Job Discussion Forums

[Steppenwolf]

[clark.w.griswald]

Just for clarification I am limiting my comments to what I see as the main topic of discussion and that is the use of Chinese by the foreign teacher during class time as a tool to helping the students learn English better.

[Steppenwolf]

I sincerely think there has been an over-reliance on Chomsky and Crash'N Err theories over the past twenty odd years and the professioinal discourse has thus been narrowed down to "total immersion" and similar buzzwords - all of which cover concepts that never work in China! And yet, any Principal here will utter this magic wand or word: Total Immersion! A single foreign body is supposed to prompt a 50-member social group into actively using a foreign language with the foreign body and among themselves...
This does sometimes work in other cultures but virtually never in China!

The teacher is viewed here as an authority; no make that 'Authority" - with a capital 'A'! The Chinese teacher "knows", the student "must learn from the teacher". This leads to spoon-feeding vocabulary and all that quantitatively orientated "teaching" but it leads nowhere in reality. Why?
Because it doesn't address the human aspects of the classroom dynamics: some students learn better in a QUIET environment; in the West it is common to see people seek a comfortable and noiseless place for their studies and contemplation; Chinese feel uncomfortable in a soundproofed room and they don't mind blaring TVs in a hospital or school.

Their whole attitude to learning is a paradigm apart from ours; why is it that maybe two students out of maybe 80 or 100 become really bilingual studying English in China? Why do so many fellow students fail to get past any meaningful point in their learning curve? Is that just because of lack of motivation? Why then do so many westerners and Africans succeed at studying Mandarin in countries other than China?
I submit they are idealistically motivated; they have a deeper interest in the language and culture and that acts as a more powerful motivating force than the baby-sitting FT who resorts to using Chinese scaffolds in his or her classroom English.
It's competition that sorts out the chaff from the wheat, and this competition is not provided in Chiense classrooms. The few that outperform the rest of their classes often are viewed by their peers with something bordering on animosity and jealousy! If you don't believe me ask a superperformer! I have my piece of insight from a Chinese middle school student and from a number of adults! Being "better" than one's peers is not an advantage in conformist Chinese society!
But some really do better than others, and hat off to them for having the courage as well as showing a natural curiosity! Why not resort to using them as co-teachers in a class of average students? Has it ever occurred to you that peer teaching can achieve things that the traditional setup of a teacher-centred configuration can achieve less easily? And for the teacher-student who helps his or her peers the benefit is enormously bigger too - such students become best teachers to themselves!

[Steppenwolf]

And here, for illustrating purposes of what Chinese scaffolding with English characteristics can do to English, a slightly modified statement from one of my adult students (with twelve years of English study to his belt):

"I in the 2007 years, one month and four days am ill so I no come to class..."
He did not add the plural Ss in the "years" and "days" but the rest of the sentence ran as reported here...

We will end up changing English standards: no longer will we be understood when saying northwest or southeast - we will have to say "westnorth" and "eastsouth".
And that's just the beginning...

[vikdk]

Wowwww Clark are you addressing some of the points I've made in my posts - they must have made quite an impact on you
But then again when we read through your post - Clark the most objective of posters - doesn't exactly focus on the pedagogical arguments that divide his teaching philosophy from that of vikdk�s - but starts to become awfully personal - after all why write -

[clark.w.griswald]

And the above is exactly why I largely ignore the posts of vikdk even though he shadows me around this forum.

He has lots to write (and lots of emoticons to use), but when you take him to task about what he writes on this board and ask him some simple questions relevant to what he posts his head always shrinks back into his shell like a turtle. My best guess is that he doesn't want to stick his neck out and actually discuss anything as it would leave him open to becoming the victim of the sort of treatment that he gives others on this forum.

That's okay vikdk. You don't need to reply to this post as I won't bother replying to yours in future as you have shown that to be a complete waste of time.

[Steppenwolf]

[vikdk]

Well done boys - once again a couple of posts weighed down with well thought out pedagogical discusion. Are your concluding arguments to this debate on using Chinese in the English classroon really going to center on - how fluent is vikdk in Chinese????
What a couple of astute debaters you are
If you guys have now finished with the off-topic personal stuff - I'll carry on in this forum tomorrow with telling Clark about how my methods of "co-internalisation" - the understanding and eventual learning of a second language through a path of L1 related comprehension (L2 acquisition through cognitive learning) - certainly can't be confused with the rote methods he tried to connect to the teaching techniques I've been writing about.
I bet Clark can't wait to read all about it

[vikdk]

This is a post, which is specifically aimed at answering some of the questions contained in the following query �

[vikdk]

Here�s an amusing method of using Chinese in the English classroom � and which actually stimulates small Children into talking English.
At the moment we have a warm-up routine where the children must describe me and them � a routine which results in piece of language that goes pretty much like this �

�You are an English teacher, we are Chinese children, we are in the kindergarten, in the classroom, today (this morning/afternoon) is English�.

So then I start to say something in Chinese to my assistant like � �wode maozi� (my hat � while showing everyone the hat) � she�ll answer � �nede maozi� (your hat). First time round most of the kids will join in with the assistant, answering my Chinese with their Chinese � but then the assistant shouts �stop� � and I ask why � she�ll gives the answer "today we are talking English", and pretty soon they are all shouting - �today we are talking English�. And so then naturally I ask the children what English, pretty soon they are all shouting � �your hat� in response to �my hat�.

This kind of exercise is just a 5/10 minute routine that can be practiced and expanded (for example - use of other pronouns � where the single/plural you and he/she can be practiced in an entertaining way already at a very young age in a way that gives great scope for simple explanation) over a 3 to 4 week period before it starts to loose its entertainment impact (it looks a little dry when its explained in writing � but in the classroom you do the kind of stuff like stealing kids shoes and shouting �my shoe� � while being followed by irate kindy kids screaming back at you �no my shoe� � then it becomes quite funny). After the second or third time some of class will have clicked on to the fact that if the FT starts to talk Chinese, then its there job to tell them to stop � after a while they all realise its their job also to try and help the teacher in translating that Chinese into English. By starting off with Chinese you are always refreshing memory, since small kids often need to be reminded a number of times the meaning of words before that word finally seems to sink into a place within their recallable long-term memory reserves � you cant get away from the unpleasant fact that teaching small kids involves a lot of word teaching repetition � by making that repetition as much fun as possible then the you really can improve the quality of your lessons. And it also serves as a good start of the class reminder that even though we do sometimes use Chinese that we are having an English lesson.

[sheeba]

[nickpellatt]

my head hurts from reading some of these back and forth debates and discussions in this thread!

I cant offer an answer as to how much more employable flunecy in Chinese would make you, and I cant give a definative answer to wether ti should or shouldnt be used.

All I will add is my personal experience, based upon my limited teaching experience, and it is that I tried to use a little chinese in my lessons.

Now I cannot speak Chinese, but in my lesson plans, when there was set vocabulary I intended to use, or teach to my class - I would be sure to learn the chinese for these words, and on occasion even learn the character.

This would be for a handful of words per lesson at most - and I would use them after questioning and trying to make my students understand...

Did it help - I dont know - but I do know that some of my students respected me for they knew that I was making an effort, not only would they see Id actually prepared lessons etc, I had also learnt a little chinese to make the lessons go smoother...and that little respect I earnt helped.

Even though some of the students may not be the quickest learners, or even the keenest, they are certainly smart enough to spot a teacher who makes an effort, and compare him to their foreign teacher who turns up late and just plays word games for 40 minutes...

...sorry for interrupting the heavy L1 debate going on....

[Steppenwolf]

"L1"and L2" in vikdk's parlance simply translates as
L1 is what you have Learnt so far,
l2 is what I, vikdk, want you to Learn.

An old dog such as vikdk never learns a new trade; his books control his mind. There is no space for alternatives anymore! It's "my way" or "the highway out".

[Malsol]

[vikdk]

Once again poor old vikdk is in danger of being crushed by the weight of convincing pedagogical argument that is thundering down upon his head - and all this for passing on an innocent little tip over the pratical use of Chinese in the English classroom. I wonder why the English only freaks never fully explain why their methods must be better? But then again I suppose it must be easier to hide behind - the more English per minute must mean more learnt English defence (firing off English like a machine gun) - rather than fighting the concept of the quality of the teaching, and the thought that goes behind it, is that which really counts
If Chinese is used is used to improve the quality of teaching/student understanding/making a lesson more memorable - then, if used properly and sensibly, what major disadvantages can it throw up apart from making the FT's need to be able to use Chinese in some form an extra requirement of teaching??? And what disadvantages there are should surely be far outweighed by the advantages of this type of method in the kind of scheduled class teaching of large student groups who often have very limited English abilities, that are normal classroom situations for so many FT's
And my chinese - well nobodies Chinese could be worse than mine