Andrew Aigner-MuehlerChapter 18 - When the going gets tough!
April 29th 2009 05:33
The past couple of weeks, it has really sunk into me, you really need to know your school before you teach there. By this I mean, at least have a few conversations by email or instant messenger before you actually arrive, because when the times get tough, there is not anything to fall back on, and the times get tougher.
While teaching in China, you will notice at a young the Chinese are full of energy, they are so keen to learn, but as they reach their teenage years, they lose that energy, they become shy and they lose their confidence.
You think after four or five years of learning a second language every day sometimes twice a day, they will be good at speaking it. Out on the street or in shops etc if you ask someone in English they will not understand you, and they will make you look stupid. But, if you really hang in there, and start to speak slow basic Chinese they will start to understand you, but when you turn around and go, they will talk to others, and repeat what you tried to say in Chinese, and you feel bad. If you have a Chinese person who has a little respect and shows pity on you, they will write it down for you on a piece of paper as their written English is great, mind you if you have something written down in basic and clear English they will also probably understand it, as they also can read English quite well, but their understanding of conversation verbal English and able to think and say something is very poor. You do get some exceptions where people have very good English, but it is only around probably 10 to 15 percent of people, but again they have to be encouraged to speak to you as they are quite shy.
While in China as a conversational English teacher your job is to get the students to understand and speak English much better, this will be your hurdle, and it is a major hurdle to overcome.
What I have noticed at the number two middle school in Chengde, is that the teachers in the school do not encourage them. Every day the teachers just get the students to read read read read read and read, and give them heaps of homework. If you speak to a teacher they will use the excuse “there is not enough time to get through to every student in the class as the classes are so big” Dohh!! What are we doing? We have bigger classes as they do, and we get through almost the whole class in a 45 minute session with the classes who want to learn and are quite good at English. You really do need to find a way to motivate your students, and I am thankful that I have studied and worked in marketing, this has given me a skill which I have used a lot in China.
At the end of the day, you will find out very quickly, what English teachers at your school really care about their students. Which is not a lot, unfortunately? The teachers know they are at the school to be a baby sitter. The student’s parents send them to school to be looked after, to get them out of the houses and off the streets. Again, if you say something to a teacher, the teacher will just say “they do not understand you, they are not good at English, they do not even try to understand us, and you just learn to forget about them”. Some of the teachers I must say do not know the definition of teaching, which is they are there to help and teach their pupils to get better.
After a while of teaching, and when the students get to know you a bit better, they will either do the following listen to with 100% attention, sought off listen to you but also do their homework, not listen to you and just do their homework, or they will be sleeping through the lesson , or they will make life hard for you, and not give a damn about you, will not take any notice of you and just talk and muck around in the class and at some times they will form their small little groups. This last couple from where I said they will sleep in class will not happen with the very good English classes, it will only happen in the not so good classes.
You will try everything to get the attention of the whole class with the not so good classes, but at the best you may have the half attention of half of the class.
You can try asking you head English teachers for help but it is no use, the only advice they will give you is to change your teaching plan, even so it succeeds with other classes. You may have the best teaching plan in the world which you planned yourself, which works, but since it doesn’t work with not so good classes, it is bad according to your head English teachers.
What I have noticed at the number two middle school in Chengde is the head English teachers want the foreign teachers to email in a teaching plan, but they will never respond to it, they will not say it is a good or bad idea, and half the time they will not even read the email. They will wait for you to fall flat on your face, when it doesn’t work with a couple of classes it is your fault, not the students fault. Just like myself I have had trouble with four of my grade one classes this semester with the back of the not so good classes not wanting to learn and disrupting the class, the semester before hand, they had the other foreign teacher, who also had the same trouble with the same classes. You do not have to have a PhD in rocket science to know that it is the students and not the foreign teacher, but the head English teachers will always back the students if they don’t, it means they are not doing their job, the students are not learning and they have to refund their parent back part of the tuition fee just like if they fail a subject in China. They can not fail. If we give them a ‘F’ grade and other students ‘C’, ‘B’ or ‘A’ grades the ‘F’ will be upgraded to a ‘A’ grade which means the students who did nothing, not good at English and attempted at nothing got a better grade than the students whom at least attempted. It sounds strange but it is true. After a while of teaching, you do start to get the same attitude of the normal Chinese teachers, ‘who gives a shit’. It is also probably a reason why there are so many easy to get in conversational English jobs.
All the good work that you will do with the very good English classes will be overcome by the performance of the not so good classes.
What I have mentioned to the head English teaches which they think I am crazy is to encourage the students more to speak, they have half a dozen English lessons per week, all rooms have a television, all they need to do is turn the TV on for 15 minutes of a lesson on to CCTV9, the English news channel, they talk simple English like they do on BBC TV, and then ask random questions to the students afterwards. Their English will suddenly improve. As we know, you can not learn by just reading, you need practical practice. The more practice you receive by listening and understanding and attempting to speak, the better you get, of which your confidence will improves, which again your English will improve. I have noticed this by learning Chinese in this country, and I do not even have a teacher. Yes! I read, but then I again attempt to listen to everything and then again attempt to speak Chinese. But, like many Chinese students they give up after not understanding one word. The not so good students will not write down a word and look it up in the dictionary afterwards, the good students will. What I keep on saying to my students is, if they listen to all and can understand 5, 6 or 7 out of 10 words they will be able to understand what is being said, but they give up.
The moral of this article is to give you a little understanding again on what to expect, maybe it is just number two middle school, may be not. I do have a very good idea it happens in smaller cities and towns though.
You really have to be strong at times during the bad times. You will need to dig yourself out of a hole at times when times are bad with your students as you will not get much help.
I am currently coming out of this situation at the moment. This has also come at a time where during this period I have not been able to relax after my lessons. All of my lessons are grouped together. My relaxation last semester was to go to the lake and sit by the water to clear my head and relax. I can not do this, this semester, it is closed. I use my other relaxation technique of watching news and then a movie that evening, of which I could not do during this time the television no longer works due to a cable being broken, and then the internet is up and down. So trying to relax in a town that has nothing for a foreigner and the facilities at the school are not up to scratch is also an obstacle. At times, I get within minutes of saying stuff it, I am going, I have had enough, my bags were permanently packed during this period, but all I could think is ‘I am not a give upper’, Andrew does not give up. I am not falling this low, and I keep soldiering on and trying to find ideas of improving the situation. As well as, I do not want to let down the classes who do give me their full support.
When at a school, you really do need the full support of their teachers, if you haven’t, you will have a hard time, just like I have had. To find out this, maybe you need to email your school a bit before you actually start.
I value your opinions on this.
While teaching in China, you will notice at a young the Chinese are full of energy, they are so keen to learn, but as they reach their teenage years, they lose that energy, they become shy and they lose their confidence.
You think after four or five years of learning a second language every day sometimes twice a day, they will be good at speaking it. Out on the street or in shops etc if you ask someone in English they will not understand you, and they will make you look stupid. But, if you really hang in there, and start to speak slow basic Chinese they will start to understand you, but when you turn around and go, they will talk to others, and repeat what you tried to say in Chinese, and you feel bad. If you have a Chinese person who has a little respect and shows pity on you, they will write it down for you on a piece of paper as their written English is great, mind you if you have something written down in basic and clear English they will also probably understand it, as they also can read English quite well, but their understanding of conversation verbal English and able to think and say something is very poor. You do get some exceptions where people have very good English, but it is only around probably 10 to 15 percent of people, but again they have to be encouraged to speak to you as they are quite shy.
While in China as a conversational English teacher your job is to get the students to understand and speak English much better, this will be your hurdle, and it is a major hurdle to overcome.
What I have noticed at the number two middle school in Chengde, is that the teachers in the school do not encourage them. Every day the teachers just get the students to read read read read read and read, and give them heaps of homework. If you speak to a teacher they will use the excuse “there is not enough time to get through to every student in the class as the classes are so big” Dohh!! What are we doing? We have bigger classes as they do, and we get through almost the whole class in a 45 minute session with the classes who want to learn and are quite good at English. You really do need to find a way to motivate your students, and I am thankful that I have studied and worked in marketing, this has given me a skill which I have used a lot in China.
At the end of the day, you will find out very quickly, what English teachers at your school really care about their students. Which is not a lot, unfortunately? The teachers know they are at the school to be a baby sitter. The student’s parents send them to school to be looked after, to get them out of the houses and off the streets. Again, if you say something to a teacher, the teacher will just say “they do not understand you, they are not good at English, they do not even try to understand us, and you just learn to forget about them”. Some of the teachers I must say do not know the definition of teaching, which is they are there to help and teach their pupils to get better.
After a while of teaching, and when the students get to know you a bit better, they will either do the following listen to with 100% attention, sought off listen to you but also do their homework, not listen to you and just do their homework, or they will be sleeping through the lesson , or they will make life hard for you, and not give a damn about you, will not take any notice of you and just talk and muck around in the class and at some times they will form their small little groups. This last couple from where I said they will sleep in class will not happen with the very good English classes, it will only happen in the not so good classes.
You will try everything to get the attention of the whole class with the not so good classes, but at the best you may have the half attention of half of the class.
You can try asking you head English teachers for help but it is no use, the only advice they will give you is to change your teaching plan, even so it succeeds with other classes. You may have the best teaching plan in the world which you planned yourself, which works, but since it doesn’t work with not so good classes, it is bad according to your head English teachers.
What I have noticed at the number two middle school in Chengde is the head English teachers want the foreign teachers to email in a teaching plan, but they will never respond to it, they will not say it is a good or bad idea, and half the time they will not even read the email. They will wait for you to fall flat on your face, when it doesn’t work with a couple of classes it is your fault, not the students fault. Just like myself I have had trouble with four of my grade one classes this semester with the back of the not so good classes not wanting to learn and disrupting the class, the semester before hand, they had the other foreign teacher, who also had the same trouble with the same classes. You do not have to have a PhD in rocket science to know that it is the students and not the foreign teacher, but the head English teachers will always back the students if they don’t, it means they are not doing their job, the students are not learning and they have to refund their parent back part of the tuition fee just like if they fail a subject in China. They can not fail. If we give them a ‘F’ grade and other students ‘C’, ‘B’ or ‘A’ grades the ‘F’ will be upgraded to a ‘A’ grade which means the students who did nothing, not good at English and attempted at nothing got a better grade than the students whom at least attempted. It sounds strange but it is true. After a while of teaching, you do start to get the same attitude of the normal Chinese teachers, ‘who gives a shit’. It is also probably a reason why there are so many easy to get in conversational English jobs.
All the good work that you will do with the very good English classes will be overcome by the performance of the not so good classes.
What I have mentioned to the head English teaches which they think I am crazy is to encourage the students more to speak, they have half a dozen English lessons per week, all rooms have a television, all they need to do is turn the TV on for 15 minutes of a lesson on to CCTV9, the English news channel, they talk simple English like they do on BBC TV, and then ask random questions to the students afterwards. Their English will suddenly improve. As we know, you can not learn by just reading, you need practical practice. The more practice you receive by listening and understanding and attempting to speak, the better you get, of which your confidence will improves, which again your English will improve. I have noticed this by learning Chinese in this country, and I do not even have a teacher. Yes! I read, but then I again attempt to listen to everything and then again attempt to speak Chinese. But, like many Chinese students they give up after not understanding one word. The not so good students will not write down a word and look it up in the dictionary afterwards, the good students will. What I keep on saying to my students is, if they listen to all and can understand 5, 6 or 7 out of 10 words they will be able to understand what is being said, but they give up.
The moral of this article is to give you a little understanding again on what to expect, maybe it is just number two middle school, may be not. I do have a very good idea it happens in smaller cities and towns though.
You really have to be strong at times during the bad times. You will need to dig yourself out of a hole at times when times are bad with your students as you will not get much help.
I am currently coming out of this situation at the moment. This has also come at a time where during this period I have not been able to relax after my lessons. All of my lessons are grouped together. My relaxation last semester was to go to the lake and sit by the water to clear my head and relax. I can not do this, this semester, it is closed. I use my other relaxation technique of watching news and then a movie that evening, of which I could not do during this time the television no longer works due to a cable being broken, and then the internet is up and down. So trying to relax in a town that has nothing for a foreigner and the facilities at the school are not up to scratch is also an obstacle. At times, I get within minutes of saying stuff it, I am going, I have had enough, my bags were permanently packed during this period, but all I could think is ‘I am not a give upper’, Andrew does not give up. I am not falling this low, and I keep soldiering on and trying to find ideas of improving the situation. As well as, I do not want to let down the classes who do give me their full support.
When at a school, you really do need the full support of their teachers, if you haven’t, you will have a hard time, just like I have had. To find out this, maybe you need to email your school a bit before you actually start.
I value your opinions on this.
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