Job Discussion Forums

[Song&Dance]

Don't you just love it when you read something but when you share it with others they say something like:

Everyone already knew that
That is common knowledge
That is common sense
Nothing new in that
That is only anecdotal
That just states the obvious


Someone recently made such a comment on this board about Krashen. Yet, Krashen is very controversial and obviously everyone does not know what he wrote to be common knowledge or common sense.

And it should be remembered that most research begins with an anecdote.

For those of us in China, many things seem obvious. But when we write them down and publish them to a curious and thirsty world, a colleague will criticise that we have only written what everyone already knows.

Is it a case of envy, jealousy, what?

Why didn't I think of doing that?

EVEN IF EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS IT, IF IT HAS NOT BEEN WRITTEN DOWN AND PUBLISHED, IT IS FAIR GAME.


I encourage all FTs in China to write their anecdotal teaching and living experiences down and submit them to on-line and book publishers. China is still a mystery to most.

To be published just Google:
ESL Journals
EFL Journals
Publishers

Or,
ESL Gazette
Teacher's Gazette
Humanising Language Teaching


Initially, you will not be paid. After writing many articles, you may get paid. However, every published article should be added to your resume. Why? No, it will not get you a pay raise, but it will cause your Chinese employer to take you more seriously and accept some of your suggestions.

Forget about translating your article to Chinese and publishing in China because you will have to pay to publish and you will need a Chinese co-author and your article will be edited (dumbed down) to meet CCP requirements.

[Anda]

There will always be those who criticise but when one looks at the help that they give on the board then in general very little will be found.

Looks like I'd have to co author with my young massage lady if I were to publish something here or a young student. You would need to be careful.

[vikuk]

[eddy-cool]

Anyone who learns (or 'acquires') a foreign language on their own discovers a few facts about how they can be successful on their own; your mother comes to your mind...

Thus you don't need to study high-falutin' stuff to get a grip on learning. You learn. A teacher too ought to go out of their way and test their own assumptions. Does this happen?

I guess not. Most EFL/ESLers these days are steeped in the so-called 'communicative' approaches, which have been around for some fourty-odd years. Almost all research is now based on these approaches, to the exclusion of everything else (which often are disparaged savagely even by teachers who have not acquired any foreign tongue or never taught in any different way).

If you do some research you will discover that the 'communicative' approaches do not generate raving reviews only. There is a whole body of critical, sometimes dismissive, assessments.

And I think China is one of the places where communicative learning/teaching styles are the least suitable. WHy try to squeeze a square peg into a round hole? Is it because many of us would become redundant if we wouldn't keep trying?

[Song&Dance]

Hey Eddy - we already knew that! lol