Job Discussion Forums

laodeng · Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 481

I think that I at least have been grappling with a semantic problem: adult = a human being after an age specified by law vs. adult = fully developed and mature. (Courtesy Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Distionary, 10th Ed.)

Pax, pax.

carken · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 12:52 pm Post subject:

As an experienced ESL/EFL/classroom teacher, both in China and in the States, no matter WHAT I'm teaching, if I'm bored, then you can be darned sure the students are bored, too!

What do you do about it? You quickly change your lesson plan. Last year in China, when I was teaching oral English to Senior 1 high school students, I taught 16 classes a week, seeing them only once each week. You can bet that if that first class wasn't a rousing success, I examined and re-examined to see what changes I could make. Confused

Almost any lesson or topic can become interesting if it's introduced appropriately, modeled well. and if related activities are included, with a strong conclusion. It's called a Lesson Plan.

Carole

AsiaTraveller · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 5:46 pm Post subject:

carken, very well said!

Most of the native English instructors in China have woefully little formal training. They also typically have no training in teaching younger learners. Yet they continue to sign contracts to teach children (or young adults) but then COMPLAIN INCESSANTLY about their lack of success in the classroom.

Have they heard of lesson plans? Maybe. Have they been taught to create a good one? Probably not.

If they are sincerely interested in improving their students' performance (AND level of interest and excitement), they need only look to the Teacher Forums here on dave's esl cafe. There are teacher forums on 'Activities and Games' and on 'Elementary Education'.

They can ask for suggestions and get responses -- without flames!

Will they do so? Or will they keep complaining here?

AsiaTraveller · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 6:33 pm Post subject:

From another forum and thread, but it's SO VERY applicable to some of the English teachers in China who post here:

Ace · Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 358

Those of us who have taught Chinese university students would, I am quite sure, agree that they do not regard themselves as adults and do not act like adults. Even Chinese adults.

Giving people what they ask for and think they pay for is problematic. Students and parents who think they know how you should be teaching the class are a pain...as if teaching is not a skill, just as parenting is not a skill that most Chinese seem to study...would they go to a doctor and tell the doctor what treatment they need? To a computer engineer and tell him how to repair their computer?...

There are not many places in China where you get what you ask for anyway, in my experience - but they certainly all expect you to accept what they dish out and they expect to be paid! Try getting a roast duck cut into only 6 pieces...my student claims to have requested that clearly, but they still cut it into those baby-sized morsels the Chinese are normally faced with at any dinner table. "No that's not what we want, goodbye?" would you walk out alive? So many times my translators look at me helplessly and say "But that's not the way it's done in China...they always do such and such..." I'm paying, but this is China, so I have no choice. It so often seems a sellers' market to me.

Sallyann, some classes are always going to be a pain. Always tedious. It's unsatisfying to feel you are not doing your job professionally; you come here to teach, but sometimes you're just a babysitter. Students will enrol and they will graduate...getting to college or university is the hard part, they don't have to work once they're here. Some of them would be better off getting a job and earning some money instead of wasting their time...don't let it break your heart...pass them all!

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

It may be politic to proclaim that your students are your "customers", but I deem this excessively naive and silly. Just because they know they "want" to study English doesn't mean they know how to take a short-cut to the final product. Chinese students are doubly problematic. Firstly, they have been inured to a rote-based learning style that's utterly incompatible with the objectives you must fix for teaching someone a foreign language. Secondly, their own teachers fail miserably in inculcating in these students any awareness of what they need to improve and how to get to their goals; these students rely on a teacher like sheep rely on a shepherd.

To me, it would make sense to liken CHinese students of English to patients, and teachers to DOCTORS. I have to do a lot of remedial work, trying to make their brains work properly, repairing their mangled speech, improving fluency, increasing comprehensio... a never-ending job!
Yes, they are paying good money, but that doesn't give them the right to lord it over me. Neither would a physician accept that his patients tell him how to operate on their stomachs!

ContemporaryDog · Joined: 21 May 2003 Posts: 1477 Location: Wuhan, China

I can't quite see what you are complaining about. Surely classes consisting of students sitting debating various topics in groups are extremely easy to prepare for. After 2 years teaching children which has to be planned in detail every day, Iw ould love to take on such a class.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

ContemporaryDog,
maybe you should direct your rejoinder to the person you intend to listen to you.
And, perhaps, you should read previous posts and familiarise yourself with the nature of the problem being discussed here.
You have been here 2 years? I have been here ten; I don't quite see what you are trying to impress upon us.

AsiaTraveller · Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2004 5:45 am Post subject:

Roger,

ContemporaryDog is simply pointing out that a competent teacher can succeed with young students -- yes, even in China.

Two years vs. ten years doesn't mean as much as having good teaching strategies... and not scolding the culture for the teacher's shortcomings.

If ContemporaryDog reviews all of the posts on these forums about teaching young children in China, he/she will simply read a lot about teacher failures. And about blaming the students for those failures.

benno · Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 501 Location: Fake Mongolia

[quote="Ace"]I'm amazed they could be bothered talking about the Olympics at all...

In the past three weeks I met one guy who went crazy whenever China had a win, nobody else seemed to notice they were on..
Have you noticed this? Is all the hype CCP propaganda? What's your impression of the fitness level of your students too? I've had college students (boys? I really want to say men...) dying on me and having major dramas when they couldn't have a snooze after lunch...instant fever material that! I've been mountain climbing (a small mountain, believe me, if I could do it...) with another who complained constantly about the heat, the exertion etc...his parents and I found it ok...

Of course, I don't think you could call their college diets nutritious...[/quote]

hell come on, your talking through your arse, what? the olympics were a big talking point with every Chinese person I met, maybe you dont have too many Chinese friends
I derfinitely felt the joy the Chinese had every time they won a medal
the hero s were the 110 sprinter, and the 2 tennis players
your students may not be too fit and useless at sport, mine included, but have you seen their diet, canteen food doesnt really prepare one for 90 minutes or whatever of total sport

Ace · Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 358

My business friends had hardly heard of the latest successes and weren't interested, when we were eating and drinking together. I'm not interested in any sport myself, but well, maybe they were too occupied going out wheeling and dealing...(and drinking and dining).

My Chinese 'family' have TV but after doing the bicycle repairs and water deliveries they didn't want to watch the Olympics...my other poor friends also shrugged when I turned the TV on in my home - we turned the sound down...I wouldn't say their lives are a struggle, but they didn't seem at all touched by Olympic glamour.

I've asked a few students who their Olympic heroes were or what they watched, but they had nothing much to say - honestly! Obviously we move in different circles. I only had one guy who visited me several times and was really excited - I used to leave him to watch while I went online in the end...he has no TV, he does massage and acupuncture and moxibustion...maybe he's into the physical side - no, he cheered for China...but he was the only one I met who was at all serious about it.

I was surprised too - I thought the opening was fabulous - I'm from Sydney and I was there in 2000...Athens was much better than I had expected.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

[quote="AsiaTraveller"]Roger,

ContemporaryDog is simply pointing out that a competent teacher can succeed with young students -- yes, even in China.

Question to AA:
Can you read minds? COntemporaryDog's, for instance? Or are you his double?

Have you ever taught in China??? What are your comments worth?

For the record:
I have taught successfully at every level too. I am particularly proud of my achievements, or the achievements my kids aged 3 to 6 had when I was teaching them for 2 years. That success was unlimited because no stupid CHinese interference had to be humoured then.

Meanwhile, I say I find such student complaints highly arrogant and immature. Don't ask me to tell you what you should or could talk about; if you can't find anything interesting to broach then you are lost.
It's not my face that makes you talk; it's your own decision.
But students here don't learn to accept responsability for their own failures. Their own teachers don't talk to them in English - a first serious mistake!
If Chinese English techers talked to their own students in English many of us would be out of our jobs.
Not that I think that would be wrong!
Meanwhile, we are here as a kind of placebo! The real medicine is as effective sometimes as a placebo. Or was it the other way around?

benno · Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 501 Location: Fake Mongolia

[quote="oprah"].I like to tell them though that they came in 3rd at the Olympics, they think they came in second as they only count gold medals. This week they are learning about silver and bronze medals (new words for them -- they know gold).[/quote]

sorry but they did come second in the official table
the IOC only counts gold medals as well, and rightly so!
anyway ireland came 10th if you count medal per population, so there!!!!!

cimarch · Joined: 12 Jun 2003 Posts: 358 Location: Dalian

Woah! What did we get a medal in?

benno · Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 501 Location: Fake Mongolia

well a horse won a medal, show jumping or something like that
still better than nothing