Job Discussion Forums

[leeroy]

You teaching them? I have a suspicion most on this board are...

As I'm slaving away at ESL in London at the moment (for little above minimum wage) I have the interesting opportunity of being able to experience different cultures in direct relation to one another in the class. Although it's wrong to generalise, I will anyway....

There is a big divide, in most teachers' (and students') minds between 'Asians' (which I'm using basically to cover Koreans, Chinese and Japanese) and 'others' (ie. Europe and Latin America). I'm well aware how far away Chengdu is from Tokyo, and I'm sure there are massive cultural differences spanning ChinaKoreaJapan, but there seem to be some inescapable similarities as well.

For example...

Monday, 9.01am.

T: Hey Rosangela (Brazil), how was your weekend?

R: Oh, you know, it not so interesting, because so many my friends they go to this party, you know? But I cannot, because I wait for this man to call me about this thing, but he not call so then I think.......

T: OK, cool! How about you Slawomir (Poland)?

S: Yes, my weekend was good, I drink some vodka with friends, then we go to bar but it's too expensive, so then we......

T: Right. How about you Miho? (Japan)

M: (15 min. pause)

T: Miho?

M: Nice.

T: Why was it nice?

M: See flend. so velly happy.

Suffice to say, myself and the others were enthralled by Miho's engaging narrative...

The above situation is not unusual, generally speaking my Asian students prefer not to make long speeches about things. In fact, compared to their European and Latin American counterparts, they aren't that keen to speak at all.

But this is too easy, 'Asians Are Quiet!' isn't exactly the case. I have one class of 100% Asians, and I can't get them to shut up! Perhaps I could tentatively conclude that "Asians are intimidated by non-asians in the class".

This theory holds a bit more water for me. In the pub a while ago, myself and some other teachers noticed, to our amazement, a table of 11 or 12 asian students of mixed nationality having an absolute uproar. They were drunk, climbing over tables, screaming with laughter, singing etc... Such behaviour isn't unusual in a pub on a Friday, except that these same students are the ones that had sat in the corner that afternoon shier than a stoned mouse.

Had I, or any other western person joined that table at the pub, I guarantee there would be an embarassed silence (followed by the sound of a record scratching and the music stopping), the party only resuming once the round-eyed person had left the vicinity.

I actually asked some students during mid-term interviews what they thought about the relative reluctance to communicate with Asians. Eun-mi (Korea) gave me the following insight...

"Europe people prefer to talk about opinions and emotions. But we do not! We like talking about things we see, and experience, places we go and things. Maybe more simple things."

The unenviably named 'Bong-Song' (Korea) was a student who graced my class for a couple of weeks. He sat, silently, never attempting to communicate or give off any rays of friendliness for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. Working in pairs meant ignoring the other person. Group work meant sitting there and not saying anything. He answered questions in monosyllabic grunts, and never (to my knowledge) uttered a complete sentence. During the interview, I asked him.. "So Song, how's it going?"

"don't like... need more conversation!"

[Lucy Snow]

My favorite classroom exchanges when I as teaching in Japanese universities:

Me: So, what did you do this weekend?

Student: I slept.

Me: All weekend??



****


Me: So, Satoko, do you have any hobbies?

Satoko: Sleeping.


My students never understood why "sleeping" isn't a hobby.


But getting back to your original point. I always felt that my students said as little as possible because they were afraid of making mistakes--particularly when they were speaking in front of the entire class. No matter how many times I tried explaining to them that making mistakes is part of learning anything, I still got the "deer stuck in the headlights" look whenever I asked a question.

In Japan, a big part of the problem is that most of their English education involves what could be called "Examination English"--lots of memorization of vocubularly and grammar rules, but little speaking. When they're thrown into a class with a foreign teacher who actually expects them to talk, they freeze up.

[guest of Japan]

Lucy Snow, I truly believe that to some Japanese people sleeping is a hobby.

My least favorite conversation:

"How are you today?"

"So so."

"How was your weekend?"

"Nothing special."

"Do you have any plans for next weekend?"

".......................Mada desu."

"Not yet."

"Hai."


Of course these were usually low level students. Higher level students have their own distinctive characteristics.

I've never taught mixed cultures, but I can imagine Japanese students generally being intimidated by them. My students have always tended to let the highest level speaker in the room carry the conversation.

I do not believe the common excuse that Japanese don't have opinions. They tend to have very strong opinions about very limited subjects. I have always found their weakness in English to be the inability to ask questions to keep the conversation going.

Good luck!

[Randall]

In a similar vein, why is it teenagers respond to their parents in one-word answers (Where have you been? Out. What did you do? Nothing.) but can talk on the phone to their peers for hours? Is there a similar dynamic here?

[Stephen]

In Taiwan you'll find the answer to the question:

"What did you do at the weekend?


Will generally produce: "eat" or "sleep" or "watch tv"

while:

"What are your hobbies?"

Will generally produce one or more of the following: "eating/sleeping/watching tv"

I find the best approach is not to ask these questions. If you want Taiwanese students to talk, then you'd better give them something to talk about. The more purile the better

Good resources for those starting out

Active Listening (Speaking as pre and post listenings)

Keep Talking - Kippel

Discussions A-Z intermediate (in places)

I also recommend jigsaw readings. (Each student/pair/group reads a different text and the speaking work involves information exchange based on what was read eg. Reading Games - J. Hadfield)

Personally, I am of the opinion that many of those of my students whose English is actually of a good enough standard to do conversational work cannot adequately handle abstract thought to the level required to discuss most of the subjects that can be discussed with Europeans. They simply need to be given something to talk about. [Unless you can design a 2 hour speaking lesson around Hello Kitty, and can bear the prospect of delivering it.]

Cheers
Stephen

[ESL Guru]

Here Kitty Kitty? Here Kitty Kitty? Can never find a little Kitty when you most need one!

sssssnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooz!

[Stephen Jones]

With Japanese students it takes them a long time to lose ther inhibitions. You will often fiind that after three or four months your quiet Japanese students will suddenly start talking, and never stop untll forcibly pushed on the plane.

Also alcohol helps. There was a theory of teaching Ennglis that involved getting the students pissed first, on the grounds that it took away their inhibiitions.

[Sherri]

I think there are lots of different reasons why Asian students don't speak out in class. I used to teach some Asians (many Japanese and Thai) in a multinational class and the differences between their learning style and the Europeans (mainly French and Italian) and Brazilians were like night and day. Now I am in Japan and it is much easier dealing with a class that shared the same learning problems.

1. The language system is so different. French or German students for example can already understand a lot of English without studying because so many of the words and structures are similar to their own languages. They express ideas the same way as we do. The Japanese have to struggle much harder and since their language is put together so much differently than English.

2. Asian students are generally not used to classes in which they are required to speak out, especially something outside a pattern practice. The learning style in schools here is more teacher centered with a grammar-translation-type approach. Sometimes their own English teacher at school can't speak English well. It is not needed to pass tests here, so why bother to speak?

They certainly don't know what to do with pair or group work, probably don't see the point and flounder. They are just not used to using their imaginations to speak out in class. That is why like Stephen, I stopped asking that tired "what did you do on the weekend" question years ago. There are much better ways to get results from them--as he outlined.

3. Many Asian students are just not used to giving their opinions in front of a bunch of strangers. They need time to get used to your class and the style. It might be worth having a quiet word with them after class to explain the purpose of your class activities.

4. Finally if your school uses a grammar-based, written test to place students in classes then the Asian students will score rather highly even though they can't speak well. Consider adding an interview component to the placement test and give it more weight than the written test if your class is mainly about speaking.

Hope this helps.

[Roger]

leeroy,
yours was an amazingly accurate reality picture that applies to a TESL life in China as well. It is one of the reasons why I abhor conversational classes!
The first thing I noticed, and I have only learnt to name it relatively recently - is this doing things as a collective thing! It is called "communitarian" - teachers act as role-models, they have to "think", say aloud and have the students repeat every syllable, usually not individually (as they do in Europe) but together. Quite a few phonemes do get lost in such transactions, then wrong pronunciations get rehearsed uncounted times, with the final result of fossilised pronunciation!
The second side effect is that the kids always, but really always, merely do things on cue, not as thinking humans. The teacher MUST translate, each and every time! Their textbooks up to uni level are, yes, bilingual. Tjhey never learn to think in the target language! Most of them, anyway!
Then the rigors of Chinese/Japanese/Korean, that is, COnfucian life mean there is a hierarchy in every relationship. And with hierarchical levels come roles. YOu never step out of your role! A student is a student is a student - with all the rights that implies (and very few duties).
Do not forget, China had the so-called "CUltural Revolution" - the teachers there are now viewed with something bordering on scorn! A teacher, especially an expat teacher, has to obey his or her students (an expat certainly has to obey them much more than a CHinese teacher does!). That also means that students have a RIGHT to a certain SERVICE, including being coached, mollycoddled, flattered and passed at scam exams!
On the other hand, students are the country's future citizens, and they have to act as their country's citizens. Again, this means they act according to a prearranged and antiquated social system that offers very little leeway for the individual to grow mentally. Pity those young victims of an inhumane education system in which they have to bottle up their true feelings, show "face" and never express their true emotions!
THus, they are too immature to tackle serious discussions with a westerner. It has nothing to do with shyness - they have not been prepared for that.
They have not learnt to independently think, analyse a problem, solve it. Their teachers have to do everything, and in later life, they will always do things in their accustomed (acquired) way! Example: My partner has learnt at school to always "read aloud" English - for the practice of pronunciation! How stupid! Her pronunciation never changes. She tackles any new word without first checking a dictionary for its proper pronunciation! Besides, she does not understand what she is reading most of the time because of her speaking to herself!

Finally, these problems have nothing to do with structural differences between their own language and ours. Such differences can easily be overcome if the schooling in their home country offered a suitable learning environment and appropriate teaching methodology! This is no vain claim. There are Chinese that have been exposed to western (European) teaching methodologies, and they have benefited from this exactly as do learners in any other culture. I personally teach CHinese kids in a local kindergarten, and I claim here that they are absolutely as bright and quick at learning English as Europeans are.
There are, in fact, bigger differences between European languages and English. Of course, you can always construe similarities (that do exist), but so long as two languages are not identical, they are different, and differences need learning, not identicalness!
So, leeroy, look forward to a brighter future when CHinese kindergarten English majors come to England...
Mine could easily go to an English-medium school!

[chi-chi]

Yeah, Taiwan's the worst when it comes to making conversation.
I have one student who is actually good, a 14 year old girl who had spent a considerable amount of time living in LA. She would talk, but was already falling prey to the obsessive system.
She told me that she spent her last birthday studying. Nothing for her birthday, she had a big exam and will have another one this year right after her b-day. And she wasn't happy about it.
All the others...geez...I had one adult student yesterday:
Me: What did you do last weekend?
Adult Student: What did you do last weekend?
Me: No, I'm sorry, I'm asking you. (smile) What did you do last weekend?
Adult Student has no idea how to answer the question, so I tell her what I did last weekend, to try to make her think. Then I ask her again, what did you do last weekend?
Then she gives me back my answer.
With Korean students, you can get them to talk. Talk to the young girls about cutsey stuff and makeup, the women about shopping, the boys about computer games. (Adult men over there, I don't know, I never taught them.)

[leeroy]

At a first glance, it would appear that asian students (generally) appear to lack the same depth of thought as western ones. Whereas western communication often revolves around finding the "solution" to a problem or issue (much like this thread) - asian communication seems to revolve more around stating the obvious.

My time in Indonesia seemed to support this, and from what I've heard from others who have lived in Taiwan and China, lack of a distinct individual opinion is not just limited to the classroom.

(In this case, the communicative approach is well and truly doomed. Perhaps we should all go back to grammar translation, and rote memorisation of past participles.)

But just because asians seem reluctant to voice personal opinions doesn't necessarily mean that they don't exist. It could well be that stating your own view, or questioning something is seen as impolite.

In cultures where social harmony (ie. homogeny) prevail, perhaps it is bad taste to offer an opinion or view which could contradict others. While a westerner would be bored shitless by someone who agreed with them all night, for an Asian it would be brilliant company.

But I'm guessing here, and generalising wildly! I've met plenty of 'individual' asian students, and plenty of shallow westerners too!

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

Hello Everyone:

Leeroy: I think you hit the nail on the head with this statement: "In cultures where social harmony (ie. homogeny) prevail, perhaps it is bad taste to offer an opinion or view which could contradict others."

I spent 6 years teaching English in Asia, and I also had to work extra hard to get my students to 'open up' a little.

In Japan, for example, there is a prevailing mentality of conformity which dictates every aspect of social interaction. It can be seen rather vividly in the local expression: "the nail that sticks up gets hit."

In other words, holding your tongue is considered a virtue. Expressing individual thoughts and opinions; being 'unique', standing out from the crowd, etc ... is more of a western concept.

Not sure about lumping all Asian countries together on that one, but there are definitely a few cultural ideas and practices which affect the classroom dynamic. As they say, "East is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet ... (or speak?) ..."

OK. I've said too much. I'm going to stare at my feet now and contemplate what I've written.

Yours truly,
kEnt

[Roger]

Well, well, well, this harmony thing... such a musical word! I love it - but look behind the facade!
The largely uneducated big wheel at any Chinese business has the absolute power of an emperor. The social diktat of "harmony" requires total "loyalty" (or is it 'servility"?). People smile, while inwardly they hate the guy. He can rape his secretary, and she would never denounce him! Yes, this is not being made up!
The guy can also rule over his or her staff's lives as though they were his or her indentured slaves!
He can demand that they all sacrifice their spare time to listen to him calling himself "shangdi", meaning a deity alongside Confucius! And, these guys actually do this - calling themselves anything, from "God" to the Chinese Mr Einstein!
Is it then merely "impolite" to be talking about a somewhat minor form and practice of fascism? Is the autocratic rule of Chinese men (and very, very few women) equipped with power so aloof that the whole world must engage in personality cult, never judge these individuals against a commonsensical background?
The term "impolite" just seems to me to be laughable. Impolitic probably, impolite - that's not the right question!

Because politeness goes both ways, doesn't it? These same students might very readily stand up and lambast any western nation or their leader for perceived shortcomings!

I know I should offer another solution. SOrry, I can't oblige. I too accept the status quo, or rather, I tolerate it as long as I must. Which means that many a Chinese person has learnt an unexpected lesson from me - and that is that pseudo-politeness in the name of conformism is both insincere and the reason for China's backwardness!

[arioch36]

China? Japan? Social harmony? Who developed this fake notion that forced servitude to your boss is social harmony? This is a myth, the same way the idea that guanxi means relationship. If anything, guanxi is anti relationship. Oh well



I have worked in Chinese colleges, a high school, a langauge school, and a "two year college"

I do not know if in their hearts they respect or don't respect foreign teachers. I have almost always felt respect form fellow teachers, local people, and especially students (If you expect the admin in any country to show respect...well, that is a stoke of luck). Students in China are quite willing to show respect.

Granted, it is easier to train Grade one, freshman students on how you want them to behave in class. My students do what I ask, behaviour wise, and are very respectful. On this, maybe Henan is very different then the south where Roger teaches, or maybe he has taught more at language school. Teaching Chinese students as been more pleasurable then any other country.

That said, I agree totally that
It is much easier for people from Europe.South America to speak English in class because the language is more similar...because the cultural expectations are very similar... because the academic expectations are very similar.

Asian students must be taught to use complete sentences. And if they are Juniors in college, or adult learners, this is very difficult. Many of the ones that go overseas are the bottom of the barrel as far as students. If you are not teaching college students, you are teaching the students who FAILED the college exam, but their parents are rich enough to send them overseas.

There are so many students with good english in China. But there there are so many students with bad English. I was walking home last night, talking to some of the staff from my Chinese college outside my gate. A girl, 15 comes up, we talk briefly. Her English is better then most of my college students, even some of my American students back home. Don't get caught in the trap that your students are representative of all students. Many of us work at low level colleges. Of course we get the worst students.

I like Klippel's "Keep talking " book, especially for Western students. So much of it is worthless with Asian students. We have this bias that they should talk and think like we do. But some of the things we ask them to talk about in class...it is rude for them to talk about. Is this their fault, or the teachers fault?

[MonkeyKing]

I teach underachieving but over-privileged Chinese rich kids at a private University. They are extremely shy about using their English when asked by me to use it to communicate in the classroom. However, they are definitley not shy in coming forward when they want to tell me (in English) that my class was not entertaining enough, or to give me suggestions on how to improve my teaching style.........usually these suggestions involve them speaking less and me singing more. (Yes, singing.)