Teacher Discussion Forums

I have been told by the nice marking people at my university that it is wrong to generalize about East Asian students. Coming from a Chinese Studies background, where "Confucian culture" generalizations are ten a penny, I was a bit surprised.
Now, OK, China, Japan and Korea have different languages and cultures, and this is prickly PC territory. It is so very common to hear teachers make generalizations on this subject however, concerning the shyness of the students etc. Do you think that it is wrong to do so?

It doesn't really matter if I or you or "we" think it isn't wrong to make those kind of generalizations (based as "we" perhaps feel they are on considered and learned opinions), what matters is that these "marking people" think it is wrong (for you to...hey, maybe they don't consider you important enough in the field of Chinese Studies to take seriously (even though they hired you)?! ).

They may of course be stupid, unhelpful, boring, critical, narrow-minded, nitpicking, obstructive pencil-sharpening paper-pushers, but you could well sound to them like the type of (Japanese) person who, upon hearing you are British, starts going on about how all Brits drink "afternoon tea" etc etc (and when that happens to me, I just have to grin and "suck it up"). I am assuming you are working in Asia, by the way.

I know that I have scared off a few Japanese people with my passion for the martial arts (at least when I used to practise them more, and was therefore quite liable to suddenly stand up and ask for them to "partner" me whilst I demonstated whatever technique on them ).

Nobody is really wrong about anything so long as it is productive for them personally and not obviously socially destructive...but that doesn't mean that it will be unconditionally accepted as "right" in more general/public spheres, even if it would appear to you to be of no mean relevance.

But the ultimate point seems to me to be that saying Asian students are whatever is just a belief (and a belief that could well lead from polite into more heated conversation), and does not get us from e.g. explicitly-stated "problem" to "provisional "solution". There is a big difference between saying "All MY students are..." and "All students are...", which is exactly why the second statement is going to be less acceptable, and hardly the best way to lead into a clear-minded consideration of the first (i.e. I'm guessing the first statement would be accepted without too much qualification if it were true, and simply presented by itself as such). Then, there is also the possibility that these students might change (especially if we come up with ways to change them, rather than thinking they can't be changed, which is the implicit and probable accompanying belief to the original "non-positive" one).

Still, nothing wrong with a general chat and seeing where it leads, I guess, and I for one wouldn't shoot you for your non-PC beliefs!

I know you didn't mention having a specific problem, but I can't help feeling that there may be one lurking somewhere...maybe you can give us a bit more background about your situation, and the "shape of the past and present discourse", to help us keep things relevant and non-patronizing!

Roger seems to have strong opinions about his Chinese students...hopefully he will reply too.

Ooops. I should make myself clearer. The East Asian university where I work would not care if I said the moon was made from green cheese. It is the university markers in the UK, to where my 'MA in Applied Linguistics' essays are sent, who made this comment.

Good morning all!

The following words will come from many assumptions that could be right or wrong and will be gross generalizations.

Ah, the poor generalization, how little respect it receives, how generous its critics!

In your situation, Woodcutter, I would review papers, early papers of any of the iconic personalities in your area of study. Then I would write an essay on generalizations, pointing out the development of the use of generalizations in the field and then making my own generalizations.

I suspect that words like "all", "never" and "always" often get us in trouble, and yet they are so often presented very early in an ESL curriculum. I find myself using these because they fit so nicely into the pattern that I am saying. "In my opinion/experience" certainly qualifies, makes the following statement more specific, less general.

Anyway, Woodcutter, some day you'll just have to be brave and stand up a bit to those people who for fault of real commentary have fallen onto this easy criticism. Perhaps you passed an invisible thin blue line in your generalizations, but you must have argued your point satisfactorily, or the comment would have been on content and not on style (if one can consider the generalization a style, just read news articles on the web....in any web-paper). Evaluations at your level of study are difficult to make objectively.

peace,
revel.

Oops myself! There I was imagining you were writing tests or evaluating essays or something in your East Asian university, and encountering "difficulties" in addressing cultural factors relevant to your teaching and testing, due to you being viewed as just an "outside expert" (if not an "anti-communicative", "reactionary" teacher - only joking!!! ). Your university is not really interested in anything you do, huh?

Strange...but perhaps not as strange as your tutors not taking the "cultural background" stuff as seriously as it might indeed need to be. Why are they crying "Stereotype"? Ignorance? Inexperience? Conflicting experiences/a few exceptions to the rule? Or are they just not interested in hearing that some if not quite a lot of their wonderful progressive stuff ultimately might not work "where you're at" - at least, not without the kind of modifications you're suggesting? (How dare you! The impertinence! Such a shame...Professor John.P.Drew de Hoop had had high hopes for you, as he usually does for all his devoted doggy-like disciples). Maybe they feel you just aren't trying hard enough to make it work like they can make it work! Work that (cl)ass yeah baby yeah heh heh! Go join a cult like the Moonies so you can to get a chance to clear your head a bit. (You can see what just a CTEFLA did to me. ).

I guess what you've got to do (and likely are trying to do!) is say that communicative methodolgy "can work if certain steps are taken by informed and sympathetic teachers (because the cultural background is like this...blah blah blah - here's where your knowledge can be brought to bear with good effect) yada yada yada yes sir no sir..." (see what I wrote in my previous post, that is:)

"But the ultimate point seems to me to be that saying Asian students are whatever is just a belief (and a belief that could well lead from polite into more heated conversation), and does not get us from e.g. explicitly-stated "problem" to "provisional "solution". There is a big difference between saying "All MY students are..." and "All students are...", which is exactly why the second statement is going to be less acceptable, and hardly the best way to lead into a clear-minded consideration of the first (i.e. I'm guessing the first statement would be accepted without too much qualification if it were true, and simply presented by itself as such). Then, there is also the possibility that these students might change (especially if we come up with ways to change them, rather than thinking they can't be changed, which is the implicit and probable accompanying belief to the original "non-positive" one)."

Of course, you might feel that, due to the cultural differences, certain things won't EVER work, but that doesn't seem to be what they want to hear ("Where there's a will, there's a way! What do you expect us to do, allow and by default recommend that you DON'T try your damndest to do what we tell you to, even when everybody knows that this is in EVERY learner's best interests, because it's such sh*t-hot stuff!?!").

Try not to view it as too much of an intellectual "imposition" to write the above "can work..." kind of essay. If all else fails and you're scared you're gonna crack your teeth worse than Boss Matsumoto in Kill Bill Vol.1, it might help you get it finished (and save you some dental bills) if you mentally shift the scare quotes from the "imposition" to "intellectual", and have some fun imbuing your writing with a little irony (e.g. when saying something is a "good idea", or "might work" etc).

I know that might be a bitter pill to swallow, but they seem to have "warned" you once already, and you do want to do well on your course, right? (Hopefully you don't get the ridiculous grades they "award" to "outstanding" trainess on simplistic e.g. as it was then called, CTEFLA courses. Do I have a story for you there!). Look beyond it to the jobs it'll help you to get (where you'll hopefully be able to at least think as you like). I also think you gotta at least try to reconcile yourself with the mainstream a little more generally to at least get along (and certainly to get ahead).

Guess maybe I am a bit like your tutors . But set me straight if I've got it all wrong about these "nice marking people", and the problem lies elsewhere. Hope I am wrong about them being prone to changing into Dario Argento-like "Demons".

Anyway, I am sure that with your background in Chinese Studies, your experience and the serious interest you take in teaching, you will be able to do a good enough job to make your tutors appreciate the cultural background stuff more whilst reaching some kind of satisfying conclusion yourself.

For the record, I think it is a stereotype, but it could be a useful (cautionary) one.

P.S: I'm not sure what revel meant about style versus content - surely they are questioning your opinions and argument i.e. content?!

Hey everyone.

I'm not sure what I meant either. Let's see if I can't clarify a bit.

I think I was trying to identify generalization as a style rather than a content, though its content is necessarily dominated by the style. What I wanted to say was that perhaps the same information could have been presented without using generalizations but rather qualifying the information, something that university professors seem to love.

Yes, I think that's it.

peace,
revel.

Actually the sukebei yakuza boss in Kill Bill Vol.1 was possibly called Boss Katsumoto. I'm too busy typing this to check the DVD.

Yes, well, to be frank, they disliked the essay so very much I had to do it again, and I did most of the things you said. Still waiting on that. Like Duncan just has, I made the mistake of using the term "Asia" in the first essay, instead of being specific. I also tried to use evidence from Thailand to talk about Korea. I was asking for it. Anyway, I still don't think that their comment about East Asian Students is justified. As Revel says, generalizations are too much maligned. Here's one more - everybody makes them, all the time.
Anyway, I don't think I shall be expressing my real, unorthodox views in my work, so that's why I've started to express them here, to see how they play outside the ivory tower. Where else could one find a seminar group of such quality?
Therefore, I hope I can make you all understand where I am coming from. I am not a demonic whip wielder. I am a paltry, pander to the whingers bingo-master, worrying that my current classes cannot even live up to the classes I gave in a method school, when I had the weight of the cruel institution behind me to make the students do useful things.

The continent/landmass of Asia...the specific region called the Far East or Orient...oriental students. Perhaps these are a bit old-fashioned, but they sound that bit more charming to me than "East Asian".

Woodcutter could also have said e.g. "The Korean university where I work...", but maybe that would be a little dangerous, what with all the University of Leicester mind-control ESL Cafe thought police scouring these forums...

Hey an image of how you must've been like at your "method school" (I could mention the name) just popped into my mind...ever seen the movie Equilibrium, with Christian Bale doing all those "Gun-kata"? The poor students didn't know what hit them and didn't stand a chance...

Actually, am I the only one on the run from the TEFL police in these forums? There must be thousands of us distance MA lost souls in Korea alone........

I don't know the movie Duncan. Does it involve some poor sod getting his ears chewed off by the management?

Um, yeah, kind of...the guy who was Robert the Bruce in Braveheart plays the top Grammarton cleric English lecturer/tutor (martial-arts wielding disciplinarian law enforcers in future dystopia) and gets to shout lines at Bale like, "Do not mock me!" when Bale starts slipping in the odd bit of sass in his regular debriefings with said Father Brucester regarding how well the suppression of the student rebellion is going ('cos Bale's stopped taking his emotion-suppressing Prozium, and is building up a collection of banned works of art, cute dogs and Direct Method TEFL texts in his cabbage and pot patch).

But I was more thinking of how Bale just does this and that fancy move (whipping his guns behind him, under his arms, between his legs etc) in firing off his complex kata/drills, and leaves whichever old decaying classroom etc that he enters full of dead scummy bohemian types.

Duncan Powrie wrote:...and leaves whichever old decaying classroom etc that he enters full of dead scummy bohemian types.

Hmm maybe the Grammartons (=Grammaton, geddit? ) should pay me a visit and straighten out my wayward grammar. Above does not read too well from "...enters" to "full of dead scummy bohemian types", but can it be improved? Does it need to be?

I take it you mean the bohemian types died, but it reads like you mean "dead" as in "dead exciting, innit?".

Thanks, woodcutter!

I guess I would need to change the verb from "leaves" to a more specific kinf of one e.g. "wastes" (entire classrooms of scummy bohemian types).