Job Discussion Forums

[Buttercup]

Roger, I just saw in your profile that you also teach French and German, so this question is especially for you...

I've been told by Chinese students and other people with an experience of China that I would have no problems finding a job teaching French. I'm curious to see what our respectable board members here have to say about that

Seriously, though... I have 7 years experience teaching both French and English, I have worked in Korea and, as i put it in my CV, I have an "outstanding ability to help students achieve fluency in their second language". I am not the typical straight, purist, grammar-obsessed French teacher/torturer. My students enjoy their classes and quickly become comfortable using the French they've learned with me or before me.

This also means that, even though I know I'll have to compromise, it would really be best for me to work in a school where students are expected to become comfortable speaking the language, as opposed to just getting nice marks and not putting any efforts into their learning. Am I too idealistic? Are there such schools in Shanghai? I guess I'll find out soon enough anyway, but i just though I'd inquire here first. Thanks!

[Roger]

Dear Buttercup,
yes, this is another avenue to teaching in China, though not a very, very profitable one. I taught some staff of a five-star hotel for a Swiss hotel management school, and I had an offer to teach in Zhuhai, from a training institute.
Shanghai certainly has French classes,, as do cities like XI'an, Kunming and Guangzhou. I go the the Canton Trade Fair every year, and I am astonished at the ability to communicate (not merely to "speak"!) of interpreters that offer their freelance services outside the trade fair halls!
They usually already have a very good command of English, and learning French was a lot easier then for them.
Sometimes the wages are higher for French specialists (I got up to 400 HK dollars teaching in HK, as opposed to 250 to 300 dollars for English).

But I must add a proviso: The American approach of acquiring a second or third language through conversation just does not work, neither in general as with English, nor does it work with French! Grammar IS the key to communicating with each other effectively.
This has been made clear to me by the students themselves! I do not doubt you can raise their confidence and have them communicate well; but you must be aware of the students' need to really have the stamina and dedication.
The book I was using at that time was popular with students in Hong Kong, called Cafe au lait. It is available in HK. Perhaps you can get a copy from the Alliance Francaise (I think they have a branch in Shanghai).

[Buttercup]

Hi again Roger,

That sounds good, thanks!

I'm curious to know where those "interpreters that offer their freelance services outside the trade fair halls" learned French or English so well. I also once had a Chinese student (here in Montreal) whose French was amazing (she was working on her English): I couldn't believe she had never lived in a French-speaking country before - her French was fluent and grammatical, and her pronunciation excellent. Where do they teach so well? Is it just years and years of hard work?...

Would the book you mention be "Cafe Creme", rather than "Cafe au lait?" I agree it's a good book, but... it's very French (especially the tapes, also the cultural content) for Quebec moi! It was a little frustrating to use in Montreal. I didn't know the monuments and places myself, never having been to France! And the pronunciation was not much help for my beginner students who needed to get by in Montreal. So i usually pick and choose from many different books and add my own materials.

Um... I think i know what you mean about the grammar... don't wish to debate it here, but let's just say i'd rather teach the grammar in action (i.e. in meaningful conversations or activities) than just dry, bookish grammar that the students can't use in a sentence afterwards. It seems to me the students should read and listen a lot, so they internalize the correct structures, spelling, expressions, pronunciation, etc.

And i agree they have to work hard - i can't learn the language for them, i already speak it So i view my role more like a facilitator - i help them learn. I explain grammar where needed, i provide context and structure for practice, and i push them in the right direction with appropriate correction (like someone else said, when a baby starts to talk, you don't correct her, you encourage her by repeating and modeling what she's trying to say).

That's all i have to say on a Tuesday morning. I need more coffee.

[Roger]

Salut Buttercup,

you're probably right, the title should be "Cafe creme", I forgot.
The students that I saw offering their French interpretation skills have all studied French at Chinese universities.
About two decades back, almost any European language could be studied in China, and lots of Chinese eventually went to Europe. English became a compulsory subject much later, maybe in the 1990's, eventually replacing these languages as first foreign tongue. I remember having read an article about the Daya Bay nuclear power station that was built by Framatome: Because of a policy change concerning the study of foreign tongues, the French firms working in Daya Bay were enjoined to use English rather than French in their communications with subcontractors and locally-hired staff.
But these days, Chinese still study French although as their third language. Only those with good English grades apparently are allowed to pursue French or other languages.
I think we see eye to eye over the grammar issue; however, it is not always possible to incorporate the conjugation of verbs in meaningful dialogues or discussions. SOme practice has to be done without any immediate relevance other than for the student to get inured to the peculiarities of French. As someone else pointed out to me, it is training "Pavlovian" reflexes.
I suppose, Shanghai has the kind of wealthy people that see the prestige that learning French confers upon people. In HK, most students I saw studied it free of any professional motive. They usually said it was "fun", and the "loved the sounds of the language" and "I want to tour France and its chateaux..."
Others probably want to go to France to study at some tertiary institution because French and German universities charge only nominal tuition fees or are even totally free.

[Buttercup]

Very interesting, Roger...

Yes, I've noticed that in my students too: those who study French as a 3rd or 4th language are generally better learners than those who study English as a second language. They're easier and more fun to teach.. Am I lazy?

Prestige, eh? Actually, that's probably part of the reason that French is considered so difficult to learn: it's taught as a language of "culture", with complicated (and very important, says the Academie francaise!) grammar and spelling, and i'm fighting that everyday... showing my students that verbs are not so difficult to learn to use (yes, I do give them written homework so that they learn the forms too). They're always shocked when i explain that most native French speakers can't spell or conjugate for peanuts... I should know, I've marked provincial French exams for years! But anyway, that doesn't prevent native speakers from expressing themselves... although i agree that the most articulate do tend to be better at writing too.

Um... so what's my point? Oh yeah, showing that written and spoken French are different but interrelated

Here's an analogy with Chinese: my boyfriend and I are slowly starting to learn Mandarin, but we know we won't learn to write - at least not before several years, and maybe never! We'll learn to read some, but the most important thing for us will be to be able to communicate on a daily basis. I think it's a little similar for French: you don't need to learn to write (other than taking notes) to get by. It's much more encouraging if you start by becoming able to understand, and able to talk a little, and then you can start to memorize all the rules.

I got sidetracked again

[Roger]

Dear Buttercup,

Qebecquois really is hard to understand the first few times, and I often felt compelled to ask them to repeat (I did not want to ask them to write what they had said, but that might have helped a lot!). I guess that is simnilar to the various CHinese dialects - and Chinese often take recourse to writing Chinese characters on the palms of their hands. This even works with Japanese to some extent - I noticed it in TIbet when Hong Kong CHinese tried to explain to a Japanese tour group that they needed to eat glucose to overcome altitude sickness (many medical terms and names of medicines have the same CHinese character in both Japanese and CHinese).
My own experience shows me daily that without learning how to write I am at a permanent disadvantage. True, you can learn basic CHinese orally and aurally. I am in fact too lazy to count a character's strokes and try to find it in a dictionary! Too many not-so-common characters simply are not listed in most dictionaries! It is a frustrating way of acquiring vocabulary in CHinese!
But Chinese words are too often homophonous, and I mean they even have identical tones! It is too confusing (for us) to ask "do you mean the 'Xi'an' 'xi' or the 'Shiyan' 'shi'"? Pronunciation is often misleading. You have to pay very close attention to each sound. It can make a big difference - as between '4' and 'ten'.
I guess in Northern America a different school of thought has taken roots. They overemphasise spoken English. Speaking can indeed be instrumental in lifting a student's skills, but this will be helpful in raising his INFORMAL speaking skills. That leads to little competence, at most to some level of fluency. Proficiency is given short shirft, as you can easily see in China.
Most students here can't speak GOOD English. Their pronunciation and grammar are full of fossilised errors. These will in most cases NEVER go away!
They don't learn to LISTEN to other interlocutors. Oral English reinforces bad English, the kind of English that is common in informal settings where mistakes don't matter a great deal.
I think that writing helps them a lot more as they can actually see a physical form of their utterances. They have more time to think about how to arrange a sentence properly.
Most people probably misunderstand "communicative" approaches. Do we only "communicate" when we "speak"? Oh no! Reading is just another form of listening, and writing is another form of speaking - but one that enables the speaker to check his or her own English against slip-ups and miscommunication.
I believe that writing and reading being more intellectually difficult they should be done more often so that the seemingly easier tasks of speaking and listening can be done with more self-confidence. Let's not forget that educated people read more than they hear, and it is a misconception to think that our Chinese students will only need good oral skills in their professional careers!
Writing was invented basically as a convenient extension of humankind's memory! So let's practise more writing and reading so that students do not need to memorise so much!