Job Discussion Forums

[sheeba]

Hello Guys.

I write to you as I am in need of advice concerning my teaching development. My CELTA course opened my eyes to the topic of professional development but I have problems on my own . I passed CELTA with a C+ . I believe this means that the teacher will need assistance with his development as a teacher . The big problem is I have no other foreigners here ! I have tried to read some posts on the teachers forum but thought that I could post my query here as this forum specifically deals with China. Also you guys may experience the same problems. It's silly because I was advised that if I wanted to seriously develop my teaching skills I should come to China - I feel at the moment that I just cannot assess my lessons properly .

Every week I teach a new topic .I have been told to teach 'Oral English' -This is the only advice I have received from the Chinese head of department . I don't really have a plan for the semester . I just think of a topic at the weekend and then plan in my head how I will teach that topic , take photocopies and then just do it !Perhaps I should plan like I did in the CELTA course but sometimes this takes a long time. I did plan to begin with but found my planning efforts tended to be wasted and the lesson's failed or were no better to those where I did not plan . I find with a plan I cannot teach naturally - It's more rigid and I feel like I am trying to beat responses out of my students to achieve my goals - 'You will speak English !' as I wring his neck !
I tend to find that as the week progresses I learn tips on how to present something or find what the students find interesting / amusing and adjust my methods through out the week . Not good for my Monday morning class as they are. the guinea pigs of my experiments .

So I do believe I am gaining good experience in testing the waters on different topics - For example - Topics such as Pollution and environment , Chinese/Western star sign comparisons, Dream house to mention a few have all resulted in positive interest from my students. I think I have no problem in creating the ideas but I want to improve my teaching skills . My CELTA tutor said to me 'I have good Macro skills but not so good Micro skills' - To this day I do not really know what he meant . I guess he means on paper I can plan a lesson well but I have problems teaching . I took this criticism without concern thinking that with experience my teaching skills will improve but I really don't know if they are and it concerns me . I take pride in this job . I don't want to feel like a 'foreign monkey' I would not be in China if I felt like this. In life whatever job I have done I take it with pride and this is my possible career so I want to progress.

Last week I taught the topic of ' dream house ' . I elicited vocab for rooms and items that you put in a room , Practised the language with the students (eg. the toothbrush goes in the bathroom ) and the production stage was to draw a picture of their dream house and talk about .

The problem which occurred here and seems to a lot is that I walk round the class and each student will tell me about his/her house . Some really imaginative pictures and the students used the language taught well but on my CELTA Course I was taught I should not walk around and talk to students in turn like this. To be honest I would rather not as it is tiring after a while when speaking individually to students. I guess many of you will tell me I should get the students to talk to each other in English(produce real communication between the students) but I just can't see this as a realistic exercise . I've tried a few times to get them to speak in English to each other but this will last for 1 minute max and then as soon as I have turned my back they will stop and either talk Chinese to one another or do their homework for another class . I'm not the strictest teacher because I don't feel it suits me . I don't really want to treat them like kids and shouting at them I feel is not the solution for them or me.

Maybe I need some advice in how to set up communicative activities that involve the students speaking to one another in English - I don't know but any advice to allow me to defeat this barrier would be appreciated !

Cheers

[kev7161]

I'm not quite sure the advice you want us to give you. Lesson topic ideas? How to be a "better" teacher? What's wrong with lesson plans? I feel they provide a structure (not necessarily a rigidity) that you can follow throughout the period . . . you can also improvise if need be (this will come easier the longer you teach).

I think one thing you might want to do is come up with a variety of activities you can use with your students. Enough that you can use within 3, 4, or 5 classes. There's nothing more boring for a student OR teacher to do the same kind of lesson over and over and over again. Once you have 10-15 (or more) ideas jotted down, then you can use these same ideas with different lessons. I'm going to give you an example (I think I gave this same example on some other thread, but oh well):

(Western) Foods and Dining Out:
1. Introduce new vocabulary
2. Go through 8-page unit (about 3, 45-minute class periods) - - this includes grammar, dialogues, reading comprehension (reading aloud), conversation topics, special games/activities, writing, etc.
3. Assign workbook assignments, go over in following class.
4. Bring menus to class to show to students - talk about menus with students.
5. Bring materials to class (color markers, scissors, paper, glue sticks, pictures of food) so student groups can make their own menus - - students think of theme, come up with restaurant name, slogan, main dishes, side dishes, and so on.
6. Talk about their menus - - ask pointed questions to stimulate the conversation.
7. Assign dialogue topics to groups that concern being in a restaurant. Students write and perform their dialogues.
8. Review for test
9. Have test.

(we also made some food in class this week - - pasta salad and chicken salad - - but that is just something I wanted to do on a whim.)

So, the above has taken me about 1 1/2 months (roughly 11 or 12 class periods) - - how much do you think MANY of my students now know about western culture, foods, dining out, ordering in English, and so on? They may or may not retain the English needed, but it's a pretty thorough unit. I think most have learned quite a bit. We did the needed vocab. and grammar stuff and then the kids got to use what they learned when they did their special English projects.

I do steps 1, 2, 3, 8, and 9 for every unit. Steps 4-7 will vary. Topic about travel? They can make travel brochures. Chinese/Western zodiac? They can research horoscope charts and create their own horoscope or a classmate's. Read or recite aloud in class. Their dream house? Have each group "design" a room in an imaginary house: color scheme, furniture, accessories, accent pieces - - what do they need to put this together? Furniture, paint, carpeting. How much will this cost? Who's going to do the work or shopping? Have them talk about it outloud to the class.

I feel the more work you can have the students do that is student-centered, the better off they'll be. Of course, the trick in China is to get the students to actually work as a group. Often I'll find one or two doing the work while the others sit around and do nothing. It keeps me on my toes to make sure they are doing what they should be doing. "Conversation" is a great ideal, but I find it almost unrealistic. That's why I have them do oral presentations. It helps their pronunciation and they can't read from it from a paper. So they have to write and think and speak in English. Isn't that what it's all about?

PS: They actually tell you not to walk around the class and engage students in conversation? I can't imagine NOT doing that (while they are working on projects, that is). That may not be something you can do with classes of 40 or 50 students, but anywhere from 35 or less is certainly do-able; just don't turn your backs on the others while you are helping individuals.

[mandu]

I have the same problem.
im not a frsh teacher anymore and i teach kindergarten children.I do not have an esl cert.but i do have a childcare cert.
I to want to be a better teacher.
even doing a work shop every month or two

[mandu]

sorry that should have been a fresh teacher anymore

[woza17]

That was a refreshingly honest post. Could I recommend a great little book that you can buy in China, called Success in English Teaching, written by Paul Davies and Eric Pierce. This book really centres me.
It is not an easy job but because of your responsible attitude you will get better as you go along and discover the answers yourself. Teaching is a learning and creative process, don't be too hard on yourself. i don't understand that walking around the classroom is not a good thing. Why?
Cheers

[Roger]

Hello sheeba,
it seems to me you have entered a phase of plummeting self-confidence mainly due to having been indoctrinated by the CELTA trainers on how to do your job. You can safely say that course was a waste of your precious time! "Macro" and micro" skills? Alright, when I eat my beefsteak it comes in a 'macro' shape, and when I am swallowing it down it is in a 'micro' shape.

First a question: do you speak any second language?
I am asking this because practice makes perfect, and if you have had to learn another tongue you can compare your competency in two different languages and systems of thought organisation. You can then observe on yourself how you become proficient in L 2. If you haven't acquired an L 2 you are somehwat handicapped and have to rely on books, instruction given to you and other people for advice on what your objectives should be, and how to reach them.

My opinion on oral English classes:
I have said it many times before, and your case is an eloquent testimonial, that such classes had best be held by local teachers or be scrapped. I see very little benefit in them. The minute you have to defer to students' opinion you are lost; how can they decide what's in their own best interest? Ah, it is "interesting"? What is "interesting"? "They like it" - does liking something imply that something is "useful" or "good"? Sust because I love ice-cream doesn't mean I should eat 3000 calories worth of ice-cream every day!
It isn't your fault if you cannot always deliver. You should not have to rack your brains for ideas of how to entertain your learners. They should do a job you know is a native speaker's regular oratory job. They shouldn't have to learn new vocabulary in your lesson; instead they should use your class to to recycle the words they have acquired with the help of their Chinese teacher, their textbooks and written exercises. It isn't even particularly useful to pair them and to force them to talk to each other - that is the idea of CELTA people with their quantitative approach to practising English.
In oral classes you should reinforce good habits instead of reinforcing mistakes. They should learn to respond to questions in appropriate ways rather than rehearsing verbal dramas. They should first of all learn to listen to each other; you will see training them to do that takes a lot more than you thought.

[Ben H Nevis Jnr.]

Like you, I did the CELTA first before accepting my first teaching job: at a Chinese public uni. Like you, I am also flying blind much of the time. Sometimes I feel that I could simply show a DVD from beginning to end, or maybe I could spend the whole class chatting about Chinese food with my groupies/students in the front row, to the exclusion of the fifty others sleeping in the rows behind. No-one would care. I'd still get paid. On one hand I have no positive role-models for development, but on the other hand, I feel I can make the lack of pressure work to my advantage.

For instance, I no longer feel any nerves or anxiety standing in front of groups of people. The classroom requirement to be some sort of authority figure, which felt so alien to me during the CELTA, has become natural. I just walk in and switch into teacher-mode without thinking. Freed from the need to concentrate on maintaining respect and control in this way, I seem to be letting more of my natural personality come through too, which helps no-end in building rapport. Do these experiences sound similar to your own ? I for one doubt I'd feel quite so relaxed now if all my acclimatisation had been done with management and pushy parents breathing down my neck. I get to try out potentially career-ending activities. Some have worked a treat. Some have bombed. No-one else cared either way.

Though I learned more about teaching (in China at least) in the first semester (both from the classroom and this forum !), I don't regret doing the CELTA. I think it brought me up to speed enormously during its four weeks. It let me hit the ground running, even if it was backwards initially. Had I not done the CELTA, it's unlikely I would have had the context to learn as much since I've been here, even if much of the learning has been in the form of unravelling by trial and error the absolute truths drummed into us. Appropriate table layout, when the buggers are bolted to the floor ? Rehearsing 'lines' before class....5 hours worth ? Yeah sure.

One thing I am curious about though is the "not walking around" maxim. I was never taught that. In fact, we were marked down if we didn't monitor our students sufficiently. Firstly to ensure the students had undertstood the task. Secondly to identify any recurring mistakes or problem areas for you to give board feedback on after the activity had ended. In a class of sixty or so I find that I have to walk around continually to make sure they aren't doing other work/sleeping/texting. I don't talk to every student though, I usually listen in on the ones that are making an effort and talk to the others who are staring bemused, in an attempt to prompt them into some sort of spontaneous communication which they may or may not contuinue in English with their mates once I have moved on to the next desk.

[randyj]

Sheeba, when planning your communications activities, try to define a tangible result for the students to produce. Penny Ur discusses this and other criteria in her book "Discussions That Work". According to Ur, successful activities also involve interaction among the students and their use of language. The best are simple for the teacher to prepare and explain. One member of each group might document the results by writing them down. Group tasks can easily become group contests. The topics should be interesting, of course, but not too interesting, because emotions might make people forget their objective of learning English.

[ChinaMovieMagic]

So many of these kids have been traumatized by the very process of "English class." The Affective Filter is HIGH!!

My strategy is to transform the environment and transform my role, by cultivating a movie-related focus.
============================================

(from "Promoting Change..." in China--Job-Related)

DVD movies will be an essential element for this project.
All members will share the experience of viewing the film, so conversation will have a common focus. In addition, we can offer:
*a wide range of movie reviews for each movie--promoting vocabulary development/critical thinking/active discussions
(available at www.imdb.com)
*movie scripts (available at www.script-o-rama.com)

Over the years, L2 teachers have developed a wide range of communicative techniques based upon the creative use of movie segments, such as:

VIEWING COMPREHENSION (with sound off)
DIALOGUE BUILDING (with sound off)
AURAL ONLY PREDICTION (with sound only)
PREDICTIVE VIEWING--What will happen?
REVERSE PREDICTION--What happened before the sequence seen?
JIGSAW VIEWING (Only half the viewers see the sequence, and they relate it to those who haven't. Replay it to compare.)

Such approaches can create an enhanced learning environment, in harmony with Krashen's principles:
*A RICH VARIETY OF COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT
*A LOW-ANXIETY SITUATION
*REAL MESSAGES OF REAL INTEREST

A short (1 to 3 minutes) close-captioned movie segment offers the learner a synergistic schemata of opportunities for comprehensible INPUT. The visual images themselves are comprehensible and are stored
in the students' memories as EXPERIENCES, rather than as a language lesson that must be "studied/learned" because the teacher will test the students for their ability to "remember" the lesson.

A schematic tapestry of English words becomes associated with the movie's images and emotions. Plot, character, emotion--these are the 'hooks' by which the language becomes comprehensible input and stored intake. This dynamic is quite different from the artificial approaches typically used--vocabulary lists, linear progressions in grammar complexity etc.)

To use another metaphor, the memories of the movie segment can be seen as gravitational schemata which can attract and retain words associated with the images. As the learner thinks of a scene, an
ever-expanding constellation of words and sentences can become linked in the memory with a pleasant (LOW-ANXIETY) experience, rich with REAL MESSAGES OF REAL INTEREST. As the learner thinks of one character,
a tremendous variety of adjectives and actions can become part of the schemata.

This is in harmony with the episode hypothesis, which states that "text (i.e. discourse in any form) will be easier to produce, understand, and recall to the extent that it is motivated and structured episodically...these ideas lead to the supposition that perhaps second language teaching would be more successful if it incorporated principles of good story writing along with the benefits of sound linguistic analysis." (Oller)
==============================================
Use freeze frame, asking students to describe action scenes, to see&say.
Verbs first. Don't worry about tense at 1st.
Put the pieces together. Give a lively description of the scene.
Model.I+1 (Krashen)
Have them practice the movie scene in Pairs. (See BELOW)
Say&Do.
Do&Say.
TPR w/Story
Expand details/grammar/vocabulary.

ROLE PLAY the movie scenes in groups of 6-8, in 2 lines facing each other.
That is, 3-4 pairs.
After a few minutes, when the energy is still HIGH, have them circulate clockwise or counter-clockwise to new pairs. Get them out of their own safety (passivity) zone. As they circulate, they have the opportunity to learn from their peers.

Creating a small group environment can produce signifant changes in the class---from mass group (inert) to small group (like a noisy Chinese restaurant.)

[sheeba]

Thanks for the advice.
I will follow up on some of those books and ideas recommended. The walking around the class part of my post was perhaps not too clear . My questions are probably not clear in general - It's just nice to share thoughts about teaching here in general!
Re -the walking around point - I just remember from the blitz in time that was my CELTA course our tutor criticizing a trainee teacher . In the production stage she one by one in rotating order asked the students the same question in an attempt to use language learnt. I can't even remember why this was considered a bad thing at the time - I guess I was more concerned with my lesson that day . Our tutor seemed to pick on one trainee each week - Probably her unlucky day !

I do feel that the time actually speaking English is a factor .Often in a lesson I will investigate the student's workings one by one and talk about their answers/pictures or whatever. As soon as I move to the next student I think my students have the idea 'That's it ! He won't talk to me for at least half an hour later ' So the student then makes a pillow out of his school bag and goes to sleep until his mate nudges him for the next production stage .I've tried giving them something to do while I go around speaking to other groups/individuals but if they have any chance to get 50 winks or do something else they will . The only time they will spend speaking English is when I am face to face with them .

I think perhaps I need to make my lessons more active . I too last semester followed a very similar plan to your food/menu idea Kev. I had the idea to follow up with making food/tasting food in class but with my classroom being not the ideal place to cook / eat I declined to follow this up . I thought about having a lesson in the restaurant - Maybe for the future .

I guess I am being hard on myself . I have learnt a lot so far.I have gambled with classes resulting in good and bad and I know that 6 months teaching is not nearly enough time to become a good teacher (well for me anyway) . I do not have any other languages under my belt - I'm learning Chinese and I hope I can start to understand problems associated with learning a foreign language.Already I think I notice pronunciation , word order and motivation problems that I would not have noted if I was not learning Chinese. For me I think I will be a better teacher here with my continual Chinese learning.

I really want to teach my students and feel bad if i am not succeeding in my role - Sometimes I think what the hell - I see the sheer laziness of some of these adults(sorry kids) and forget about it . I take the 'could not give a monkeys' attitude into class,bin the plans and suddenly they are all warming to me and want to learn English . I think, because I am more natural - I am not baffling myself with plans !

Enough from me anyway
Thanks again

[KES]

This is an excellent thread. It could be a model for others. I�ve enjoyed the cooperative spirit demonstrated by all the posters thus far.

Sheeba, take a deep breath and relax. Many before you have experienced the same.

Even though your lesson plans may not have been as useful as you might have wanted, please do not dismiss the usefulness of lesson plans altogether.

As the saying goes, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there". Lesson plans are your road map.


The advice previous posters have given you is truly valuable. It would take many months I think to give them all a fair chance. I'm sure some of the things mentioned will resonate with your students.

Good luck in your classes.