Job Discussion Forums

[Yu]

I am wondering if I am the only one to be having these observations, but in the past few weeks I have had several moments of astounding clarity.

I am in my 4th year of teaching to university students here in China (hard to believe I am still here, but China can suck you in). As I have been here for 3 years already, I decided I was not satisfied with my current Chinese level so I decided to enroll in full time uni classes at the school where I am currently teaching. (I get half tuition--and consider it a bargain compared to what I would be shelling out at home).

The thing is that in the classroom, I have decided that in addition to learning Chinese, I can enjoy the opportunity to observe how Chinese teachers teach the class. I have found many differences, and few similarities. I am wondering if Chinese students would be happier if I adopted the same methodology of teaching as I am being taught by my Chinese teachers.

The one thing I want to comment on now is the difference between a top down and a bottom up approach. As to my learning, and the way I have been educated in the past I absoultely prefer a top down approach. I like to know the big picture and then look at the parts. But for my classes they are more of a bottom up approach where the focus is on the parts and then brought to the whole.

I am curious about other observations fellow students and teachers have noticed and if anyone adapts a more Chinese style of teaching their classes?

[AussieGuyInChina]

This term I am "teaching" IELTS. My students have signed up to go to Australia to study but they tested at IELTS band 4 to 4.5, 3 months ago. Some of the students are willing to enter a bridging English program in Australia, for which an IELTS band of 5.5 is required and others are hopeful of going straight into the academic program, for which band 6.5 is required.

I am teaching speaking and writing skills and another foreign teacher is taking care of listening and reading. With 4+ years of experience teaching English and business subjects to Chinese students, I decided before I even met my IELTS students, that I would take a bottom up approach with writing:-

- simple sentences
- compound sentences
- complex sentences
- compound-complex sentences
- paragraphs
- reports, expository
- reports, narrative
- reports, persuasive

I took this approach because I have read innumerable essays and reports by Chinese students which were, basically, gobbledygook. I have questioned countless Chinese students about their knowledge of English writing and the process by which they learned to write in English. I have concluded that the learning process for many of the students jumped from exercises of filling in the blanks in lists of sentences (which is more of a vocabulary lesson than a writing lesson), to being asked to write essays. Many of the students who I questioned (during the past 4+ years) have had creative writing lessons with foreign teachers.

The first writing lesson I gave my IELTS students was to show them a picture of a beach scene and ask them to write 20 simple sentences about what they could see. It couldn't have been any easier; "There's a boy and a girl playing ball", "There is a fat man asleep in a chair", and they couldn't do it. The best result out of a class of 35 was 3 correct sentences and 17 erroneous sentences.

I being long-winded here so, yes, I firmly believe in a bottom up approach.

For my speaking lessons, which are primarily intended to improve the students' fluency, I have based talking exercises on the 1,000 most commonly used English words. I estimate that the students were (previously) familiar with about 80% of the words but were able to use, in correct context, only about 50%.

[voodikon]

interesting insight, yu. i don't know about completely adopting a chinese style in the classroom but i think it is a valuable exercise to observe the differences, draw from them what you can, and try to apply a combination of things that work. and also the at-times frustrating experience trying to learn in a system that is completely alien to you can also give us a lot of insight into our students' experience and why they sometimes respond in certain ways that seem unacceptable to us.