Job Discussion Forums

[miso_ramen]

What are uni teaching jobs like in China in terms of quality of teaching?

I have BA (history), two years teaching English conversation to school age students in E Asia, Trinity TESOL, and one year teaching general English (skills, grammar, pronunciation, lexis etc) mostly to adults in SE Asia. In that chronological order.

I would prefer not to do just teach English conversation i.e. I want to teach the full range (skills, grammar, pronunciation, lexis etc).

What are the prospects like for that sort of teaching in Chinese unis?

Any advice is appreciated.

[choudoufu]

typical uni course will be oral english. you will be given a book written
in chinglish that can be extremely useful when one leg of your desk is a
little short.

there are usually no stated requirements, other than "go, teach."
class content will be up to you.

[Ariadne]

I teach 4 classes of Reading and 3 Oral English. All English majors. Other teachers here have Writing, History, Newspapers, Movies, and Poetry. Everyone has a few Oral English classes. I really enjoy my classes. The Reading course has a book which I use, but also supplement. I assign a fair bit of homework so there are always assignments to mark. Most of the homework for Oral English involves presentations in class, so it's nice not to have more papers to grade. I've never had ONLY Oral English classes.

Just a side note... whatever you teach you will be correcting pronunciation, advising students about stretching out their vowel sounds, reminding them to sound all suffixes, and explaining how fun and funny do not have the same meaning. You will greet excellent students on campus with, "Hello, how are you?" The students will respond, "To the supermarket." Even so, or maybe because of it, I really enjoy teaching uni kids in China.

.

[rogerwilco]

[johntpartee]

"How are you?"

"Finethankyou" or "Finethankyouandyou". Those that say the latter know that you will then make another noise. They don't know what you said, they don't know what they're saying, but you have greeted one another.

No, too flip, but you will see HUGE differences in level of fluency in the same class. Sometimes difficult to find a middle ground.

[NoBillyNO]

[Denim-Maniac]

@miso

I would say you are unlikely to find the teaching environment you are looking for at a typical Chinese university. There might be exceptions (Nottingham NingBo is one that I would think of), but generally you arent likely to get real CLT/TESOL type teaching in most university classes.

If you look through some threads here and in the off-topic forums you will see people discussing ideas and actual experiences in university settings and it often sounds a million miles from what you want to do (and what I also want to do).

I dont believe Chinese university students can be really classed as adults .. not sure any countries university students are really 'adult' TBH ... but less so in China. If you want to continue to teach adults and you want to work in an environment where you can practice CELTA/Trinity type teaching practices you need to find an adult-only training centre.

Even in that environment you need to be careful. The Chinese way seems to be for the 'real' teaching of grammar and TL to be normally left to Chinese teachers with FT's taking care of the oral component. HOWEVER, if you know your shizz and are comfortable with teaching 4 skills and all the other components of ELT your students will accept and respect you. You just need to always remember that students are seeking communication skills and speaking practice mostly, and as a result you do need to focus on that firstly, with other CLT tactics built in as secondary aims.

I feel university would be a huge disappointment for you (as I feel it would for me) and should probably be avoided.

[miso_ramen]

Its interesting to hear that there may be some scope to teach what I want. What are the resources like at a typical uni? Coursebooks such as Cutting Edge, New English File, grammar reference books, e.g. Swan. Do unis have senior teachers who know their stuff?

What about privates? Do Chinese students just want conversation practice or do they want a normal CELTA lesson (grammar, skills etc.)?

Guessing it wouldn't look so good on my CV if I could only get that experience with privates, difficult to verify I would have thought.

Don't want to pre-empt any responses but my general impression is that I'll be barking up the wrong tree with Chinese unis.

[MisterButtkins]

[Denim-Maniac]

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=98270

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=98864

Two threads discussing the type of work often done at university level in China. Its definitely not the kind of stuff I would be willing to do, and from your post I would guess its not for you either. These threads are in the off-topic forum, not sure if that needs seperate registration or not.

Ill let others chip in with resources, I dont think you will find much at the typical uni job TBH. Maybe you will have freedom to do what you want, but bear in mind the classes may be huge 30, 40 plus ... not streamed by ability, and used to the culture of FT's singing songs and dishing out discussion question tasks ... deductive grammar lessons or PPP is going to be a hard sell even if the admin dont care what you do!

I also dont think you will find a senior teacher who knows their stuff either. Not if you are looking for someone to mentor you to succeed at Delta-type studies. You might meet China-experienced teachers, or home country certified subject teachers, but IMHO opinion neither are likely to be able to mentor you to Delta-type knowledge and skills. Professional development and China arent a very natural or easy fit at the best of times, finding it at a university is a long stretch.

If you are set on China, and it does have many great things going for it, adult-only training centres are the way to go. Find out what their requirements are for foreign teachers and if you can find a staff room with a few other CELTA / Trinity types, you may be able to support each other and learn together (assuming they're a good bunch - not all CELTA teachers are ... but at least its a step in the right direction!)

[Non Sequitur]

OP will doubtless be familiar with the term 'Language of Instruction'.
As the students by and large have poor spoken language comprehension, how are you going to explain even the present tense to them?
Having recited your qualifications, experience and personal preferences, it might pay to flip the coin to a student-centred approach and look at what THEY need and what you can offer THEM.

[miso_ramen]

Non-Sequitur, how did you learn English? Did someone explain the present tense to you?

At beginner levels you don't need to explain the present tense. At that stage they need lexical chunks to function. At elementary, I often find that a semi-inductive approach i.e. what does he look like? He is fat and old. What is he wearing? He is wearing a mankini, helps to distinguish pres cont from pres simple.

That's all they need to know about the present tense until they reach intermediate and you can then deductively explain future time clauses and time tables.

Gesture, mime, realia, visual aids will be of invaluable assistance in the classroom and an aid to the learning process.

[maxand]

[Non Sequitur]

Dear Miso Ramen
I used present tense as the simplest example. Rack it up if you need to, to the most complex tense.
The point is that a bilingual Chinese native speaker (for example) can do it much better. Most that I have observed effortlessly change from one language to another and actually are technically better on grammar.
The reason is that they have had to learn it like a piece of code, unlike those who have had the free ride of lifelong usage.
Native English speakers should not behave like high priests guarding access.
This is why a huge user of native speakers (FTs), like the Chinese education system, gives FTs the job (predominantly) of teaching Oral English.
Where the Chinese system breaks down is that it does not encourage crossover between native Chinese speakers teaching English and FTs.
It happens informally and Chinese teachers have sought me out to clarify subtle differences in meaning i.e. When do you cross from 'annoyed' to 'angry' to 'furious'? This may have been because we were stuck in a bus together for 90 mins per day!
I recall in my second semester in China, one of my sophomore English majors coming to my apartment on a Saturday morning and asking:
'Hey what do you know about the character of Shylock?'
After 13 weeks of an 18 week semester, that was the first time I became aware as their Oral English teacher, that they were studying The Merchant with one of their Chinese Eng Lit tutors.
I'm still in daily contact with that student even though it is nearly 10 years since that day and we still laugh about it.
What I do not do is feel that I could do a better job teaching Shakespeare because English is my native language.
Hope that makes my view clearer.

[Non Sequitur]

PS. Miso Ramen it's actually 'your mother'.