Job Discussion Forums

[struelle]

For those of you in schools and universities, do you teach any courses that have no direct relation to Oral English? Roger has done literature courses, for example.

If so, what has been the overall reaction and feedback of these subjects by both students and faculty?

Term 1 is rapidly coming to a close, and I had my first experience teaching a course in Conceptual Physics, as I called it. It was an optional course, of which students can choose 2 per semester. It was geared to Senior 2 middle school students with high English ability. Most of the course material I used from my old first-year *university* lecture notes. I kid you not, these kids are so bright in the sciences they can master university level Physics material.

The actual Physics material was mastered easily, and teaching the course in English was less of a hurdle than I had originally thought. Since we had a 'common language' of math equations, that helped immensely. The English we mainly used was logical analysis, and how to reason through problems.

Words like 'if', 'then', 'since', 'therefore', 'because', 'given that', etc. were often used. I also had students describe real-life physical situations like power shortages, sending men to space, tug of war, basketball, and the like.

All in all, we covered an entire semester of university material with a practical focus on topics in students' daily life. They all did quite well on their final exam I made, which was a difficult one. I received feedback from students that was better than expected. Most said I presented the material in a fun and interesting way. A couple students even said they couldn't stand Physics at first, but now they're interested in both my class and their regular class with the Chinese teacher. If they attend an English class in this subject when they go to university (either abroad or at a bilingual school), I feel they'd be prepared.

So I felt the course was successful, but there's a big problem. Management doesn't agree. I was notified that management had a "meeting" with students in my class, and the course material doesn't suit their needs. Next semester I'm tasked to do a course in either English writing, NCEE exam preparation, or O r a l E n g l i s h.

I'm not exactly thrilled about this, as I'm up to my ears in Oral English already and it's nice to have a break from that. Mind you, preparing for subjects like Physics is a ton of work, but it's far more rewarding.

My next plan was to teach Physics II, i.e. introduction to Meteorology, but my boss would not hear of it. Then I told her flat out, I refuse to do another bloody Oral English lesson for my elective class. As a compromise, what I'll do is a course on translation and how to use proper English while avoiding Chinglish in writing. That way I can tie this in to my Chinese learning. I also have a hefty supply of writing samples with classic Chinglish expressions in them.

I'm cooling down now, but am still a little ticked at the one-sided view that Chinese management have of our expertise. In their eyes, we're experts on one thing and one thing only: conversational English. It's frustrating when they don't give us enough credit to teach substantive subjects, even though we can.

Steve

[Roger]

Hello Steve,
hat off to your initative-taking and courage! I woldn't have the pluck to run a course like this, but I do have to concur with you that using English for topics relevant to students is the way forward - use English as the medium of instruction!
There simply aren't that many suitable subjects - I often do PE (with primary school kids), arts (drawing) and so on. But at high school level and higher, you have to focus on "intellectual" subjects geared towards examination, and that's where the CHinese want to remain in control. They can't be seen to allow a FE to fail their own students!

Take consolace from teaching Writing: it's a big challenge for most students! First of all, you have to break many bad habits of your students: Where to put the name and date (on top of the sheet, of course, but that's so NEW for them!); how to separate words! How to organise a text, its paragraphs, punctuation,...
And the margins... Steve - you have got your job cut out for you!

[struelle]

[MyTurnNow]

I teach Marketing subjects at a university in Shanghai. I'm not too thrilled. I've got a few good students, but the pearls-before-swine feeling grows stronger every day...most of my students are very rich and very spoiled, have no concept of real study in any sense we would recognize, and couldn't possibly care any less about anything. My colleagues are as demoralized as I am.

What optimism the students don't eat will quickly be eaten by the administration...a load of mindless, foreigner-hating, utterly incompetent fools.

I'm in a very "special" program; I think the experience most uni teachers have in China is much more positive than mine has been.

I have noticed that teaching non-English subjects does pay a bit better- but the work load is MUCH higher, waaaaay out of scale with the difference in pay.

I hope your experience stays better, and I envy your getting to teach Physics...

MT