Job Discussion Forums

[mmgkelly]

Hi there,

I teach oral English to freshmen and sophomores at a small college. This is my first time teaching and before I got here I was told that my students all have had about 10 years of English and my job would just be to help them with their speaking abilities.

After a few weeks of classes, I'm realizing that the 7 - 9 years of English classes my students have had haven't done much to help their listening comprehension. I don't think they understand half of what I say, and no one in class will respond to my questions or tell me when they don't understand something. I think they are embarrassed to ask questions or to talk in front of the class, but I am at a loss for how to help them. I don't want to waste a years worth of the school's time and money - but I don't know the best way to proceed with these students.

Any guidance you might have would be GREATLY appreciated.

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

[alter ego]

I wouldn't say the the years were wasted as much as they were spent doing a different kind of English language learning. Many Chinese students have very little experience listening to native speakers or using communicative language learning to improve their English. It's not easy to break the ice and get through to them, much less get them to practice, participate, try hard, do their best, etc. in class.

I teach oral English to the same grades at a polytechnic. I constantly encourage my students to practice their speaking skills with the idea that it's okay to make mistakes, and I also remind them not to worry so much about grammar and to just do their best to communicate with their classmates, and me, in English. I like Cleric's idea of breaking them into groups as this makes it easier to manage and monitor classes while giving students more time to interact with their peers.

I also get students speaking up in front of the class from day one to break down their natural tendency to be shy, inhibited, and embarrassed about speaking English in front of their peers. I focus on effort, attitude, and participation and do my best to provide students with a safe environment where they can express themselves in English regardless of their speaking level or abilities and I go out of my way to praise them for doing so.

I like using a deck of playing cards or a di to determine which student speaks next, as games of luck and chance are popular in China and usually grab their attention, plus it makes it fun and livens things up when there are ties and two students pick the same card or roll the same number a few times. Students really enjoy this!

Students who lose must speak in front of the class in a public speaking or presentation format. Topics can range from vocabulary and discussion topics from the daily lesson to spur of the moment questions or topics from students. After a student speaks I do a Q&A, with students asking follow up questions. If students don't ask, I always raise my hand emphatically, saying "Oh, Oh, Oh! I have a question!" and hamming it up.

Ham it up, have fun, and teach your students to be themselves. And remember, you can't reach or inspire every student, so let the one or two that don't like your class or could care less about practicing their oral English go. It's not worth worrying about.

[jamesmollo]

You should never make the objective (speaking english) as a punishment. It is commonsense, isn't it? come on

[nobleignoramus]

[nickpellatt]

I also worked at a small college in China, and had similar students. I guess they were similar anyway ... 16/17 years old, and had been taught English for a number of years, but had little communicative competence or fluency .. with dubious listening skills when confronted with real speech as opposed to scripted tapes.

These are my ideas, disregard them as you see fit

Firstly, you will need to adjust your aims. As nice as it would be, and as easy as it would make your life, you have to be realistic, and understand you are unlikely to have your classes debating complicated topics with little input from you.

If you students are really lacking in ability, I reckon you have to initially make English something that is interesting for them, fun, and non-threatening.

This means modelling everything. I guess its going to be hard to give them free reign in speaking tasks, but carefully modelled examples should give them a framework to use, and allow them to build up confidence.

For example - showing them a holiday brochure, and then asking them to talk about where they would like to take a holiday is likely to give nothing but blank expressions. However, if you carefully model sentences for them first (perhaps with your own examples) they will have a framework to follow and understand. This should make the exercise less threatening for them.

Expanding this idea, you should try to use lots of brainstorm activities. I fing these work well with quiet classes and they can offer simple (often even one word answers). This does get them particpating in class, which is an important first step.

Using the brainstorm with the holiday ideas, you can get kids to shout out place names, and list them on the board. You could also extend this to holiday activities, and ideal travel partners. (again listing them on the board).

The theory being, with a structure on the board, they can make their own sentences using the 'brainstormed' words.

'I would like to (go to Sanya)'
'I would like to (swim on the beach)'
'I would like to (go with Yao Ming)'

Really basic stuff ... but with heavily modelled sentences, and brainstormed vocab items, even the worst and least confident students should be able to participate. And that is going to be key...getting them involved...even on a basic simple level.

My students and I were lucky enough to have text books. I asked my low level students to use the heavily scripted dialogues in them quite often. I would read them first to model and show pronunciation .. and task students to work in pairs reciting and practising them together whilst I would monitor pronunciation. At least them they are doing something rather than staring open mouthed at you. These exercises can always be followed up by allowing confident students to perform the dialogue for the class .... and you can involve all of the class by asking simple qualifying questions about the text ... encourage students to be involved and shout out simple answers to questions about the dialogue - 'what colour was his car?', 'what time did they meet?'. Simple stuff again that involves the students.

I used short reading texts in a similar way ... I would read a sentence, and they would repeat it with focus on pronunciation. Again, less than ideal for the ideal classroom ... but it gives students some confidence in numbers, and gets the involved in the lessons which I think is key.

Games may also work well. Simple activities that involve all students in a fun and non-threatening way making them use English. Music is another good tool for these types of classes ... Chinese students love to sing, and simple songs can be introduced just to get the kids going.

A final thing I have used that can work well is a listening exercise, that is kinda suited to a drama class ... its fun too! I have written some short simple stories, and I ask students to mime the actions whilst I read the story. These tend to be only 5-10 minutes in length, but they engage the students and get them involved ... I encourage students to move around the class during this too. Anything to get them active and involved. This does allow them to practise listening too. A sample story would start like this -

You are asleep (students mime sleeping)
Wake up, jump up (students mime this)
Look at your watch
Stretch
Walk to the kitchen
etcetcetc.

If they really are that difficult ... You really need to lower your aims, and in the first instance, engage them. When you have done this, and given them a safe and controlled, and fun environment to use English in ...you can start to introduce more challenging work.

These kind of classes can be hard ... and they do require more planning and work from you ... but they can be really rewarding too! If you have come to China and thought you could just 'speak english to them!' (as employers often say) you will have to adjust your aims and expectations ... this doesnt have to be a waste of a year for you or them. Its just gonna have to be different to what you thought.

Whilst I like the group ideas suggested by another poster ... I wouldnt try them with these classes yet. I would first try really controlled activities with heavily modelled English, and fun activities to stimulate their interest. When you are satisfied they can use English and do have some level of fluency, you can use small group work to let them practice and self-correct. Introducing it too early may mean you have the same problems ... that is, even in small groups, they dont have the communicative competence to complete the tasks.

Ill sign off with just reminding you that this is only my thoughts ... they may not be the best, or the most likely to work, but hell ... if its going as bad as you say, you dont have nothing to lose!

Good luck...and it would be interesting to know how you get on over the next few months!

[alter ego]

[kev7161]

Another angle is this: You may be these students' 4th, 5th, 6th . . . foreign teacher they've had (depending on their history of where they went to high school). As bad as the Chinese method of teaching and learning can be, it's at least consistent from year to year. Different foreign teachers have different ways of teaching, different personalities, different frustration thresholds, etc. Some of these students may just not want to cooperate with yet another unknown, untested foreign teacher. Yes, part of it can be shyness, part of it can be not having enough experience with the spoken English language and part of it could be they simply don't care enough to get to know another FT. I think that if you are a good teacher with a fun personality and quite outgoing, your students will warm up to you (hopefully sooner than later) and the rest of your school year will start to become smoother . . . . or not.

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

[jamesmollo]

'Students who lose must speak '(quote) sure games have a winner and a loser, It wouldn't be fair if they didn't. I just mean, given you have students who are already shy and for the most part haven't really the interest in speaking, would view the punishment as learning english to be a negative thing. They need positive reinforcement. It's our job to make the goal as interesting and fun as we can. You made some other good points though.

[alter ego]

I see your point and I agree it could be a negative experience for a small number of students. But as others have noted here those students are probably looking for reasons to dislike English anyway. There's a fine line between going to far and playing it safe with students who as you say:

[kev7161]