Job Discussion Forums

[sallyann]

I've been asking my students what they'd like to do for the second half of this term. I don't have a text book and I'm getting desperate. I've already used a lot of my best lesson plans and I need some fresh ideas. I'm just finding that when I ask them what they want, it seems impossible to please them.

I work in a government college, the kids are 19 to 22. This is my first term here. Lately I've been asking the students for feedback on how they think the classes are going. Now I really wish I'd kept my mouth shut and never asked.

Some of them say my classes are too easy, others say they are too hard. They all love learning songs, so I've been teaching them any songs I can find on CD that are relatively easy to sing and have easily-understood lyrics. Often explaining the lyrics is sort of a culture lesson for them too. They all want "culture, culture, more culture!" but when I ask them what exactly they mean by this they don't know. Now they say the songs we've learned aren't "popular" enough. Well, I won't be teaching the lyrics of Yesterday Once More or Big Big Girl and I've told them that.

They all want to "have a chance to speak more English" but when I organise discussion groups and provide them with a topic, they say the topic is too boring. So I tell them to choose their own topic, but they say they can't think of one. Some students want to do more role plays, some don't want to do them at all.

Is this normal? There have never been any complaints about my classes and I've had good feedback from my supervisors. I actually thought things were going quite well. Its only when I ask the kids for their opinions that they start whining. Has anyone else experienced this? Is it normal? Should I try to please them or is the solution to just stop asking them what they want?

[Minhang Oz]

Whilst democracy in the classroom is great when it works, when it doesn't it's a royal pain: either puzzled stares, or whinging, puerile, self indulgent nonsense, as you're experiencing. Take total autocratic control, and let them know they've blown their only chance. Decide what it is they need, as opposed to want, and give them that.
The "New Interchange" series gives plenty of material to work with [I know I'll get an argument here, but it's OK as far as these things go]. Your school has to actually spend a bit of money here, so threats/tantrums may be called for, if I know local "educators".
As for teaching songs.......The Beatles "Eggman" would mean as much to them as anything else by the sound of it. Telling them they're spoiled brats might make you feel better too.

[Anne-Marie Gregory]

Fractionally modified from an email I received this morning from an ex-student:

'I was told you were given texts this semester by your department, that is our Chinese way. They don't want the students to be given classes so freely and irregular. In China, it is better for a teacher to teach in a classroon and to be confined to the platform, it is better for a student to listen to his or her teacher quietly and without objection. That is our Chinese way. Better for you to know it.'

If you try to open this up to something more facilitatory, as any Western training course would advise you to, you run into thse problems. This is particularly true if you are some combination of young, female and inexperienced (I'm all of those).
Taking away the talk and chalk methodology of Chinese teaching....with the class parroting lines after you in a 'conversation class', brings an atmosphere, like feeding time at the zoo, to your classroom.
Students think they will magically master the English language by monkeying/clowning around, or doing just the bits of English they are interested in, e.g. songs. It don't work like that.
I try to give students the 'Fame' speech...at the beginning of the TV series of Fame, the old dance teacher would say 'Fame costs, and right here's where you start to pay......in sweat.'
What I've done for most of my classes now is to join up all my activities into themes and to have a natural progression of themes through the semester. These are then tied in with vocab lists from the college English exams, that will be on display (if I ever get my ****** noticeboards up). In this way, round a theme, you can mix (I teach oral English) mingle activities, group discussions, speeches, performances and written homework. for example, today, using the theme from last week (my home and family) we broadened the topic of the past and change to loook at development. Has how your community changed since you were young, then report back to the class (and classify changes on the board...transport, education etc). Then they had to write a radio show interviewing people from different walks of life (mother, farmer, businessman etc) who 'talked about how their life had changed'. For homework in their groups they are now making posters in their groups about what the city of the future will be like.
Most of my ideas have been plagiarised/developed from lesson and game ideas on the internet! I think giving some structure is good both for you (no last minute lesson plans) and for the students, in terms of progression of topics and relevance/coverage of their exam vocab.

[Kurochan]

Sallyann, don't sweat it! Students are NEVER satisfied. Or, to put it more accurately, there are some that would be satisfied with anything, and others who will never be satisfied. Because my students were very "complain-y" last semester, I made them write an essay on what they wanted from foreign teachers. I found a bunch of them had unrealistic expectations (like, I want the class to be hard but I want to understand everything), conflicting expectations (I want the teacher to grade strictly but I want an A), to just a sense of muddled confusion. The more reflective students actually mentioned that they couldn't figure out what they wanted.

Anne-Marie's ideas sound really great. You should try what she says. I'm teaching oral English this semester, and I haven't taught it much before, so I'll be implementing some of what she's talking about.

[Roger]

Sallyann,
the gist of what's been said before this post is also the gist of my reply: you just can't ask Chinese kids to give you a realistic assessment of your lessons or a mature opinion.
You will soon discover that the classroom is a turf of power politics. Try to maintain your position as long as you can - come the exam you will have to compromise and lose your own face!
My attitude is: English is MY language, so you CHinese are the FOREIGNERS who have to take what I GIVE YOU!
First thing - do you understqand English at all? No? Then, let's work on that! We only have one term for this! Hurry up! No more wasting of your precious time! Do my bidding, and you reap what I want you to show at the exam! You want to "talk"? Sorry, I can't understand your foreign English! Do you understand standard English? No?
OK, let's practise some natively-spoken or -written English so you get the feel of it.
If you don't understand it - that's YOUR fault, not mine. Bring along a dictionary (monolingual), and check whenever it's necessary. DOn't rely on me to point you to new vocab, nor for translation!
Get the general idea of a text rather than a verbatim tanslation.

You will see they can't even answer a simple question such as: "When were you born?"
(They are only used to "how old are you?").

[sallyann]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not a teacher at home so I can't make any comparisons. Getting input from other foreign teachers really helps because sometimes I think this job is going to drain me of any confidence I might have had when I started. Your comments helped put it in perspective.

[Wolf]

Here is some help Chinasyndrome provided earlier.

A list of web resources. I ended up teaching one 20 hour seminar and one 30 hour seminar over the summer. Neither provided materials or guidelines as to what the class was supposed to be. I found it stressful to say the least.

Take a look through the above links (if you haven't already) and pick out what you think your students could use (or inversely what you think you could sucessfuly teach. It's what I do, at any rate.)

[struelle]

[Peter]

I have learned that when Chinese students declare that a topic is "boring"
ot they "cannot decide ", it is a cop out due to their inability to produce spoken English which will not cause ridicule from their fellow classmates.
They do not want to loose face or at worst being openly laughed at.

To overcome this, discussions were limited to groups of three, then a performance was required of the best combination, heavily prompted.

I jumped on those who laughed at other's mistakes by showing them up as equally unskilled.
Nice it is not, but I did not have the time to indulge in time wasting caused by malicious gloating.
In front you have to kick ass, it is your job

As for resources. www.english-to-go.com
for communication; www.ed-helper.com for grammar
or the Chinese version of Murphy's grammar

As for democracy in a Chinese classroom....it is asking for trouble considering how they have been subjected to Chinese methods. You will be judged as a soft touch and a possible walkover

[struelle]

[latefordinner]

I'll second two of Minhang's comments. First, New Interchange is solid for giving topics, and at that level they don't need yet another grammar-oriented class. (Which is not to say that they don't need to work on their grammar, but that's another story.)
Second, well, what else can I say?
>Take total autocratic control, and let them know they've blown their only chance. Decide what it is they need, as opposed to want, and give them that.

Sallyann, I ran into the same problem with two of my classes last term. In all fairness the texts weren't that wonderful, but when given the chance to take some responsibility for their own class the students ducked the challenge. I can be alot of fun, in most classes I am, but THIS IS MY CLASS. If the students don't take some responsibility for their own learning, they just have to take what I give them.

This also applies to Anne-Marie's caveat:
>They don't want the students to be given classes so freely and irregular. In China, it is better for a teacher to teach in a classroon and to be confined to the platform, it is better for a student to listen to his or her teacher quietly and without objection. That is our Chinese way.

This is my class. At all levels I have some difficulty getting both the students and the admins used to the idea that I'm doing things my way, and they have to adjust to me. They can't just slide along doing what they got away with before. Yes, my classes are often chaotic, and I have more control problems than many regurgitate-in-chorus teachers. I'll take the problems, that is the price I pay for teaching. <sigh> Sometimes being a teacher means being paid to suffer fools. I can do that with a smile, but I don't do it gladly.

As for Roger's comments, well what else can I add? My current school is using a curriculum that includes a reference to a dark-skinned character named "Niger". Yup, one "g", but pronounced "*beep*". I don't have to tell you how I stand on this one, do I?

[wOZfromOZ]

[Egas]

Well, Sallyann welcome to the world of teaching. I could point the finger at a system that invites non-teachers to teach, gives them no training and then throws them into a classsroom with a text book and a bunch of teacher-dependent students.. But since this seems to be the norm in China, there isn't much point raving on about it.

Others have offered some good advice and potential resources here, and I don't have much to add to that. As for classroom democracy, I have tried that many times, including student feedback forms. In the West it was a great chance for students to try to heap mounds of sh't on the teacher. But in China I found some limited benefit to it. The main point here is that you need to have the years of experience under your belt to know the difference between constructive and destructive criticism, reasonable and unreasonable critique. If you don't have a solid base of self-esteem, you may inadvertantly demean your own teaching confidence.

I employ a student-centred, action-learning approach in the classroom. I don't do the chalk and talk too much, and do it less and less as the class progresses. It can be done. Yo just have to be stronger than the students who want to sabotage your intentions because they are terrified by the discomfort of handing them the piece of chalk (I do that both literally and metaphorically). That all takes time, loads of experimentation and experience. If I were you I'd try a few things here and there but don't try for too much at once. if you terrify the natives, they just might eat you!

[MonkeyKing]

Not much to add to the wisdom already here, Sallyanne, except to say that I went through the exact same thing...I gave my college students feedback sheets after the first term, and some of the stuff they wrote made me want to jack it in...didn't though.
Just remember, you can't please all of the people all of the time.

[sallyann]

Egas wrote: