the case in most Guangdong primary schools. Here, kids can be rather boisterous and unruly, not to mention excellent truants. They do submit to a school regimen that's akin to sweatshop conditions, but the output is mediocre because it's mere presence time, not productive time spent in classrooms!

As for kindergartens, discipline is not a bigger issue than anywhere else, although I agree with the authors that parents interfere in nefarious ways. Expats have the same problem as anywhere else - they often are powerless by virtue of being outsiders. Punishments are the province of our Chinese colleagues. This says more about how the Chinese society perceives foreigners than about objective classroom conditions; some school administrations are enlightened enough to accept a FE's opinion on their students, which sledom fails to improve rapport and respect between the two sides.

As for ADULT students, a clear distinction is needed between self-paying ones and those whose employer foots the bill for English lessons. Company classes can be a total waste of time and resources.

The suggestions made by the authors sound reasonable, yet I feel more administative and supervisory means are not exactly called for; what would most effectively bring about changes is for the education bureaucracy to delegate some power to us FE's.
Considering the huge squandering of resources currently underway, it would be extremely helpful and economical to put FE's in charge of students' assessme3nts, curriculum design and conduct of more substantive classes (grammar for high-school and normal school students). ALso, the addition of English Literature would be a great acculturating factor.

And CHinese parents need re-education! Perhaps in the future, enlightened school administrators will hold an Open Day for parents to get to know FE's and their philosophy, and parents learn to accept a Western teacher's verdict on their child's English performance!

This is something extremely badly needed in ki9ndergartens - because Chinese parents do not have the wisdom of understanding that a preschooler cannot learn to "read a book" without having learnt the ABC.
They don't even understand that toddlers learn differently from children aged 7 and more.

struelle · Joined: 16 May 2003 Posts: 2372 Location: Shanghai

Dalian Veteran · Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2004 5:13 pm Post subject:

Very good reading. But there's some other inaccuracies on the Z visa info. Actually, you do have the right to travel abroad if you get a re-entry visa before leaving the country. The re-entry visa should have no effect on your green book and foreign expert's certificate, and you shouldn't have to get a new visa to re-enter the country (provided that, of course, you got the re-entry visa before you left the country). My school in Dalian had many teachers that took their vacation abroad via the re-entry visa.

Gray000 · Joined: 14 Apr 2003 Posts: 183 Location: A better place

MW is a JD? That explains A LOT. Tiers of law schools are a very american thing. Judging by his input on dave's, he is obvioiusly a graduate of a fourth tier one. And yes, I know I mispelled that.

Gray000 · Joined: 14 Apr 2003 Posts: 183 Location: A better place

I'm sorry - loyola CA is a third tier institution. Hey, that's just like the third tier university at which you teach and from which you get your motorbike, neh?

NumberOneSon · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Posts: 314

Since so much of the information in the article seems to come from
Dave's and similar sites, it's no surprise it's something we can relate
to.

Some of the solutions don't really appeal to me, though.

Do we REALLY want a national ESL curriculum, for example?

I have little confidence in China's "certification" processes
for managers and suspect that this will do less to increase
professionalism than it will do to increase corruption.

Also, we have to be aware of the Chinese tendency to
accept any musings of an "authority" as truth, and going
up against the totally unfounded views of a "certified"
Chinese manager will be even more exasperating than the
current situation.

Don't give the Chinese any kind of legalistic solutions
to these problems (such as relying on personal
credentials for "truth") or they will take them and further
frustrate the FEs.

In fact, I am suspect of any concrete solutions to specific
problems at this time since they are likely to be one-time
solutions which simply allow further problems to be ignored.

What is really needed is a problem resolution PROCESS in which
Foreign Experts are actively involved because I think this is
a situation more akin to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in
which a "peace process" is probably more attainable than
"peace" itself.

Mister Ed · Joined: 13 Oct 2003 Posts: 32

Roger, Peoples' Daily [if that's to be believed, but what are the alternatives?] says in Sept. 2003 there were 400,000 "Foreign Experts" in China, which to me means working for the state.
I don't think 150,000 of those teaching would be over the top. As for Shanghai, you wouldn't even notice an extra 10,000 foreigners here. There's 600 higher education institutions, not to mention kindergartens through to language mills