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[nomadic_meow]

I'm at a low-ranked provincial university in the north. I have had some classrooms that had computers (generally for listening courses where the textbooks had CD's included), but many that only had a chalkboard.

In the other rooms (many of the speaking and reading class rooms), there is just a biggish (very dusty) chalkboard with a great supply of very low quality chalk (snap crackle pop). If you want audiovisuals in those rooms, you have to cart in equipment yourself.

I've also noticed that some of the rooms have almost no free outlets, but at least in the AV rooms I can usually rearrange everything (and restart all the machines after unplugging half of them - and worrying the staff in the process) to make room for one more device. Some of the AV rooms actually have no chalkboards, so I find it necessary to type out notes on a simple text editor.

One problem I have found, is that I don't know how to make the Chinese software on the classroom computers accept files from the other Chinese software on the apartment computer, and sometimes it won't accept files from my English computer either. The rooms have different ages/qualities of machine. So it's kind of a block if you suddenly think, "Oh a PDF or an image file would be nice, but wait we haven't used that kind of file in that particular room yet..." Sometimes, even videos work at home but fail completely on the classroom machine. I have even had days when I arrived in the classroom and found that someone had completely deleted basic applications like, ahem Windows Media Player.

Some of the teachers make photocopies that include some print imagery (or we can have class monitors make them if they get some advance notice). Some make colorful text outlines or paper posters with visuals and stick them up on the walls somehow. And some of the teachers carry in their own laptop very often, too.

I like to bring in short videos with some more authentic conversation, or to add some sense of what the actual environment is like in parts of the West. The only problem is network speeds (even China Telecom commercially) are very slow here, so it can be a headache waiting for even a 5 min video to download off the web at home. I enjoy playing songs, a range of folk and pop/ballad songs although some students find them very hard to follow. It can be nice to have them sometimes just to spice up break time on a dreary day, too.

Sometimes I challenge them to fill in blanks in a song and explain it as we go. Some students seem to enjoy that, others don't (what's new and we also have a huge ability range). But students here did not do well at all with such fill-ins given a new song in an exam situation (I dunno though, the proctors did not really play the song as many times as I would have and I wasn't there to see just what the situation was).

Bottom line: I really do prefer to use some audiovisuals... And I should mention that students often ask for videos if the rooms are capable, if simply for variety. But there are many challenges to using AV as a central part of the class in this situation. It takes a great deal of work and prep to really be 100% sure anything more than photocopies will work, if in fact you can get in the various rooms to check first at all.

[weigookin74]

[54321]

[happyinshangqiu]

[relaxtischina]