Job Discussion Forums

[Red_Guard]

Hi!

I�m currently in the process of completing my CELTA and am due to jet out to China three weeks today, to commence teaching at a Chinese University. I�ve got both a BA (Hons) and MA albeit these are in Business related disciplines.

In my first week out there, I�m of the understanding it�s pretty much just a meet and greet with the class but then after that I am to devise my own lesson plans. I�ve got most of the recommended textbooks from the CELTA course (Aitken, Harmer, Swan and Thornbury) but what I would really like is a few textbooks that I could base my lessons around. Can anyone point me in the right direction for a textbook or two that are at the right level for Chinese Undergraduates?

Any other hints, tips or suggestions that anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated too!

[Songbird]

Hey Red,

Depending on how much time you have between your arrival and first class, also depending on where exactly you are, have a browse through your local Foreign Language Bookstore. They have tons of textbooks used in English classes, also extra stuff like IELTS & TOEFL practice materials, maps etc. There's some excellent resources in there, almost to the point it's very hard to choose from! These are mainly found in the cities, not sure about regional areas.

Have fun, don't have too high expectations, lay down the rules from day one, gain their respect (both students & fellow teachers) so you're taken more seriously....last year I failed entire classes (their results were absolutely shocking)- it's now gone down as mythology at my old college, no one has ever had the guts to fail before !

[tw]

The students might have a textbook the university makes them buy for the course. Take a look and use that as a guide. From personal experience, college and university oral English textbooks are horrible.

[cj750]

As tw said...they may have a book they have to buy..some will want to use it so as not to waste the money and others will find it boring and not willin to work from it..use it as a guide to incl. some of the lessons in the class and then build on these lessons with more interesting stuff...

[TEAM_PAPUA]

'I CAN ENGLISH' - Prof. Billy 'Bruce Lee' Wong

also try

'I CAN ORAL LANGUAGE' - Mei ai Lei Lo

[TEAM_PAPUA]

'Activate Imaginations English' - Dr. Long Gong Hom

'Where are mine chopstick' - Prof. Lee Lee Lai Er

[ohseejane]

If the classes are "oral English" and not for English majors you can do anything that will get them talking. Simplify news articles and have class or group discussions. Most of my students just refused to speak in class. I tried everything from pleading to cursing to trying to reason with them. Still only 5% of the students dared speak out in front of the group, which is why I recommend giving them a list of questions to ask each other or a task to accomplish together or roles plays IN SMALL GROUPS. They liked when I would speak on a topic for 15 minutes or so about anything related to American life--school, university life, drugs, guns (they thought Americans all own one), dating and food. One day I taught them all the bad language and words for private parts I could think of, but in a very dry way, everything filled out on a chart according to how offensive each word was and how often it was used.
As for books, I really like a series Can You Believe It? which at level one would be good for non majors and level 3 would be good for majors. Students read and listen to a true, high-interest story, then retell it several times. The books emphasize phrasal verbs and common idioms. My students loved them.
Make homework voluntary and give few tests. The only thing I seriously tested my students on was pronunciation of TH and final L since they are important for understanding. A lot of them actually got better because they practiced and they practiced because they knew they would have a one-on-one test with me. As for grading, at the place I worked, I could have given them all (non majors) an easy exam and then given them all As and Bs and no one would have complained. I tried to fail a few people because they came to class only ONCE, and even then the admin encouraged me to pass them. Go out to lunch with the more enthusiastic students.

[blondie10]

Beware of the writing classes and plagiarism in China. My first writing assignment in class was an eye opening lesson. 148 students showed up and I gave an easy writing assignment due by the end of the class. I told the students to bring the finished assignment to me and then they were free to leave. I looked out and the students were fervently writing, I felt great. The earliest any student left was 5 minutes before class ended, most stayed until the end.

I took all 148 writing samples back to my apartment and started to read them, the first one was pretty good, I am still feeling great. I read the next one and it was the same as the first one. I'm thinking maybe they worked as a group. The next one was the same as the first two, maybe it was a group of three. With every paper I read I felt worse because all 148 papers were exactly the same!!! Lesson learned. I explained plagiarism to them and still received identical papers. So I took the 12 identical papers and put zeros on them and explained again. It took about 5 classes to get the concept across. Good luck.

By the way the textbook for the class was the same one that they had the semester before, and the previous teacher used it. I had to come up with all new ideas. Fortunately for me I had great internet service and got a lot of my ideas off of the net.

Have fun!

[danielb]

One of the problems I have had is that the text book that the university requires relies on having a lot of supplementary materials that should be supplied with it like audio and video. Unfortunately, I have rarely had the material and if I have had it I have not had anywhere to play it. Thus, what could have been reasonable class exercises are impossible. As someone else mentioned though, if they have spent money on the text book then it is probably best to use for a few classes.

I have found that ethical dilemmas can form the basis of class discussions but it is best not to make the groups too large.

These http://www.goodcharacter.com/dilemma/ can be altered a little to be more relevant to your students.

[Super Mario]

In high school, students are actually taught formulaic essay responses to standard questions. Originality is bad and is punished.

Don't blame the students; its the system. And they take these habits with them overseas. I've failed several Wikepedia cut and pastes handed up as essays. The students nod thoughtfully when I explain why................and then do it again.

[blondie10]

I taught at a University that were all future teachers in many different disciplines. I was teaching English to future English teachers. What I didn't know was that the government chose their majors for them. It was explained to me this way: Say they needed 200 students to be English teachers, the next 200 names on the list would be slotted into that group.

Needless to say you get a wide range of students from extremely low aptitude to learning a foreign language to a select few with a high aptitude, most fall in the middle.

Enjoy your experience!

[Steppenwolf]

You will most likely end up "teaching" (can one do that?) "oral English", and you will find that your students have been il;-prepared for the chalenges inherent in this propsoition: no discipline, no amibition, no interest, no initiative, and communicatively disabled!

Don't forget your students do not learn English to speak it - they view it as just another academic subject. They study to pass exams, more exams, and then some more! They will forget most if not all of what they learnt within a couple of years after graduation!

So is it worth giving a fart about their lessons?

To some extent, yes, to a large extent: no!

I do give it a lot of thought, and I make it plain to them that I know what they need, not their Chinese English teachers or their parents!

In essence my lessons are remedial classes for their poor grammar mastery, extremely poor comprehension skill, funny intonation and a pronunciation funnier still. You have got your work cut out for you, and you can choose to do one but not all of the above.

No pain means no gain, so in my classes there must be some cooperation and a modicum of willingness to work.

Oh, by the way, what books you choose depends on your students' level, doesn't it? You didn't tell us that, though. Chinese teachers make a sideline business of selling textbooks to their students which they buy in bulk orders for which they get a discount. Ask your uni whether you can choose the textmaterials for your learners and charge them accordingly!

[tofuman]

OP, You are making a common mistake in thinking that academic qualifications are going to help you here. I found CELTA training to be just about useless here. The applicable info could have been covered in a single afternoon.

I spent quite a bit of money on English teaching books prior to arriving in China-- a waste of money, for the most part. A good reference grammar could be useful, but if you show yourself adept at answering unusual and arcane grammatical questions, you could be spending a lot of time looking for answers in that reference book.

The Chinese here use English grammar as a sort of winnowing device to sort people into different camps. As a published writer, I have enough knowledge of the language to avoid tricky and complex grammar. The Chinese don't; consequently, they spend a lot of time on points that a native speaker would simply avoid.

The slight differences between American and British punctuation and style can be the source of endless arguments and time wasting. Avoid it. You will primarily be of use to model proper pronuncation and common English usage. That requires little specialized training.

I had a Chinese colleague, a hardworking young man who often asked me grammatical questions. I gave him a good book on English grammar. He can spend his own time looking for answers.

[Malsol]

Textbooks? HaHaHa

You will probably resort to free talk with freshman in oral English class.

[Shan-Shan]

I would avoid too much "free talk" as it usually ossifies into a cold, hard lumpy thing that will only sit and very slowly decay in the middle of the classroom.

Use a task/activity-based approach to the lessons -- give something for the students to accomplish, combining both listening, speaking, writing and reading (to different degress depending on the lesson). For lower level students, I often use tasks requiring specific language acts (a more restrictive use of the language) appropriate to their levels. This ensures that students will be speaking, and not left dumb while the few in the class with a decent level do all of the work. The language forms that will be prompted in order to complete the activities makes communication less of a burden for the lower level student. This is certainly required when one has students who, after years in the Chinese system with Chinese English teachers, still cannot spell "English".

Just throwing out a topic for "free discussion" seems like a waste of class time to me. Each lesson should have some linguistic, as well as cognitive, objectives built into a fluid structure extending throughout the class. From my experiences with large university classes, students need some controlled input, leading into a short, restricted "practice" exercise with the input, which then later blossoms into a less-restrictive activity implementing the recently introduced and practiced linguistic features coupled with previously acquired English. At the end of class, students will be able to see what they've learned, and how they've practiced the new "bit" of English. This will also hopefully buttress their confidence a little, and alter any images of "English" as an agressive, mean goliath.

I've never used a text book in my classes. Students will only apply glue to their foreheads and then press firmly upon the page. My materials are self made, acquired from others and previously bought texts and gleaned from internet sources.

Have movement, add some magic-realism, and be creative. These wonderful attributes of a language lesson are non-existent in the students ' Chinese teacher-led English classes.