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frigginhippie · Joined: 13 Mar 2004 Posts: 188 Location: over here

...to middle- and high-school students? If so, any comments? Do you recommend it? How did it compare to any experiences teaching purely language?
All thoughts appreciated Smile

Thanks,
-FH

burnsie · Joined: 18 Aug 2004 Posts: 489 Location: Beijing

If you are teaching any specialist subjects you still be half the time teaching new english words and concepts they are unaware of.

I teaching introductory finance and accounting and it can be hard going. I final many students have a very difficult time understanding basic maths concepts. In finance you do ratio analysis and then have them do a written understanding of why the figures are good or bad. It takes a long time and many examples for them to do it. They are so used to the 'here is the problem, here is the solution' type teaching it's difficult for them to grasp the 'why' concept.

Don't expect too much and gooooo sloooowwww and repeat and repeat for them to really understand.

Make sure you have really easy to understand materials which gives many examples. It might be good to provide a glossary of mathatical terms (with the symbols written in english) but they should be able to get a Chinese/English glossary or book.

brsmith15 · Joined: 12 May 2003 Posts: 1142 Location: New Hampshire USA

The one nice thing is that Chinese students seem to take to math and science like the proverbial duck to water. Like burnsie, I teach accounting and finance and have taught statistics (sadistics) here and it's a beeze. In my accounting classes with a total of around 100 students my two failures this term are foreigners: a Mayalsian woman and an American man. The rest of the class is running a 90 average.

svrart · Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 7:03 am Post subject:

I have taught Computer Science and Business for about 2 years in a middle school.

English is the biggest problem. The course was at an AS (UK) level and many students had problems keeping up with the english. But in general the students worked hard and progressed quite well. The students with poor english gave up completely near the end of the course. Another difference I found was between rich and average Chinese students. The rich in general dont work and are not bright. Also, girls are in general better than boys.

jezebel · Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 53

Hey, that's neat. Are there a lot of subject-based english teaching opportunities like this for foreigners? Do you need to know Mandarin?

waxwing · Joined: 29 Jun 2003 Posts: 719 Location: China

There are certainly a few such opportunities; I've just signed a contract like this (Maths in this case). And I agree with the previous poster who said Chinese students seem to have a facility for technical subjects higher, on average, than that of students in Western countries. I tend to think it's to do with the more "rigorous" approach to teaching in schools here. Of course, that has disadvantages too ...