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eddy-cool
Joined: 06 Jul 2008
Posts: 1008
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 Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 4:23 am Post subject: |
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| lpm782 wrote: |
What do the exams of China have to do with anything? The reason that I stay here is because there is no more abundant supply of Asian women.
What is th point of worrying about something that you can't do anything about just for the sake of principle?
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Well, your post says more about yourself and your unprofessional motivation for being in this country, so why would you discuss with anyone the worth or worthlessness of Chine3se academic exams?
I am not censoring you but I would have hoped you could leave such cynical hints (as to woman students) out of this discussion. Surely if you teach in an all-male class your students are entitled to the same degree of 'fairness' and 'professionalism'?
Your question, 'what is the point of worrying about something that you can't do anything about...'
just reinforces my belief that you are reinforcing a systemic problem with your presence here. Of course, you can do something about it, albeit in a modest way: Let your students know that a Chinese classroom is a cosy cocoon that shields them from the harsh reality that prevails out in society at large (you know Chinese students consider themselves as distinct from society; they 'go out into society' upon graduating).
Why do you think millions of freshly-graduated young people are jobless now? Blame it on the economy if you like, but I also blame it on a mentality that thinks complacency and conceit are virtues!
Have you never thought why a significant percentage of Chinese students going abroad end up dropping out of school and engaging in remunerated activities of all kinds, legal and otherwise?
The guy that caused the death of 53 Chinese illegal immigrants in Morecombe Beach in the UK a few years ago was a Chinese 'English student'.
You need to realise that Chinese tertiary students are their nation's pampered elite; these - often spoilt - young people need to learn to be a little more modest, a little more honest, and a little more hard-working. |
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eddy-cool
Joined: 06 Jul 2008
Posts: 1008
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| Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 4:57 am Post subject: |
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| evaforsure wrote: |
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| Our job is to help students elevate themselves: to help them develop as people, so as to as to increase their chances of being successful in life. This can only be achieved with challenging lessons. |
I would disagree, as I think it is the teacher's job to provide instruction in an understandable and procedural context so as to make available to the students the knowledge they need to achieve the academic goal...as to people skills...and as to their success in life, entirely up to them..and to their parents ...if there is a chaplin then he can get in on the act as well...
As to easy exams.. this is the trend in Education in recent years...more difficult teachers in the US have found their classes cancelled for lack of participation and the need for the bulk of the students to continue to the next level is sometimes a financial reality that many of the rank and file will never understand because they don�t deal with financial responsibilities...yea.. ... |
I don't think this post deserves much consideration but let me say what is wrong with it anyway.
What strikes me first is the author's belief that education is a quantifiable commodity that books and teachers pile into empty student brains.
This simplistic thinking presides over the curricula of oral English lessons in most Chinese classrooms too.
It has led to the definition of delusional objectives such as students having to pass the CET 4 at college level, which requires them to 'know 4500 English words'.
Stupid quantification: 4500 English words! Do words such as 'if' and 'and' count? Do verbs count double because they come in two different forms in the present tense? No, of course not!
But students cram ('study') English for 6, 7 and more years, and they get tested for the CET 4 on a paltry 4500 English vocables... Does anyone count the words these students have forgotten over these 6 to 8 long years?
And so in conclusion I will say, 'no', it isn't a regular FT's job to 'make available to our students... (more!) knowledge' nor is it our job to make classes 'easy'. What exotic goals may at present be the norm in 'the U.S> of A.' need not become the goals of everybody else. That education system is a failure in a number of areas that China's education system doesn't need to replicate.
I haven't said what our 'job' here is (yet) but clearly it is necessary to say what it is not. |
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Hansen
Joined: 13 Oct 2008
Posts: 737
Location: central China
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| Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 5:05 am Post subject: |
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Mr.Cool,
At issue is the ability of test retakers to meet the minimum expectation on the second sitting. In my own case, the only students who fail are those who come in around 30-40% on the final exam. And for those, if they have done well in the numerous other point scoring opportunities throughout the term, they may yet find themselves in grasp of a passing class score.
Too heavily weighted final exams are the source of unnecessary failure. I have a student in one class, a young man appropriately called Dick. Dick is quite a talker. I have chatted with him outside the school and in the classroom, informally. He is quite a conversationalist. He performs poorly, however, in assigned classroom tasks. He is, by a rigorous standard, failing the class. He will not fail, however. He has made large strides in terms of classroom behaviour, attitude, and so forth. All of these things will play heavily into his final mark.
A student who scores 30 % on a curve, has no chance of passing on a retake. There is a significant time spent in class on review. I simply give those who fail a ten point oral exam, not especially easy. If they can get 5 or 6 correct, they pass.
I teach medical English in addition to Oral English. The medical English course has numerous point scoring opportunities aside from the final. I developed a game which is quite effective as a learning tool. It provides a significant number of points. It is highly effective in awakening sleeping students and focussing "goof offs" on a learning task.
The students enjoy it.
Last edited by Hansen on Fri May 08, 2009 5:14 am; edited 1 time in total |
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eddy-cool
Joined: 06 Jul 2008
Posts: 1008
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| Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 5:10 am Post subject: |
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| alter ego wrote: |
[
Do you know what TTT is? Just because you want to call yourself a lecturer doesn't mean you should give up using some of the fundamentals of communicative langague learning in your classroom. Do some role plays once in awhile. Do some dictation, and
Have your students work in pairs or small groups and move around to monitor their progress.
Sorry, but if you took a decent TEFL/TESOL training course you'd know this is the last thing that teaching is about. So what's TTT? Teacher Talk Time. It' not about TTT, it's about STT. Even in a business-oriented English class, most students must talk to learn, not learn to talk. |
Dictation is a very good staple in the EFL classroom; the problem is that when Chinese are talking about dictations they mean an entirely different practice: Students memorise a bunch of words, the teacher then puts them through a test by 'dictating' words in an arbitrary order.
A real dictation ought to be based on a continuous text. Try that and see how often your students can't get it right!
As for grouping students in pairs, I am none too positively impressed by the effects this has. It gives you the illusion your students are meeting a (quantitative) goal in the production of English but in qualitative terms this is extremely counterproductive. How do you change their mispronunciations? How do you help them with grammar in spoken language? Each of them has only one listener, usually a person with the same or similar problems with the language. |
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Fred Smith
Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 77
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| Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 5:13 am Post subject: |
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| wangdaning wrote: |
| Did Fred say he taught English? I know, this is an ESL board, but maybe he isn't an English teacher. |
Not teaching English - teaching various marketing subjects. |
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eddy-cool
Joined: 06 Jul 2008
Posts: 1008
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| Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 5:31 am Post subject: |
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| alter ego wrote: |
English is still their second or foreign language and the principles of communciative language teaching ALWAYS apply. All ESL/EFL classes should have role plays so students can practice their listening and speaking skills in everyday conversations. As Hansen suggested, asking why a teacher would role play in a business class and saying it sounds ridiculous shows either a lack of creativity or knowledge on your part. One of the top business English textbooks in China, Market Leader, has entire sections of role plays where students act out business scenarios in a wide variety of situations. |
I too consider role-plays a waste of time, and I certainly don't lack creativity or knowledge in this field.
Role-plays (and dialogues in pairs) are for students who have no imagination, cannot think outside the box and always need a guiding rail to move them along in life. This may be appropriate at the beginners' level but at tertiary school level it is useless.
Have you ever seen how students practise for a public speech contest? That might be an eye-opener for you! There are students that memorise 3, 4 A4 pages of English though on average they may just memorise one to two pages. Some of them actually translate their stuff back into Chinese, then, understanding (only then!) what they are uttering to the audience, they translate from their Chinese into - now Chinglish. Really, this sort of 'practice' is abominable and totally useless. Is that the 'art' of communicatively practising English?
I curently teach Business English majors; I have taught them ('prepared' would be a better word) to find a job for which they are suited and to write their CV; what struck me the most was that these students don't seem to be in possession of a realistic grasp of what it's going to be like in the job market. They have to learn to pitch themselves. They have to realise what their strengths and weaknesses are; many of them have exalted views of their own English proficiency. Writing a CV and a cover letter with an average of 3 mistakes per line is not uncommon!
They role-played employers and job seekers; that is when their written CVs were needed. Role-plays reinforce the belief in students that life is scripted, every step is predictable. But a CV may contain many a surprise. Students should not expect to be prepared for everything in life.
They are now making business plans. We studied financing through banks and friends; now we are looking into setting up a variety of small enterprises. This finally helps them realise their (intellectual) potential as investors or owners of a business. It puts them in a situation which they may have dreamed of but are too inexperienced to tackle.
The challenge always is to make them LISTEN, not just TALK, to OTHERS that have DIFFERENT ideas.
They are not used to paying that much attention to what is being said by whoever is in front; after all they only 'learn' or 'study' what is in their silly books. Anyone can 'read' these books. Understanding them is another matter. |
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lpm782
Joined: 16 Dec 2008
Posts: 30
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| Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 6:48 am Post subject: |
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| lpm782 wrote: |
What do the exams of China have to do with anything? The reason that I stay here is because there is no more abundant supply of Asian women.
What is th point of worrying about something that you can't do anything about just for the sake of principle?
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| Quote: |
| Well, your post says more about yourself and your unprofessional motivation for being in this country, so why would you discuss with anyone the worth or worthlessness of Chine3se academic exams? |
Just for the sake of argument. There aren't all that many things to do in this country outside of sex with local women, and even that can get kind of routine. (Sometimes the women talk so much that it is better to do without.))
| Quote: |
| I am not censoring you but I would have hoped you could leave such cynical hints (as to woman students) out of this discussion. Surely if you teach in an all-male class your students are entitled to the same degree of 'fairness' and 'professionalism'? |
They will get the same thing as female students get, which is: THE BARE MINIMUM AMOUNT OF WORK THAT I CAN DO BEFORE SOMEONE STARTS COMPLAINING. So, I'll show up on time and give an adequate class. But pouring my heart and soul into it is just a waste of time.
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Your question, 'what is the point of worrying about something that you can't do anything about...'
just reinforces my belief that you are reinforcing a systemic problem with your presence here. Of course, you can do something about it, albeit in a modest way: Let your students know that a Chinese classroom is a cosy cocoon that shields them from the harsh reality that prevails out in society at large (you know Chinese students consider themselves as distinct from society; they 'go out into society' upon graduating). |
I am just looking through a book right now that you would do well to get second hand. It is called "To Change China: Western Advisers in China" and is by Jonathan Spence. What he points out in a nutshell is that: People have been trying to come to China for MANY CENTURIES with better ideas or better ways of doing things. And it is just of NO USE. You could more productively try to talk astrophysics to a wino. Or compose a symphony for the listening pleasure of a corpse. Things in China NEVER change, NEVER WILL. You must be new to this game if you think that you can do anything about it. (Your writing style makes me believe that you majored in some picayune humanity. Or some type of artqueer study.)
This point can't be iterated enough times. I was talking to some students last night, and they told me (the answer that is the answer for EVERYTHING and EVERY topic in China): "There are some cultural differences between Western and Chinese people" and "Everyone has his or her own opinion." Do you know what I had said to prompt this? I had the audacity to say that: "If there are more men than women and every woman is entitled to only one husband, then there will be some men who are not able to find wives." (Yes, that was some abstruse philosophical stuff. So I can imagine how that's really only a matter of opinion.) What else did I say? Two other things that have been as close to "proven" as something can get outside of a Mathematics Department. 1) Improved living standards are ultimately a matter of gains from productivity (Paul Krugman); 2) In a market where certainty is a minimum, then prices will fall lower than what they would in a market where things are more certain (George Akerlof-- he got his Nobel Prize for this work). And not only did they not understand the reasoning (I provided many real life examples), but they just gave the standard answer. (See above parenthetical insert about "cultural differences.")
| Quote: |
| Why do you think millions of freshly-graduated young people are jobless now? Blame it on the economy if you like, but I also blame it on a mentality that thinks complacency and conceit are virtues! |
You really are overthinking it. If there are more people than the market can bear, then some of them will be unemployed. A lot of people who study worthless degrees (the product of 40% of any given American university) that no one is willing to pay for-- and then wonder why no one wants to hire them. If you take a degree in sculpture, it doesn't matter what your attitude is: There are VERY FEW people who are willing to pay for it.
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| Have you never thought why a significant percentage of Chinese students going abroad end up dropping out of school and engaging in remunerated activities of all kinds, legal and otherwise? |
It's because there are incentives to do that. Have you ever talked to anyone here about how hard it is to open a business here? Initial investment costs are a multiple of what it costs in the United States (if you include bribe money and "skid fees" for projects.)
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| The guy that caused the death of 53 Chinese illegal immigrants in Morecombe Beach in the UK a few years ago was a Chinese 'English student'. |
Ok. So now what?
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| You need to realise that Chinese tertiary students are their nation's pampered elite; these - often spoilt - young people need to learn to be a little more modest, a little more honest, and a little more hard-working. |
I don't give a DAMN. There are over a million graduates every year out of university. What do you look like trying to influence a few hundred? In fact, what does ANYONE look like trying to bring new ideas to China? I'll tell you what: A damned fool! One more time (in case you missed it the first few times): New ideas are NOT taken well here. And that's fine. I can find other people to do with my time. Being an idealist in this game is to be an idiot. Being a realist who wants a job is much better way to survive and a much more efficient use of mental energies. |
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alter ego
Joined: 24 Mar 2009
Posts: 209
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| Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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| eddy-cool wrote: |
| I too consider role-plays a waste of time, and I certainly don't lack creativity or knowledge in this field. |
I'm sure you don't, you sound like you know what you're doing.
| eddy-cool wrote: |
| Role-plays (and dialogues in pairs) are for students who have no imagination, cannot think outside the box and always need a guiding rail to move them along in life. This may be appropriate at the beginners' level but at tertiary school level it is useless. |
Okay, that sounds like a reasonable opinion.
| eddy-cool wrote: |
| They role-played employers and job seekers; that is when their written CVs were needed. |
So, you consider role plays a waste of time and you think role plays are for students who have no imagination, etc. So why do you use role plays in your class? I appreciate your comments but it sounds like you are contradicting yourself. Please don't get me wrong, you sound like an experienced teacher and I admit that role playing as an activity might not be suitable for some ESL classes. Since I teach oral English to beginning and elementary students, I think it's more important for them to be able to speak outside their comfort zone than think outside of it. |
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Fred Smith
Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 77
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| Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 10:33 am Post subject: |
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I have to give a retest to the failed students in a week.
There is no way that many of the retesters will pass, especially most of the boys.
Do you think I should just give out red envelopes and tell them to make sure they have their names and class numbers on it? |
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evaforsure
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1217
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| Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 11:23 am Post subject: |
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| Instead ask for gift certs... |
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Hansen
Joined: 13 Oct 2008
Posts: 737
Location: central China
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| Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 11:47 am Post subject: |
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| Learn anything Fred? See what being a prig got you? Why not tell the school to go "F" themselves. Why should the students be the only ones to have your "righteousness" brought to bear on them. Your a man of principle, aren't you? Standing up for a principle when it negatively impacts you is a lot different than when you impose it on others, eh? |
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Fred Smith
Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 77
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| Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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I have no plan to stay at the school after this semester and at this point I don't care about the school, the administration, or the students.
In my opinion the students who deserved to pass HAVE passed, those that failed, I really don't care if they graduate or not, and I WON'T pass them just because the school says they should pass.
The school had asked me to mark the retest easier. I laughed at them. |
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Fred Smith
Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 77
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 5:58 am Post subject: |
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I just found out that the cheating students get a chance to take the exam again and NOTHING happens to them!
Oh God this is laughable...
BUT, I think I will fail the cheating students anyway just to see what happens... |
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suanlatudousi
Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Posts: 384
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 6:20 am Post subject: |
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| lpm782 wrote: |
| I don't give a DAMN. There are over a million graduates every year out of university. What do you look like trying to influence a few hundred? In fact, what does ANYONE look like trying to bring new ideas to China? I'll tell you what: A damned fool! One more time (in case you missed it the first few times): New ideas are NOT taken well here. And that's fine. I can find other people to do with my time. Being an idealist in this game is to be an idiot. Being a realist who wants a job is much better way to survive and a much more efficient use of mental energies. |
I'd be happy to drive you to the airport ! |
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Hansen
Joined: 13 Oct 2008
Posts: 737
Location: central China
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 11:29 am Post subject: |
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| Actually, Fred, If you are going to blow this whole scene off anyway, go ahead and fail them. Let us know what happens. |
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