Job Discussion Forums

[Roger]

Sun Yuan,
I won't need to refute your points, MTN has done that better than anyone else could; I am just trying to tell you that I was talking about the SYSTEM rather than the TEACHERS per se; it is self-evident to me that some CHinese would love to change, improve this inhuman thought-control mechanism, but they can't for reasons that you know as well as we do.
And, I also have seen a number of outstanding good schools in China. One is located in COnghua, north of Guangzhou, and it has never generated any enquiries or comments on this forum although I have been there twice, and I saw British teachers there too.

Have you thought why China holds one of the world's saddest records, that of the highest suicide rate among its student population?

It does not surprise me because in my opinion, neither parents nor professional educationists in this country understand the needs of the kids! Ask them, and you will hear that these abominable boarding-schools are a God-send in their opinion!
Or the fact that parents force their children to enrol at ever more schools, for ever more subjects, in their spare time and their holidays. Do kids want to spend 24/7 at school throughout their childhood?

Recently, I was rather surprised when a 21-year old girl answered me that "I hate this school!" She went on to say the school was boring, her isolation total, her family far away and she was only allowed to see them on weekends; she said there were no boys (in an all-female college), and there was no McDonald's nor a discotheque... unfulfilled dreams of a youth! Her classmates listened attentively, then agreed with most of what she said!

[Sun Yuan]

Dearest Roger,
Thanks I will ask them. There is this real cute male teacher I have been dying to strike up a conversation with. I think his name is Wang. Appropriate don't ya think? Anyway sister, I will conced to your headthrusting points. Good job. But you've been told that before. Right?
Your Queen of Gay Ol' China
Me, Sun Yuan

[yaco]

Dear Sun Yuan

I am unaware of your teaching experience overseas but I consider the other writers would be well qualified to discuss the merits of the Chinese Education system against other countries.

[Sun Yuan]

Darling, I am just a little ol' gay American ESL Instructor. Studied Mandarin and have a counseling Masters degree. Only been here 8 months but lovin it. However, I will have to return soon as to keep up my license stature. Can't be out of the country too long. Obligations, you know..
Anyway, my time here may be short but darlin' for as many people as they have they are doinga banging good job. Golly geez they just hurled a stud into space. That oughta count for somethin'.
You just need to be aware that you, as a westener I presume, will be biased in all of your observations. Just like me. We can't help it. There is no true objectivity, but I do not have to tell you that.
The system is workin' as best as it can sweetie. Just give it time. As they say, "Rome wasn't built in a day" God, how I miss the flirtatious Roman studs.
Toodles,
The Queen
Sun Yuan

[Glen 2003]

The Chinese teachers I work with are quite knowledgable.

[Michael T. Richter]

[MyTurnNow]

Thanks, guys. I hope by now you've figured out who Sun Yuan really is and will no longer cast your pearls before swine. Don't ya hate it when ya keep flushing but one always keeps bobbing back up?

Roger's right....the problem is not individuals but rather the entire system. MTR has very eloquently pointed up a major problem...even in good schools they're long on facts and theory but zero on creativity and application.

I teach Marketing, and this involves case studies. You know...a real-world business problem is presented and the students are asked to apply what they've learned and propose a (hopefully creative) solution to the problem. About 99% are completely incapable of even starting this. We attached a CAT scanner to one student's brain as I gave one such assignment; here is an actual computer enhancement of the resulting image:


They simply seize up. Needless to say, I've about had a bellyful of teaching actual academic subjects in this country...

MT

[Roger]

Our Chinese students learn by rote everything down to the solutions to problems or answers to riddles and tests; we Westerners learn the rules and how to apply them, and to solve problems as they crop up.
Methinks that's an enormous difference!
It shows in how Chinese English teachers get deceived by their own teaching into believing that they have "taught" their students anything - we expats do not see what our students have learnt!

[Sun Yuan]

Dear Homer Simpson. Duh. Frankly I abhor the Simpsons. So vulgar and neanderthal . Oh, that is why you picked that cute ol' picture. You are clever you little gay fun man.
So, I like it that you are thinking so much about me but stalking is illegal. So, just relax I won't hurt you Homer. I do not know who this alternative personality is but that could be diagnosed as a schizophrenic personality disorder with mild paranoia.
Anyway, yes those Chinese teachers are just great. Roger, I did ask Wang about what he thought about the educational sytem. I told him what you wrote. He said %#@$% that guy and he should %$%@#^% himself. He used some chinese words I was not familiar with but I think you get my point sweetie pie.
Well nice chatting on the Gay in China Forum.
Toodles,
Sun Yuan

p.s. Homer that pearls beforeswine comment. You aren't one of the dreadful missionary position people are you?

[wOZfromOZ]

[Sun Yuan]

Sweetie, just get over me. Quit fantasizing about me, enough men do, and let it go.
Sweetie, I am here for you if you really need to get something off...your chest that is.I know what you were thinking dirty boy.
Really, I care for you and want to help you resolve this anger ou have. PM me dear and we can chit chat. O.K. snookums.
Luv
Electra.

[Atlas]

I really have to agree with most of the critique, and none of the criticism, on this thread. When students can define hundreds, thousands of words, but can't put an original sentence together or muster courage to say something authentic to a Westerner, something is amiss with all those years of "education". I mean, the very essence of language is versatility. For one thing, incompetents get floated through years of classes. For another thing, the sounds of Chinese and English are very different and not easy for anyone. Thirdly, mistakes are ridiculed by peers, and what adolescent sticks their neck out for ridicule? Fourthly, ethnocentrism--I've actually had a student tell me that it was unnecessary to learn English because the world would soon be speaking Chinese. I'm sorry, this just isn't going to happen.

I have found an improved performance and attentiveness from my students when I started writing most of my statements on the board, becaus listening, as has been mentioned, is not usually a developed skill. When they see the words, they catch on a lot quicker. That's understandable.

Also, the term lazy spoiled brats comes to mind....

I have a western education and you better believe I worked my ass off for it. So did most of my peers. Cheating at school and university was most certainly not common, and nothing on the order of what I see here. But if you've got a wooden head, I suppose you've got to survive somehow.

If the western communicative approach is lost on these students, they simply will not function in a western environment. It's their choice to make, but sad to think how many of them will never realize their power or potential, having instead become masters of charades.

One more thing: this doesn't apply to all Chinese students; I have seen bright lights burning too, and something very near to true internal initiative. But I haven't yet seen a true delight for English...I'm sure it exists somewhere....

[Roger]

thanks, Atlas, for the boost to my moral you gave me with your input.
Re "Listening problem" - why DO YOU write things on the board?

I seldom do!

My students can do that - and they hate it!
That's why I order one of them to be my secretary, and does this work?
Wonders, man, it works wonders!
The girls have learnt to take me more seriously!
Ah, he is not repeating things all the time! He is TOO LAZY (yes, and I am PROUD of this!) to write things for our benefit and photocopy them! WHy should I? I give LECTURES, and they must take notes! And I check their notes - and often see horripilifying mistakes!

I often tell my students: "If you din't understand my question, please, stand up!"
Half of my classes were standing half of the time - now it's down to half of half of the time, a quarter! It's improving!
Know what?
They are not interested in English, which I can understand. I empathise with them! But: no fools' play in my class, even if I like these kids and accept their antipathy.
In my class they must work. Earn their grades. Not show off how much they can reproduce from memory - they must solve practical problems: How to write the job application complete with a CV and a cover letter for a girl aged 26, with 5 years of secretary experience, wishing to join the CHinese office of a multinational company.
They have to fill the gap in the career of that 26-year old by inventing a career of their own!
They learnt that to have had ten jobs in 6 months could be bad - so many references and release letters? It's even difficult to write a proper CV listing all these jobs...

[Atlas]

Roger, I think having them act as a sectretary is a great idea. I agree with the idea of letting them do the work. I don't assign much homework because I want to see performance in the classroom, I dont want to see who can copy off of whom. So everybody plays, even those whose only English ability, after years of exposure, is to mutter the phrase, "I play football"--as if that is the magic key to entitlement. i don't want to see skill--i want to see effort; unfortunately I dont see much at all. My Chinese girlfriend tells me over dinner, don't worry about them so much. Sure, I can turn a blind eye to their incompetence, but in the future, they won't be able to deny their utter lack of english skill. I get paid if I am a teacher or an actor playing a teacher. I'm just trying to give them a chance for a better life than mucking in the provincial economy.

One of the problems I find in the classroom is that the range of english skill is so great (i.e., none to woeful to pathetic to fair) that there is simply no way to teach the same lesson to all the students. It seems to me the Chinese teaching method consists of shouting commands and ignoring performance. Am I wrong? What difference does it make how competent the Chinese teachers are if the students don't take responsibility for their own learning?

I don't want to offend any Chinese teachers here, I do respect them and their accomplishments. But it seems to me that the way both the students and the teachers cope is to put up a wall over which there is very little interaction (that is, actual teaching, actual learning). I'm sorry, the emperor has no clothes. The alternative? I try to elicit performance and all I get is a sore throat and lousy dinner conversation.

Then again, my classes are notoriously difficult in my college. It's not fair for me to generalize. I think though I am seeing the dark side of the education system. It beckons: Come with me to the dark side! I am your father!

[Roger]

Hello, Atlas,

thanks for your kind reply! I have 8 wonderful classes of students, but, unfortunately, their performances range as in your case from pathetic to sympathetically-inclined. Until I came to China, I could not imagine that "Shakespeare is not a drink, it is a kind of cheese!" can produce 1001 different versions, with perhaps two out of 45 kids getting the word "cheese" right!
(From a joke whose punchline they failed to understand so I had them take dictation with one acting as a secretary, the worst of them - she spekt "Shackspearl" - although they all told me later they knew "this famous English writer...!").
You have also made a valid point in saying Chinese teachers pay little attention to performance; proof came on two occasions during the last couple of months when my classes were being visited by other teachers.
I don't mind such visits at all - my lessons did not fail to act as eye-openers! Amazed visitors said "lots of your students cannot communicate in English at all, you should ignore them!"
Yes, that's what they suggested - just concnetate on the "good" ones!
So much for communitarianness and fairness!