Job Discussion Forums

[checkmate]

Training centers in China have nothing to do with education. There are no students only clients and customers. There are no teachers just monkeys on a string. There is no academic licence only company policy.
The purpose of training centers is clear.. Capitalise on the market of English,stimulate that market using false and misleading information, supply slick advertising, young girls in short skirts as sales and provide the main incredient. Foreigners as the base product.
It is said China has 5000 years of history but some say its just 100 years of history repeated 50 times.
Training centers are like instant coffee. Just add water and stir. There is no real education, depth or duty of care. no responsibility only profit.
Students or should I say clients are always right and are given simple rhetoric to passify them into signing despite a clear understanding of what they will undertake.
But the fault lies in many areas.
Clients are coerced into believing they can learn English instantly,.
Chinese staff are not trained in education theory only in company doctrine.
Teachers are at best foreigners who took a 5 minute tefl course and added a photshop degree.
Its a sad state of affairs for China but good for the west because of the appearence of education rather then the essence of it. As long as training centers are able to continue this practice their clients will always be under prepared to step in to the world outside China.
Can we really afford to have 1.4 billion Chinese who are as endowed as we are, educationally that is.
Western education philosphy would be a direct threat to Chinese social stability because then they would know what we know.
So roll on all training centers because as long as they exist we will not be under threat.

[Orrin]

I agree completely. Do a search on American TPR English School, Zhuhai.

[Anda]

I think you are rolling everything up into let's say training centers. China is doing just about everything the West is doing these days.

The other sad thing is that the number of required lets say experts is low and currently there is a huge over supply of those with degrees.


For the sake of an argument for every government party position there are about 2,000 applicants wanting the job. Of the 2,000 40 to 60 will get interviewed and one will get the position.


Now on trips to Shanghai I've met young girls working in corner shops with good English speaking skills.


The students that do want to learn will learn despite the system as once they get past the basics in English they are capable of self study with the material that is available these days.


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Now this is where we are at in the West with all our education

http://www.thelastoutpost.com/DesktopModules/Articles/ArticlesView.aspx?tabID=0&ItemID=459&mid=106&wversion=Staging

A real estimate, based on population and payroll taxes, reveals that about 25 percent of the American workforce is presently un-employed, and that will eventually force them into the social service slavery system. Unless your mortgage and debts are completely paid off, and you can still pay your property taxes, there�s a good chance you�ll soon be joining them.

John Maynard Keynes** "90 percent of all Americans are mortgaged to the hilt, and would have little or no assets left if all debts and liabilities were to be paid."

Rep. Traficant to U.S. Congress. John Maynard Keynes is the economist for whom our present monetary system is named.

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I like this one from back in Oz! Yes it is true that the dole is being replaced by the new social service slavery system as talked about above. For some it should have happened a long time back. But what it will do the way it will be handled is turn Australia into a country like China is for your average factory worker. Long hours and just enough to exist as you toil away for the educated few who fill the limited positions for educated adults.

Unemployed Australia - By the unemployed for the unemployedI have spent 18 years of my adult life on the dole and if anyone can speak for the Unemployed of Australia it must be me. ...
www.unemployedaustralia.org/ - 4k - Cached - Similar pages

[william wallace]

The annual results of IELTS in Asia still had China at dead last,though to be fair South Korea and Japan are not doing so well either - These happen to be the 3 largest ESL markets for this region.The 3 cultures seem to dissuade the peoples from using an alternative language in the day-to-day.After decades of English training/teaching, Japan still has Engrish abounding throughout the country. In China this McESL is relatively new, but we have Chinglish, and look at the speakers of even minority languages;over the years I've met many Mongul and Man minorities,and not one was able to speak more than a few words or phrases.I saw the same thing with the Bai,Dai and Zhang folks...so English ? WTO ? done! Olympics ? Done! What is to motivate now?
Those that were teaching here some time may recall hearing students using WTO, Hong Kong coming back,Macao etc.. as the reasons/motivation for improving their English.

[eddy-cool]

I don't know what the OP purported with his tirade, but I beg to see things a tad differently.

First off: What has the existence of TRAINING CENTRES to do with China's history? We know the Chinese don't have a recorded history of 5'000 years anyway.

Secondly:
Why make a post about CHINESE training centres and not about TC's the world over? I don't think those in western countries are qualitatively different to a meaningful degree. Profit maximisation underlies their business motives anywhere in the world. I don't see what's wrong with this capitalist principle in Mao's home country.

[un]

RE:

[englishgibson]

i think OP is telling us that chinese language training centers have put business before education and that as strongly as it is. if you are a REAL TEACHER, you hate seeing that kind of trend around. they ask you for all kind of credentials and then put you in a role of a monkey to attract business and entertain "customers". any academic progress in the "customers" is often forgotten and that especially when they (customers) are complaining that the teacher is "boring". then, the language training centers' incompetent and desperate management and ch-recruiting department cannot see beyond their office door. isn't that the gist of this thread???

[theincredibleegg]

"fts, if they wish to go away from their course books, are to provide their ch-academic leaders with any suplementary material or activities in their teaching plans."

How specific are these regulations? It would be strange if an inspector(?) one day came and said: We have reports on socio-cultural activities at this school. We don't tolerate Lev Vygotskij and his methods as he was (1) Russian and (2) had a beard.

I mean, are they trying to target christian teachers? Political activists? What?

[englishgibson]

no specific group..just trying to keep this nation in order

cheers and beers

[englishgibson]

no specific group..just trying to keep this nation in order

cheers and beers

[checkmate]

I suppose my idea were a little irratic but it seems Enlgish Gibbon came close to what I meant. so thanks.
The reason I refer to Chinese Training centers is because I live here. My meaning of western education philosophy is our ability to seek challenges and overcome them without knowing what the result will be. I find in China many students not only want you to cook for them and serve it but also spoon feed it to them, if you know my meaning.
I believe that the constant fear of western ideology by Chinese comes from paranoia of losing or feeling less. In my meager experience I have found chinese education ideology is based on 2 things. Everything has to have a "with chinese characteristics' and maintaining social stability. I once read somewhere that China will always stay as it is unless pushed to change. This has been evident in the last 200 odd years of Chinese history. All change in China came through force or outside influences.
In broaching this issue I believe that education is the key to strength and as such changing the focus from teacher teach to student learn is an important factor. Training center focus is on mass marketing to attract students but fail to provide a solid platform of educating the students on a learning process and teaching then how to learn. It seems to me that training centers offer speedy english like fast food. Get em in, take their money and get em out then Next please. Sometimes it feels like working at MacDonalds.
Many of us F/Ts are just as guilty because many are here for things other then teaching but it seems we are products or monkeys on a string who dance for our supper. At some point those F/Ts who a real educators not edutainers as has been eloquently said before can and should try to make a change or admit they are here for everything except educating.

[Anda]

Hum, I find that mothers here are very set in how they think their children can learn. I find them to be more of a stumbling block than say institute bosses etc.


I have worked for eight and a half years in South Korea five of which were spent in the EPIK program working in public schools. When you get employed by EPIK you are employed as a level one two or three teacher. The catch is that you are not actually employed as a teacher but a teaching assistant. However it is not uncommon to be left from day one to teach by yourself.


Both in Korea and here in the public school system you are supposed to submit your lesson plans before using them in class. So far in seven years of teaching for government schools I haven't submitted one lesson prior to using it in class.

Why do I work in the public school system so much? I have the freedom to teach my own way. So I just get on with my teaching and enjoy myself. Do I try to change the system? No as I would be laughed at. Do I get good teaching results? Yes I do.


It is common sense to teach with neutral material. Neutral meaning material that is not going to upset the host government. I use stories written by Children in the West of the same age as the children that I am teaching. I also write conversational scripts myself. I produce all my own exercisers as well.

Now I get my English teaching certificate from the University of N.S.W. in Australia. Guess what? They required their teachers at their language Institute to submit lessons before there could use them in class.

[eddy-cool]

Yes, I seem to get the gist of the origianal wailing then; Englishgibson put it in far better words than the OP.

I am well acquainted with this sort of reasoning but find it still a little over the top. Why should Chinese training centres tick according to foreign hearts?

Yes, we are agents of change, yes we are representatives of the English way of speaking and thinking, and yes, the Chinese are suspicious of foreign mindsets. Is that illegitimate? I don't think so.

Training centres in the WEST don't work any differently; they are also business-success orientated. Shouldn't they be? Who should provide such a service at their own expense?

Look at the Chinese TCs as an ingredient of the Chinese education cake: They answer certain needs of the Chiense society. No different in the West. And the Western training centres - anyone know how BERLITZ works? - aren't noted for their great academic successes either.

After all, what teacher is doing his or her job as an altruist? We are here to earn a decent living, all of us making more than our local peers.

Hence it is a bit hypocritical to come down on our employers while we do not wish to make any charitable contrib ution ourselves.

[vikuk]

Anybody reading this thread - looking at the level of English used in some of the posts - could conclude that one of the major problems with EFL in China maybe involved - a crap, unqualified system that uses crap, unqualified teachers

[loboman]