Job Discussion Forums

[7969]

this is a bit of a ramble, but here it is:

update: a week ago wednesday (dec. 7th) we held our weekly meeting, the chinese (english) teachers and i. i had my mind made up that i would not lecture them on anything. i had decided that i wouldnt sit in the front of the class and read some boring review of literature that i had read previously. i had decided to make it clear to these people that they would be active participants in this weekly meeting (they call it a class).

as soon as i arrived on that day, and before beginning, no less than four of them asked "what will you be lecturing on today?"

instead we had a debate on the death penalty (grudgingly on the part of some of them), pro and con. i'd tried this with students in the past but it failed largely due to the fact that virtually all students here think the same on most issues (and students arent aware of these societal arguments that exist in the west). here, i had managed to get two sides of the argument going and it worked out more or less, but again it was the same familiar faces speaking again, with the rest looking on bored to death.

this past tuesday, one day prior to our weekly meeting, i was again asked what literature i was going to lecture on. they havent caught on yet, even after being told directly by me that i will not lecture, that i am not interested in lecturing, that i have no idea what they really want to hear, and that instead, i want an exchange of ideas during this meeting, something that benefits them and me. i ended up postponing this weeks meeting as i had no lecture prepared and i am about to give up on this group. we were supposed to hold the meeting today, but the teachers were all preoccupied. only a couple more weeks left and i will be ridding myself of this group. if i'm back at this school next term (and i do like the students here by and large), these teachers will either be replaced by a class of students (the enthusiasm i see in some of my classes really make these teachers look bad) or i will be having a free wednesday afternoon.

one last note, apparently these teachers are required to write some sort of paper on literature at the end of this term, loosely based on what i was supposed to be informing them on. the instructions i was given for this class were really too vague for me to formulate what we were supposed to do together. i dont know.... its almost history now anyway, as far as i'm concerned.

[anthyp]

Well I completely sympathize with the OP, and empathize, too!

I have been saddled with an "Oral English Class for Teachers" for two terms now, and I've gone through pretty much everything talked about here ... twice. The first term was very unfocused, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing with the class, so I just tried to bring interesting articles we could discuss. For example, we did a lot of classes about "multiculturalism" and "student-centered teaching," which they really enjoyed. But it was all kind of pointless.

One problem is that practically everyone in the class is way more experienced than I am, so it is embarrassing for me to sit up there presuming to teach them. Thankfully I never tried, so they don't resent me. This term there are more of them (attendance is mandatory) and we have simply been working on pronunciation all term. They don't practice on their own at all so there's no improvement, but that's their problem. I guess it is still kind of pointless, but I only have about 12 hours this semester, so I'm not complaining too much.

If I have to teach the class again next (hopefully my last here) term, I plan on focusing on teaching ... my idea is to introduce a lot more student-centered teaching materials into class, and have them practice implementing them by teaching each other. I am not really qualified for it, either, but if they insist ...

[Roger]

Hope is the father of illusions, and you have only yourself to blame for the disappointments you suffered...

[Gregor]

Roger has a point.
Sorry, but he does.
We're supposed to know what we're doing. So just step up and DO it.

But then again...
Coming to work as a foreign teacher in China is really trying. On the one hand, and for the most part, we are not asked or expected to teach anything at all. But then suddenly someone gets it in his head that, since we are "foreign experts," then we have some sort of wisdom to impart.
This is completely unreasonable.
When asked to do a job that you are far from qualified to do, why can't you just say, "I'm not qualified to do this"?
These people - this culture - needs to be educated in what is and isn't reasonable. Now, by their standards, they can have some vague idea of what they want (i.e. a foreign teacher giving us a series of lectures - we have no idea what about - and later on we'll have to write a paper on those), and then ask someone to do that.
But even my example is FAR more explicit than most of these jobs get.

My favorite - I have teachers going to a business college. The instructions went like this: "Don't use a text book. make the classes interesting and active."
THE END.
And "active' was wrong, because they complained about having activity. So, basically, it was "bollocks your way through class."
At the end of the semester, they were asked to give the students a TEST! No warning that such a silly thing (I mean, for such a silly course) would be required. But there you are, and the teachers came to me in a panic.
My solution? "Make up a test. Or download a test. Or give them a test from one of our books. Do not mark it. Give them a mark based on whether they showed up for class, whether or not they participated, and, if you like, how cute they are."
That's what they did, and everyone went to bed happy.

This is the culture we are dealing with. Is it any wonder that Chinese degrees are laughed at world-wide?

[7969]

thanks for the posts and yes, point by roger taken. i could have done a better job with these guys but the fact remains, they dont want to do anything. they want to passively sit there and absorb some kind of information that i can give them on a subject on which i have little knowledge myself. and after 5 or 6 meetings together there are still some who have not uttered a word yet LOL. i can accept that from students who are younger, less confident, more afraid, lazier but i dont expect this from people who are *supposed* to set and example (or maybe i've got this all wrong). in my former life, i worked with foreign military attaches, and no matter how badly any of us wanted to do our job, the one group of people we did the utmost for and tried to make a good impression on were foreign attaches. this group of teachers hasnt impressed me, and i probably havent impressed them (i guess we're even). on the other hand i have a couple of classes where most the kids are working on english before i arrive and they put in a good effort for the entire class, shaming their teachers in my mind. to be honest, this is the one class of the week i absolutely DO NOT look forward to.

for the record, i cut and pasted from different online resources a report on the "lord of the flies" which is what theyll listen to next time (hopefully the last time) that we meet. my last post on this thread will come at that time.

have a nice day ~ 7969

[struelle]

[7969]

thanks steve. i really wasnt prepared for the problems i came up with in this case. your advice is noted.

i have another colleague who likes nothing more than to talk and i hope that he and i can arrange a switch, he can take this group of teachers, and i can take a class of students. the potential problem here is that my colleague is african.... and one teacher already mentioned to me that they dont like him much LOL