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Cleopatra
Joined: 28 Jun 2003
Posts: 3657
Location: Tuamago Archipelago
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 Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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| What I was referring to was mainly a Prof from the West who had always taught native speakers having to get down to this level. |
Given the intellectual level of some 'Western' graduates, I don't think the Prof would have to stoop all that low. |
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Linda467
Joined: 01 Sep 2009
Posts: 138
Location: A Secret
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| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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VS
Couldn�t agree with you more. Once I told the DOS of a British "international school" that if she was more worried about paperwork and bureaucracy (my CELTA school has to be British Council stamped) than academic level, I will not like to work with her.
On the other hand if you try to elicit the difference between the words "net" and "gross" at one of the two main business teachers working at the British Council main office in Madrid, you�ll get zip as an answer 
They cannot handle competition from bilingual or trilinguals  |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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At the IPA (for a while), we did a kind of "pre-ESP" syllabus. At the end of four sessions (equalling a year,) the students would go on to classes in their respective areas (Accounting, Sales, Marketing, etc.) taught in English by "non-native speakers."
The problem was that these teachers, rather than creating their own materials, would simply photocopy pages from university textbooks.
The students, who, in one year, had, in most cases, gone from no or very little English in OUR program, were usually completely lost.
We never could explain to the "non-native speaker" teachers why it was unrealistic to expect that that a student could go from zero English to university-level English in four sessions. |
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desultude
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 614
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| Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 2:04 am Post subject: |
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| johnslat wrote: |
At the IPA (for a while), we did a kind of "pre-ESP" syllabus. At the end of four sessions (equalling a year,) the students would go on to classes in their respective areas (Accounting, Sales, Marketing, etc.) taught in English by "non-native speakers."
The problem was that these teachers, rather than creating their own materials, would simply photocopy pages from university textbooks.
The students, who, in one year, had, in most cases, gone from no or very little English in OUR program, were usually completely lost.
We never could explain to the "non-native speaker" teachers why it was unrealistic to expect that that a student could go from zero English to university-level English in four sessions. |
Faculty (I will argue till I am blue in the face that universities don't have "teachers") at )PMU were asked to teach ESP. They were given, to share, one book on "Interior Design" (not a book for teaching ESP for design, just a design book) and told to teach it for 4 weeks. This was follwed by something about business and IT, followed by maybe 6 or so weeks of "IELTS-Lite", or maybe it was "IELTS-like", for which there was no curriculum except what could be pirated or borrowed on-line.
Without proper materials, and adequate time, it really isn't possible to prepare students for content courses. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 3:09 am Post subject: |
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Dear desultude,
As you probably found out, there simply are (or at least, at the time, were) no very low level ESP books - at least we couldn't find any.
Result: we made our own - four levels, five subject areas (grammar, reading, writing, listening, speaking) each level.
Twenty full-length courses. YIKES! Now, THAT was fun.
Regards,
John |
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desultude
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 614
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| Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 5:11 am Post subject: |
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Yes, while that may be true, preparing materials takes time and preparation. PMU provided neither. People were told to teach the topics with no warning or prep time.
There are loads of prep books available for IELTS, but the university would buy none, and required people to scour the internet and use materials that were protected by copyright by making large quantities of copies- in gross violation of copyright. |
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Linguist
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Posts: 202
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| Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 5:28 am Post subject: |
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| We never could explain to the "non-native speaker" teachers why it was unrealistic to expect that that a student could go from zero English to university-level English in four sessions. |
John, I beg to differ. The non-native speaker teachers you are referring to are not language teachers, but 'content' teachers from the Accounting, Sales, Marketing departments. They do not have a clue how languages are taught and how long it takes for students to acquire foreign languages. You'll find the same unrealistic beliefs among the native-speaker but non-language teachers. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Linguist wrote: |
| John, I beg to differ. The non-native speaker teachers you are referring to are not language teachers, but 'content' teachers from the Accounting, Sales, Marketing departments. They do not have a clue how languages are taught and how long it takes for students to acquire foreign languages. You'll find the same unrealistic beliefs among the native-speaker but non-language teachers. |
I do believe that is exactly what John was saying.
| Cleopatra wrote: |
| Given the intellectual level of some 'Western' graduates, I don't think the Prof would have to stoop all that low. |
Having taught accounting both in the US at a small private college (which got the kids that were unable to get into universities) and in the Gulf, I can assure you that the difference is HUGE. And this is not meant as a slap at either group.
It is not just the glaring language differences affecting the ability to even begin to read and comprehend the texts, it was the glaring cultural differences of the Gulf students. My American students all had jobs, most rented their own flats, paid their bills with their checking accounts and credit cards, and had possibly done their own taxes. In their daily lives were the basics of accounting. What do things cost, how much have I earned, what were my expenses? How will I pay the rent? When you teach first semester accounting, you refer to these things in their lives that they think they understand and work into how a business does it.
Things are slightly better now, but when I first taught accounting in the Emirates, my students had none of this. I taught it like basic ESL with realia. I brought in my credit cards and check books. I was truly dealing with a blank slate. None of them had seen either... though some had heard of them. Some of them had never used cash. (they shopped, the maid handled the money and paid)
That was where the professors brought over from the US got lost. They didn't understand either the cultural or the language blanks that they needed to fill in...
VS |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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Dear Linguist,
"John, I beg to differ"
Umm, OK - what would you like to differ about? I totally agree with everything you posted - with this small addition.
Those teachers' having a clue or not was really completely irrelevant. They wouldn't have wanted to change their procedure regardless. Why? Well because using a photocopier to produce materials is much easie | | |
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