Job Discussion Forums

[tofuman]

I had a brief experience with one of the CE franchises. I confess that I was overcome by greed and reentered the ESl business(?)

The person that initially contacted me seemed to be a great guy-- honest, , concilatory, pleasant to deal with. He gave me a decent salary and travel bonus. After a few days, other people in the company wanted to decrease my hours, send me to a different location, etc. Thanks to info from this board, I realized the "fix was in." I said no to everything, asked them why Chinese could never make a deal and stick to it, collected my pay, and left. Thankfully, they did pay me before I left.


I thought the basic approach of CE made sense. It emphasized oral English. The text had some great articles for discussion. The dialogues concerned me. The language is very informal, completely unsuitable for talking to anyone but a close friend. It could get a person into a fight. Expressions like "Get that straight, Buddy", "Hey guy, what's up", and "You don't know what you're talking" about seem inappropriate for ESL classes.

I question the story of the Crazy English founder. I find it hard to believe that he learned to speak fluent English without an accent by shouting at trees. My guess is that he is an ABC or CBC with a business degree that saw an income opportunity, conspired with others to run a scam, and made his move.

That type of deceit is probably seen as a good thing to inspire other Chinese in their English learning. The CE franchise had some gangster types hanging around, probably feeding at the trough, that didn't speak a word of English, including their local marketing director. Perhaps that is why they needed me for a few days, to offset the obvious shortcomings of some of their staff and administration.

I was disappointed that things didn't work out. I thought I was onto something.
_________________________
A kinder and gentler Tofuman?
Not yet.

[tw]

[benno]

yes he is a good business man,
selling a product that is basically garbage
i remember seeing him on TV recently for the first time.... chris t he had a terrible accent...whats with all the "man" this and "man " that sh ite, and hye was speaking way to fast and too loud
go to the west speaking like that ..you are liable to get a beaten

but the chinese just lap up this stuff...cant get enough of him

and then we have da shan
yikes
no wonder they are all crap at english

[Roger]

Well, so long as there are people like you that believe in the value of "oral english" there will be crooks like Li Yang that exploit you and the paying public.
Li Yang is an upstart with little intellectual power but an enormous ego drive who claims he studied German and found that the grammar was beyond his ability; hence his motivation to practise english without teaching its foundations - grammar among them.

No, his crazy approach makes zero sense unless you think people shouting at the top of their voices actually get their poor self-confidence boosted.
apart from boosting (albeit only momentarily) their self-confidence it does little else, least of all in the realm of improving their English.
The reason why Li Yang is so successful is because he enjuoys state protection and the media regularly give him the thums-up.
he married an American woman - which probably also stands him in good stead.

They do pay well, though - I hear some Chinese teachers easily make 10 thousand a month.

[writpetition]

[benno]

yeah right
the point is can we understand what you are yelling at me?
no i cant so shut the **** up! and leave me alone

[tw]

[Zero Hero]

It seems fairly obvious to me that if someone makes mistakes (a normal part of the language acquisition process) shouting will not eradicate those mistakes, but will merely amplify them. Crazy people, crazy English.

I met that chap Li Yang once. He was munching on a burger in MacDonald's in a little cesspool of a town in Guangdong. Interestingly, none of the locals recognised him. A few eyebrows were raised however when a chauffeur driven Bentley Turbo with 'Crazy English' blazoned across the side pulled up outside to pick him up. His bodyguard did not look Chinese. I would say he was Cambodian or Laotian.

I for one do not think Li Yang is a particularly good businessman; at least not in the sense of product content. Rather, as someone who I understand has spent some time outside of China, he has elements of both the emic and etic viewpoints as an integral part of his psyche. As such, he no doubt realises that the Mainland Chinese are always seeking a quick fix. This is why students will often come and ask what the secret is to learning English, (which is interesting as they obviously assume there is such a secret). When you inform them that one needs to 'practice, practice, practice, and learn, learn, learn', they will invariably walk away, somewhat disappointed (if not downright dejected).

The Mainland Chinese � that is, his customers (for Crazy English did not do too well in Taiwan, HK, Singapore, or Macau; in fact, people simply laughed at it) � will follow any crazy scheme. If, for, example you were to tell them the secret to learning and becoming fluent in English is to get up at 4.32am (and 45 seconds) on a (rainy) Wednesday in April, put on a leopard skin cloak back-to-front, do seventeen press-ups, sacrifice a cow, and turn three times in an anti-clockwise direction before having crocodile tongue for breakfast, most would certainly give it a try.

The Mainland Chinese are the most ridiculously superstitious people on the face of the planet, even more so than uneducated peasant villagers in darkest Africa. In fact, I'm surprised there are no witch doctors in China (though I would concede that many general practitioners and hospital surgeons there do seem to promote voodoo). Just look at how they avoid the word for the numeral (not number) four. It is totally bizarre and smacks of mediaeval beliefs of the 'power of the word'.

From:

http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/99/0730/cs_eng_crazy.html

"Crazy English has plenty of critics in academia, who question whether one can learn the theory of relativity by repeatedly screaming E=MC2."

Quite.

[tw]

[Chris_Crossley]

[Zero Hero]

[The Red Baron]

And what about buildings in Western countries that do not have the 13th floor labelled as such? Is that not just as silly and superstitious, Mr. Zero?

[Roger]

We were discussing SUPERSTITION in a diffrerent field - the Chinese people's attitude to what makes THEM English speakers.

The widely-held superstition - and probabl inculcated in them from the classroom dais on - is that "speaking makes ou proficient" and "speaking it ever louder makes ou a better English speaker".

In fact it is accepted "wisdom" that "the faster our English the better it is". This is what Li ang has built on his stupid and ridiculous concept.

Has anone ever made an effort to tell Chinese that they all practise reading English aloud in a vain attempt at getting their mangled pronunciation right?
Every day, millions of students waste hours sitting on grassy knolls, in rooms or on rooftops reading English books without understanding ten percent of what the are reading - blindly and unthinkingl practising pronunciation. They do it less loudl than Li Yang ma want them to do it, but it has a devastating effect - it reinforces bad pronuncation, bad intonation and informs a useless habit they can never get rid of. That's why Li Yang can make money - he organises such speaking aloud sessions, but his come with simultaneous translation, beating et another dead horse.

[ChinaMovieMagic]

To follow-up on Roger's oswaldish grass-knoll example...
...the park in Yangshuo this summer has been filled w/individual CEers, crooning in various nooks and crannies...

The most well-heard one has been a young lady who chose to scream on a hill spot just beyond/above the toilets. Many a laobaixin head have I seen turn toward the toilets, after hearing a hyper-confident:
"Nice to meet you!!!!"

In the US, before I had ever heard of CE, I had read of it in a professional ESOL thread, and a Prof. of Physiology/Voice emphasized that different muscles are used for shouting and for speaking...

Li Yang came to my U. in Shanghai,
and got the kids on their feet shouting.
As I've often mentioned to folks,
I hope LY's next step is into the field of Politics.
China can benefit from some enthusiasm...
(in the right direction...)

When folks ask me about CE,
I mention that Actors consider
the voice/body to be an INSTRUMENT...
that one needs to learn to play the voice/body
in various manners/volumes/intensities,
rather than just Hyper-American Mercantile.
The Italians have the words for it.

There's a DVD of Li Yang for sale in the shops/stalls.
Shows him in Xian etc.
Reminds me of the Arthur Miller play/movie
"Death of a Salesman."
Possibly w/rebirth as a political speaker?

[tofuman]

Anybody have any more factual information on Li Yang's background?