Job Discussion Forums

[Calypso]

For those who teach with Chinese co-teachers, how do you find it? This is the first time I've ever had co-teachers in my classroom, in South Korea and Mongolia I taught alone. Obviously at home I also have my class to myself.

I just can't decide whether or not I like it. I work with around six different CTs over the course of a week and they all, of course, have their strengths and weaknesses. I've heard from another ft that in his last job the CTs were rubbish, rarely turning up on time, talking on their phones during lessons and so on. My CTs are lovely people but I'm not sold on the co-teacher experience.

How about you?

[Silent Shadow]

I think a co-teacher is a kind of oxymoron. In the one school in which I had the experience of co-teachers, I was corrected when I tried to tell them that they were assistants, not co-teachers. They wouldn't have it, and of course management insisted that they were co-teachers.

It worked bettter with woman assistants (oops! I mean co-teachers), though, but I found that when working with men, they would want to take over the class. Trying to encourage an English environment, I would ask a question, and if nobody had answered after all of two seconds, the co-teacher, would immediately give the answer in Chinese, followed by a further ten minute speech in Chinese.

Another problem with co-teachers is that they would take the class off on a completely different tangent than I had planned for. No doubt it could work under the right circumstances, with the correctly matched people with the right chemistry and attitude.

You may call me a control freak, but I like to be in control of as much of the class as possible, so having a co-teacher does not suit me at all. If I found out in advance that the school required it, I would either try to talk them out of it, or not sign, and find another school. If you find it doesn't suit you, maybe you can talk your school around to allowing you to teach solo.

[Jayray]

If a class is assigned two teachers with the intention that the class TRULY be co-taught, then neither teacher can really teach while other is in charge. If the other is active in the class room , then it should be in a support capacity only, sort of like a teacher's aid.

I've endured such cr*p in the U.S.. There are many reasons why administrators insist upon it in the U.S.. The only possible overlap of reasons would be that

a. one teacher is deemed in need of teaching technique, so the other is there to show him how to teach.

b. The school has too many teachers under contract as well as the money to retain them, so the administration decides to double up.

c. one teacher is there to keep tabs on the other.

In China, I think C is the most likely scenario, with A coming in as a close second.

In the U.S., it has been done in underclass prerequisite courses in which students and/or other teachers complain that there are too many discrepancies in the teachers' curricula, so they have two-hour lectures during which both graduate faculty and lecturer level faculty take turns addressing an auditorium full of students who take the same course taught by different teachers. It is almost like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

I wouldn't stand for it in China. I'm not here to teach teachers. I don't need help, and there's a monitor who is supposed to keep tabs on me.

[Teatime of Soul]

Never had a co-teacher in China.

Teaching assistants, never a problem.

Co-teachers seems like"two tigers on one mountain"

[RonHex]

I have a couple co teachers and they are great... They control the class and translate some of the more difficult language(grade 1 students). They dont do a whole lot tho.. I make lesson plans and do 95% of the teaching. I would never sign a contract teaching kids without having a coteacher provided (atleast until my chinese improves)

[LongShiKong]

I've taught kids with Chinese co-teachers for years. I've seen some awesome Chinese teachers from whom I've had the honor to work with but then there are those who are obviously not suited to it.

I've had 2 CTs who've insisted on sitting in the back of the room marking workbooks when I wanted them to be at the front of the classroom with me, helping to model and explain pairwork and other activities. I've once again resorted to using Chinese in the classroom as one of my CTs seems out to lunch most of the time. But in all fairness, I feel sorry for those experienced but underpaid CTs sidelined by ill-prepared, overpaid and under-qualified FTs who've not given a second thought to how to benefit from their presence in the class.

I've even decided to add it to my list of reasons for resigning: we hire CTs like we hire FTs--based solely on their English--provide limited training and bonus only to see them leave months later and have to do it all over again. No wonder this school's marketing budget (220 students) is more than my monthly income.

Long after the course ends, it's not the translation or explanations that students will remember but the working relationship between FT and CT which may prove pivotal in motivating ss to progress in their English.

Top 10 Complaints about Chinese Co-teachers:

1. Spoonfeed - don't give ss a chance to remember nor bother to elicit the answer from other ss.
2. Rely too heavily on Chinese - translate rather than use other means
3. Know less about how to control a class than newbie FTs
4. Don't get ss attention before addressing a class.
5. Don't communicate with FTs - won't ask if they don't understand nor will they tell you something in a timely manner.
6. Think teaching is simply explaining
7. Are oblivious to what's happening in the classroom - emerging behavioral issues, the need for a Chinese explanation or translation
8. Fail to engage ss--usually resort to boring teaching techniques
9. Show limited interest in understanding and addressing student needs -- educational or otherwise.
10. Lack the essential analytical and critical thinking skills required to operate in a professional manner.

[johntpartee]

[juanisaac]

I also had Chinese co-teachers in my classes. I work at an elite Senior Middle School where the teachers had to help me in class. Half just corrected homework in class, some just sat in the back doing nothing, and some just took over my classes in explaining everything. I ended kicking every teacher out of my class, but not for the aforementioned things. I kicked them all out becuase of their attitudes. One teacher told me "What you teach does not matter." Another professional told me "We are just there to hear you talk, that is all." I said good-bye to all of them and I teach 60 Chinese kids by myself. My first year students speak so much better than the third year students here. Some teachers did help me alot, but these were few and far between. In my experience, the Chinese co-teaches need a more humble approach to actuially helping not a "what the heck am I doing listening to this foreigner who knows less English than I do."

[LongShiKong]

[happigur1]

I think the co teachers at my school recently got b*tched out by the dean because they started showing up in my class again... of course sitting in back doing some other things/texting on cell phone. I was rather fine when they weren't there. When they are there, they are helpful with passing out paper, etc. They are good for booking a room or making copies although I learned to NEVER give them TESTS/Quizzes to copy because they will in turn tell the students what is on it.

My biggest complaint with co-teachers --> ENGLISH! They lack English. The students know more English than the co teachers. It is especially annoying when students go ask their co teachers questions in Chinese and they respond in Chinese.

[KraftD]

6 different teachers a week? Do you have to lesson plan with them? Maybe you can divide up the work load and assign the 'co-teacher' specific things you would like to see from your students then they have something to focus on that won't interrupt your teaching.

or

Have the co-teacher focus more attention on the lower lever students that still don't know their own names.

I used to work with a 'bilingual' teacher (as we called them) and I would walk around checking pronunciation of the students while the CT followed behind checking students translations of everything they had just said to me in English. Didn't always keep the CT busy, but as close as we got to team effort.[/quote]

[brsmith15]

It's generally a bad idea. Teatime had it right about the two tigers.

Some years back, RCA tried something they called 'The Office of the President," in which there were TWO presidents.

The idea was abandoned three months later.

[Calypso]

Great to read all the responses, always interesting to hear other's experiences. Having no co-teacher isn't an option here, they come with the whole deal. Mostly it's fine because the CTs now know the way I like to teach. I def use them more as an assistant than as a co-teacher, being a typical teacher I'm a bit of a control freak in the classroom!
WE used to do the lesson planning together which was ridiculous, now I do the planning and just run through it with them pre-class so they know what's up. It seems to work ok most of the time. But every now & then it gets frustrating when they speak too much Chinese or answer for the studeents after a second or two rather than letting the students answer for themslves.
Anyway great to read these replies and realise I'm not alone! Cheers.

[LongShiKong]

It's almost impossible to prevent CTs from spoonfeeding answers to ss. Ss themselves have adopted this habit in most of my classes despite any effort or encouragement to the contrary. In each room, I've posted classroom language and hand out redeemable 'cash' incentives for students to use this: 'Who can help me?'; 'I forget'; 'What does that mean?' 'I don't understand.'

Why the reluctance? I can only attribute it to a semi-conscious empathy* mixed with deep-seated unconscious feudal empowerment on the. It's hard to break such bonds.
----------------------
* As an aside to this, I just heard about how Jeremy Rifkin associates empathy with social progress in his new book The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis -a very provocative argument.

[johntpartee]