Job Discussion Forums

[clarke501]

So far I have been teaching classes of around 12 students. I'm considering heading out to China and working in a university. I'm assuming that classes at universities are much larger. Does this result in lessons taking the form more of a lecture than a communicative lesson? Are classes in universities very teacher-centred? How much time do most of you spend preparing lessons and completing admin tasks? Any insight would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[Priesty]

I'm interested in what people have to say about this as well. So far, I don't have any university teaching experience, but I will start teaching at one in China really soon.

I don't really know the difference between Lecture and a Communicative lesson, but I believe, as a teacher, you are given a lot of freedom to teach your classes however you wish. And I think straight Lecture based lessons would be pretty boring for the students, but to each his/her own.

I know from my experiences in the U.S and Thailand, any Lecture given to 40 - 50 students, for too long, ends up with most of the students doing their own thing.

I would say, I plan on spending about 1 hour - 2 hours preparing lessons for each subject I'm teaching, but I don't really know yet. I guess it really depends on how many different classes they give me and the difference in English levels for each class.

[Non Sequitur]

The job ads you will respond to (and hopefully be hired by) will specify what it is you are expected to teach.
I'm betting in the public university sector it will be Oral English. So that's the answer to one of your questions right there. You will be trying to minimise your talk time and maximise the student talk time. No 45 minute lectures thanks.
I did a recent poll on typical college and uni class sizes and it may be worth looking at.
Expect 30 to 40 students.
The job ads will also give you an idea of how many classes pw at a nominal 2 hours per class.

[the_otter]

I teach at a public Chinese university. I teach six classes a week. Each class lasts ninety minutes with a ten minute break after the first forty-five minutes.

My classes each contain about thirty students, all English majors; however, the Chinese teachers who teach English to students from other disciplines have classes of sixty or more. Although it's usual for Foreign Teachers to do just Oral English, I've found myself taking classes in writing. In fact, this term I'm only teaching writing.

[clarke501]

[YankeeDoodleDandy]

Demand movable chairs, so that students can sit and chat in groups of 4 to 6, otherwise they will be stuck to their chairs and be very passive, like they are in their classes from Chinese teachers. After they have done talking in groups, they can then make group individual presentations to the entire class. Check out www.eslplans.com for some good ideas.

[dog backwards]

YankeeDoodleDandy:

Thanks for the link.

I am unsure if demanding anything will get results in many universities or colleges. Some institutions are partially privatized, and money is short.

To the OP: True, the universities will usually have much larger classes. Twelve students constitutes a much lighter load than universities for sure. Do you REALLY want to grade 40 test papers at at time?

You might look for a poistion in a three-year college. They're not all populated by low-end students. I taught for one public college whose students aspired to universities, but for one reason or another, they didn't make it in. Generally, the level of English ability was close to that of a mid-tier university. I was assigned a nice variety of classes that kept ME engaged that had low student numbers.

They're not all like that one, but they are out there.

If you teach Oral English or writing in a university, you might find yourself teaching western history and perhaps some business English as well. You may also find yourself with a heavier load. Unless you are lucky enough to be assigned a content course, you probably won't do much lecturing.

Give it careful consideration.

[igorG]

I'd be careful about the writing classes. They aren't the same as spoken classes because there''s usually more paperwork involved. I mean, correcting students' writing takes time, doesn't it? So, lower workload/teaching hours for writing or even business should be considered, or requested.

[nickpellatt]

Out of interest, and this is for the Uni teachers out there ... What would you measure your teacher talk time at in a normal oral class. 20%, 40%, 60%? Etc etc?

[Non Sequitur]

I try for 20% TTT.
But to an earlier poster - "demand"?
Your class will be the standard fixed to the floor desk setup and the only variable will be the actual size of the class.
In 3 years I have only had one class for one semester of English majors.
and of course you won't get E majors in 3 year vocational colleges.
But have to say I had more fun and hopefully success with my vocational students.

[nickpellatt]

Depends on the nature of the vocational college Sequitur - I was at one that had 5 year students from ages 16-21. They were there to study to be English Teachers, normally in village or middle schools.

The 3 year students (who finished middle school and came at age 18ish) were often Applied English (whatever that means) or Tourism English.

Classes were a minimum of 20 (my tourism class) but more normally 40 students, none of whom where streamed into classes according to ability. I saw them once a week.

Whilst I would like super-long holidays, I wouldnt work in this type of environment again. I wouldnt accept large classes, infrequent contact hours, and classes that werent streamed by ability. I dont want to teach kids either, and in my limited experience, the difference between a 19 year Chinese college student and a 25 year old Chinese person who has been working for 3 years is massive.

My Chinese vocational college experience was great for many reasons, but having since worked with small classes of adults, I wouldnt go back.

[randyj]

[igorG]

[Non Sequitur]

Re talk time.
There is something on the web - a masters thesis I think where the teacher consistently underestimated his talk time.
The real situation only came to the fore when he recorded classes as part of the thesis research and put a stop watch on his time, the student time and mixed.
Good to see others aware of talk time and aiming for 20%.
Hadn't see teacher training as vocational nickp but I guess that's what it is at that level. Many of my E majors at a tier one uni have wound up as teachers although that wasn't their first choice.
Re prep for Oral English. If you can organise it, give the same lesson to all of your oral classes for that week. It may not mesh over the whole semester as larger classes take more time to do pair dialogues for example. But all the students have to wind up after 18 weeks tested and marked and hopefully the better for your efforts!
Oral English in larger classes is challenging and takes a very broad active style. Luckily I am an extrovert!
I find group work less than satisfactory as the students discuss the topic in Chinese and the best E speaker delivers the findings. They get better and their classmates stay the same.

[the_otter]

I try for 20% TTT, even in my writing classes. I'm gradually getting better at reducing the amount of blather, but most weeks I'm still way over the 20% mark.

Trying to ask questions from a class as a whole is hopeless. They just stare at me or look very intently at their work. I've been thinking of setting up tutorial groups just so I can get four students at a time in my office and use silence to embarrass them into talking. That reason plus frustration with the class sizes. When I was at uni, I was having weekly and later bi-weekly tutorials with just five other students. No one seems to have heard of tutorials in China. Mind you, I'm sure my students wouldn't thank me for eating into their free time, so it's probably a bad idea.