Job Discussion Forums

[benny2]

Hi everyone,

Please help!

I'm currently doing an MA in TESOL and am doing a research project as a dress rehearsal for my dissertation. Having lived in beautiful Sichuan province for several years previously, my project is on communicative language teaching in China. I'm interested in the extent to which a strong version of communicative language teaching is practiced by international teachers and the extent to which a weaker version is practiced by chinese teachers.

I have an online questionnaire which is VERY SHORT and will take LITERALLY 2 minutes to complete.

Here is the link:

http://kwiksurveys.com/s.asp?sid=c13cm3imchzroi022266

I will be eternally grateful if you can take a moment to complete this. I need a mixture of international teachers and native chinese teachers of any level, so it would be even more fantastic if you could send the link to your chinese colleagues and ask them to complete it....it's all anonymous.


Thanks a lot!!!!!!

Benny,
UK

[Ariadne]

Hi Benny, I think a number scale would have been easier to use. 1-10 usually works well. I'm still not exactly sure what "somewhat unimportant" means, and how it differs from "somewhat important". Maybe I'm just slower than the average bear.

Good luck to you.

.

[benny2]

Hi Ariadne,

thanks for your feedback.
I initially was going to use a number scale but I wanted an even number to force people to be decisive. The questionnaire and research topic is nowhere near as tightly focused as it needs to be, and as a consequence, it's going to be difficult to interpret the results and draw concrete conclusions.....nevermind, it's not the dissertation, and the process is important....I think the topic is interesting though, so maybe I'll post my results on here afterwards.

I really need more native chinese teachers of English to balance it out a bit.

Thank you very much to everyone who has taken the time to complete the questionnaire, much appreciated! Perhaps if any of you are at a loose end, you can get your chinese colleagues to do it

I'm working at getting my chinese friends to help me out with that too.

Best wishes

Benny

[RPMcMurphy]

Done and done.
Benny, in CLT you've chosen a very broad topic. I'd be interested to know whether the textbooks using a CLT approach and very commonly used in China will form part of your research. My problem with CLT is that it teaches target language culture as much as anything, working on the assumption that students are going to rent an apartment or order a meal in a Western country. These texts can often be highly idiomatic; fortunately idioms used in one English speaking culture aren't always applicable in another.

[benny2]

Thanks a lot McMurphy,

as it is, it's a very broad topic...The current focus is to do with how traditional Chinese teaching methods are combined with communicative methodology and how this correlates to improving students' communicative skills / preparing them for exams depending on the role of the teacher. I can focus it more if I continue with it for my dissertation.
With regards to the text book, whereas I should have included this as part of the research, I haven't had time on this occasion, plus it's been a while since I was actually living in China, so I don't have access to it at the moment. I'll have to find a way to get hold of one for a specific level if I want to continue with this research area.

What I'm interested in is the way that whilst CLT is presumed the dominant methodology as per instructions from Beijing, Chinese teachers seem to have to practice a very weakened version of CLT with a view to preparing students for exams, whilst international teachers seem to be encouraged to use a stronger version of CLT which is aimed at improving communication. I always felt like both sets of teachers and students would benefit from the two sets of classes being more closely coordinated so that the difference in practice and function whilst still being different, wasn't quite so big.....that could be just me and my experience....

I may well continue with this and refine and focus it a great deal more when it comes to my dissertation.

[RPMcMurphy]

Benny, I'm guessing everything is under control, but tell me if you'd like some possibly interesting readings.
It gets to me that while CLT [which has some major shortcomings] is the CCP's official policy on ELT in China, they don't provide the infrastructure to enable Chinese teachers to practice a stronger CLT, as per your focus.