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killian
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 937
Location: fairmont city, illinois, USA
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 Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 12:59 am Post subject: |
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one can't save them all. cherry pick the elite and invite them to the "english corner". if they slack, disinvite. some'll know to grasp the opportunity presented. for others, there is always welding class.
english teaching in china has gotten better. ten years ago it was not uncommon to find former russian teachers teaching english. thye always had the departments few tape players (and it is well since they couldn't speak english). they were "grammar experts", would play the tape and explain the grammar of it all in chinese. |
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arioch36
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 3589
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 2:51 am Post subject: |
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Snoop
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| Also be careful if you have too many Chinese involved with these corners that you do not know well. I later found out my FREE English corner was being used by a couple of crooks that advertised the English corner and actually were charging students attendance fee's and pocketing the money at my expense. |
At a "higher level" college I once taught at, the freshman, especially freshman english majors, were "highly encouraged" to join the official "english club". 50 yuan, as I remember. For there money they got a nifty membership card (costing all of two jiao), got to see an english movie, and were allowed to attend english corner. The english corner, of course, was free anyways. We (laowai) were strongly encouraged to attend the english corner, to help get the students excited about learning english. The english club had the opposite effect, the students who paid money in an initial stage of excitement, became very jaded learners after that.
The money went to a party member who was not part of the english department. There, the money trail ended. Don't know what was done with the money. Maybe is was all donated to a worthy charity |
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SnoopBot
Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 740
Location: USA
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 4:00 am Post subject: |
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| arioch36 wrote: |
Snoop
| Quote: |
| Also be careful if you have too many Chinese involved with these corners that you do not know well. I later found out my FREE English corner was being used by a couple of crooks that advertised the English corner and actually were charging students attendance fee's and pocketing the money at my expense. |
At a "higher level" college I once taught at, the freshman, especially freshman english majors, were "highly encouraged" to join the official "english club". 50 yuan, as I remember. For there money they got a nifty membership card (costing all of two jiao), got to see an english movie, and were allowed to attend english corner. The english corner, of course, was free anyways. We (laowai) were strongly encouraged to attend the english corner, to help get the students excited about learning english. The english club had the opposite effect, the students who paid money in an initial stage of excitement, became very jaded learners after that.
The money went to a party member who was not part of the english department. There, the money trail ended. Don't know what was done with the money. Maybe is was all donated to a worthy charity |
Typical, but I think it went for a new BMW or Black Audi and a new pretty gf.
In my case, they were charging 50-yuan a session for 1-hour. Originally, the program was supposed to be only for our students and the other training centers nearby in the same complex. I did not know all the students, so I figured they must have been from the short-term corporate training center that runs 2-3 month short courses just to improve spoken/oral English.
I would Xerox a list of topics with sample discussion questions and presentation information. Each student would be invited to the podium and speak on the subject they felt they had interest and knowledge in. Some of the presentations were very good; one person did a presentation on SARS and Bird Flu down to the technical jargon used in the medical communities. It was very good, many were this way as the English corner was full of working professionals and Doctorate students at the research facility here.
The class changed the second month, some started showing up I did not know and grew too large that I had to split the classes into three groups, which tripled my original hours. I started being burned out; my whole weekend was based around this English corner.
I got tipped off when a group of late students complained to me they didn't get to talk and expected me to spend an extra hour giving them a chance to speak (they were an hour late). I said that next weekend they could get first chance for their presentations. One girl complained and demanded that I give her back her 50-RMB.
I was confused. It was free, I was doing this on my own time for the students benefit, and no fee was involved. Well, she stormed out saying she was going to complain. The next week a couple of smiling, admin type, dirt balls, came to me and tried to give me suggestions that I should stay longer and "allow everyone a chance to talk."
That was when I realized who was in charge of the fee collection, it was the shady admin office types (party officials ETC) that saw a successful English corner and decided to cash in on it. They had the nerve to "suggest" I spend my whole weekend doing this English corner so they could continue to collect their fee.
I figured that must have pulled in around +5000 RMB a weekend off my work. At that time, that was my complete monthly teaching salary.
I refused to do anymore English corners after that, some of the low-level office-teaching assistants were ordered to continue the English corners to get the fees until it started crumbling without the FT native English speaker reflective support.
So let this be a good lesson for all that are thinking about doing English corne |
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