Teaching Oral English in China：在中國(guó)英語(yǔ)口語(yǔ)教學(xué)

1、Teaching Oral English in ChinaAuthor Graham PatersonBio A retired Mine Manager with over 20 years experience in S. E. Asia and the Pacific region, learning four languages in the course of his career. Completed a Certificate in Teaching in 1996 and has since taught in Australia, Fiji, New Guinea, Chi

2、na and Indonesia. Email address is HYPERLINK mailto:guggzie86yahoo guggzie86yahoo CONTENTSIntroduction to oral English teaching in ChinaPreparation for ClassesGroups and ManagersIdiomsCommon ProblemsGeneral comments about classroomsGoal settingExams and markingStudent namesTranslation ExercisesORAL

3、CLASSESMy very first lesson in ChinaAttendance recordsIdentifying potential Group ManagersThe problem of IdiomsFirst thoughts about Public SpeakingThe Poetry ExercisePlay writingThe Oral Workshop bookSpelling contestsReciting an EssayThe Art of Public SpeakingStatisticsThe Economics ClassINTRODUCTIO

4、N TO ORAL ENGLISH TEACHING IN CHINAPREPARATION FOR CLASSES I am a firm believer in the old maxim “Tell them what you are going to teach teach it then tell them what you have taught.” However, teaching in China does have a few extra facets that need to be recognised. Class sizes of around 50 students

5、 are a definite restricting factor. When this is coupled to a broad range of ability and a time frame of only two 45 minute lessons a week, the expectation of great progress represents a constant challenge.For my first Semester in China, the English Department allocated me 6 Oral English classes and

6、 4 English Writing classes comprised of 2nd and 3rd year students. In addition, I had one class of Economic students where I taught Business English. A sample timetable for classes.Fortunately, I did not have any 1st year students or freshmen as they are called, which was the occasion for mixed bles

7、sings. Often, it is the first contact many freshmen have with a foreign teacher and, it can also be their first exposure to concentrated oral lessons. Consequently, finding the right mix for 1st Year students tends to be, very much, a trial and error situation.With 2nd and 3rd year students, they ha

8、ve already been exposed to foreign teachers and dedicated Oral classes, and tend to have expectations about how the lessons will go. This can present a problem for a new foreign teacher when they dont have any knowledge of how the previous teachers conducted the classes.Like most things in life, one

9、 needs to set some goals in order to measure how successful one is in reaching the target. Each class will have about 36 lessons of 45 minutes over the whole semester, representing 25 hours of Oral tuition with a foreign teacher. This makes goal setting a slightly hazardous undertaking. What is, pos

10、sibly, more problematic is finding a practical way to measure progress. This problem is compounded by not having a measure of each students ability at the start of the semester making it difficult to establish valid yardsticks to measure progress.Having arrived on campus 2 months before the start of

11、 the September Semester, it gave me a welcome opportunity to do some research into typical oral examination methods. Some of the dedicated web sites on the Internet provided a lot of useful background to teaching in China. The teflchina site was especially helpful because it is a forum for teachers

12、to exchange experiences, to ask questions and suggest ideas related to teaching in China.I did have the benefit of sitting in on a few Oral classes with Daniel, a fellow Oral English teacher, prior to the end of the previous semester. This was valuable in seeing how the students reacted to the Oral

13、classes, and provided a few ideas as to what worked, and what was less effective.The English Department provided me with two textbooks for Oral English, and one for English writing. They requested that I select one of the Oral books and use this for approximately 70% of the class time. The Writing b

14、ook was fairly good and proved quite useful during the two semesters I taught. Both of the designated Oral Workshop books were less valuable and I finished up selecting the blue covered volume because of the larger amount of dialogue included. With a bit of imagination, I was able to develop various

15、 parts of the lessons into pertinent discussions that directly related to the students.For example, there was one dialogue lesson where a woman employee had been passed over for a promotion at her workplace. After using the lesson, we were then able to bring up a discussion about discrimination in t

16、he workplace.Another lesson dealt with dialogue about setting the dinner table and this lead into a discussion about cultural differences, table manners in an English culture and the importance of manners in the different societies.Apart from a blackboard, chalk and the textbooks, the University did

17、 not provide the foreign teachers with any other teaching facilities in the class room. There were two types of classrooms in general use, one type with fixed seats and desks and the other with moveable furniture. The type of classroom that is allocated has a great bearing on the style of lessons th

18、at can be applied. Moveable furniture provides a much greater degree of flexibility in planning lessons compared to rooms with fixed desks. A typical classroom with some of the studentsBeing totally unfamiliar with any of the students in my classes, it was impractical to work out a detailed program

19、for the Semester, apart from developing a general outline. One of the principles that I intended to adopt was to make sure that every student in the classes spoke, or wrote, some English every lesson. I decided to use a group system for the Oral classes by dividing each class in 4 groups with approx

20、imately 12, students in each group. In order to get some idea of each students standard of English, everyone was asked to provide written answers to three questions that I put to each class at our first lesson.The first lesson was used to explain the general program for the Semester it outlined the

21、topics to be presented and explained the system that would be used for their final exam.Although the English Department did provide the initial guidelines, the course content was left to the initiative of the foreign teachers. In our case, there was virtually no monitoring of the course and no feedb

22、ack other than what we teachers could gleam from the students themselves. Each class did have a student monitor who, in theory and probably in practice, reported on what went on in the classes. Not once did I ever have any reaction as a result of this system and, in fact, actively tried to involve t

23、he monitors in giving me feedback about my lessons.Part of one of my classes.The outline I adopted for my first lesson was to give each class a summary of my background, write my name on the blackboard and let the students know how I wished to be addressed. Because the Oral English lessons did not r

24、ank highly in terms of exams, I decided that the less formal approach might encourage greater participation so, I opted to be addressed as Graham.It was expected that shyness would play a significant role in the level of class participation until the students had sufficient time to become accustomed

25、 to their new teacher and, particularly, the accent. I made a conscious effort to speak clearly and, at a slower pace than normal because, I know from my own experience, native speakers in any language, always seem to talk too fast for the learners. I have had the necessity to learn four foreign lan

26、guages during my working career, all without the benefit of class room tuition, so I have a little insight from the learners perspective.My program for the semester, which I outlined to each class, covered a set of activities that I hoped would provide sufficient variety to spark their interest.GROU

27、PS AND MANAGERSThe principle purpose of the Oral classes was to get the students talking. Obviously, with 50 in the class, a one on one conversation with the foreign teacher was not a viable option. This was the reason I chose to break the Oral classes into four equal groups and have each group supe

28、rvised by a Manager. To start, I selected the Managers based on their English competency because, initially, volunteers were not forthcoming. As the semester progressed, students did volunteer or were nominated by members of their group. I assessed the level of competency from the written answers to

29、 the 3 questions I gave them in the first lesson. Usually there were three, or more, capable students in each group which allowed variation in choosing the ManagersWhile I had considerable success with this approach, it is important to develop it carefully without causing embarrassment and implying

30、levels of authority, or responsibility, that are unacceptable.It seems to be a perennial problem to limit the use of Chinese in most Oral English classes so this was one area that I did try to get the Managers to monitor.Later in the semester, I occasionally used the “punishment” of having the group

31、 sing a song to the class if I caught members talking in Chinese. The song was allowed to be sung in Chinese and, on the few times this happened, the whole class joined in.Many of the students aimed to be English teachers upon graduation and, by adopting the approach of using Managers, it contribute

32、d to their experience in running a classroom. Several students found this a worthwhile practice, not only in the exposure it gave them, but also for the opportunity of seeing how other members handled the job.This was an ongoing feature of the idea and we had a few lessons where each group discussed

33、 teaching techniques, lesson planning and general aspects of class behaviour.The discussion of ideas about teaching was something most classes asked about, particularly as the foreign teachers often had quite a different approach to their Chinese teachers.The necessary, relative, informality of the

34、Oral classes was not something that could be duplicated with stricter academic studies, but the need to plan each lesson was a common factor.IDIOMSOne of the interesting things I did pick up during the course of teaching English to non-native speakers was, how much native speakers use idioms in thei

35、r everyday conversation. I had not realised how extensive it was, but when we come to analyse this aspect of the language, it is easy to see how confusing it could be for learners.The students tend to take each word literally, but with idioms, their meaning is virtually never the way it is defined i

36、n the Dictionary.When I began to look into this, I found a book in the Resource library that dealt with the subject and claimed there were more than 8000 idioms commonly used in the English language.As a result, I began the practice of writing a list of 8 to 10 idioms on the blackboard at the start

37、of each lesson. I then wrote their relative meaning along side and went through each of the idioms, or idiomatic phrases, one at a time, giving examples of how they are used. Most of the students took to writing these in their note books which, often generated discussions about their meaning, their

38、origin and the different ways they were used.Having spent 6 years tutoring in Adult Literacy in Australia, this problem of interpreting idioms seldom arose because most of the students were native speakers to begin with.It certainly can be a significant hurdle for students of English as a second lan

39、guage, especially when reading novels and stories written for native speakers.Some of the Chinese text books recommend students try to use idiomatic language as a way to make their English more colourful. I took the opposite approach and told the students not to try and learn idioms for two basic re

40、asons. Firstly, if they didnt fully understand the proper use of the idiom their English conversation might be misunderstood. Second, the person to whom they are talking may not know the meaning of the idiom and therefore, they may become confused.The principle advice I gave the students was, if som

41、ething didnt seem to make sense in a sentence then, it is probably an idiom. In which case, they should ignore that bit and concentrate on the rest of the sentence.In other words dont try to learn a lot of idioms just try to recognise them so that they can then ignore them.COMMON PROBLEMSAnother pro

42、blem I found that was common to many of my students in both the Oral classes, and the Writing classes, was difficulty in handling tenses in the English language. Although most of the students said they had been taught about tenses, they didnt seem able to distinguish between past, present and future

43、 in choosing the right word.A second common problem that was fairly wide spread was their understanding of singular and plural in English words. Tenses and singular and plural are not common in the Chinese language, so I was told, and this is the principle reason so many students couldnt apply them

44、properly.The third common problem was the use of, what I call the “l(fā)ittle” words of the English language. This was particularly noticeable in the Writing classes but it was pertinent to the Oral classes as well. The distinction between a and an was supposedly known but seldom applied as were the oth

45、er common words like the, in, to and other prepositions as well as conjunctions. As much as possible, I avoided getting involved with grammar for the reason that this was the domain of the Chinese teachers and, not knowing exactly how the grammar was being taught, I did not wish create any misunders

46、tanding, or confusion. I corrected grammar but not in reference to the linguistic terms, only in the sense of its practical usage.One of the major problems with teaching English in China, as mentioned above, is the class size of around 50 students. This limits the amount of time a teacher can dedica

47、te to any individual student.Another factor is the amount of time the University allocates each week for classes with the foreign teacher. A common standard for each class seems to be two 45 minute lessons a week with a 10 minute break in between. With around 18 weeks in each semester, this equates

48、to about 25 hours per term. When this is coupled to the 11 different classes I taught each week, we are talking about 500 individual students.Taking into account the lesson breaks, this works out to around 21 classroom hours a week, which is not a difficult schedule to follow. There is extra time ne

49、cessary for lesson preparation and record keeping which, depending on what goals a teacher wishes to set, will amount to something between 5 and 10 hours a week. If a teacher decides to set homework, which is generally not a requirement of any contract arrangements, that will involve extra unpaid ti

50、me, according to how much conscientious effort is applied. I found setting homework for the Writing classes was the most effective way to provide individual, personal, tuition.GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT CLASSROOMSFrom a practical point of view, where group work is adopted with Oral classes, it is far mo

51、re effective if the classroom has moveable desks and stools rather than fixtures.Fixed furniture severely restricts the size of groups and their proximity to one another plus, it restricts the access of the teacher to each group. With fixed desks, groupings of 4 students are the most practical, with

52、 6 probably being the maximum. With moveable desks, I was able to divide the class into 4 groups of about 12 students each. It provided good separation of each group as well as ready access for me to move between the different groups.I always made it a practice to have the students replace the desks

53、 and stools at the end of the lesson in preparation for whoever was to use the room next.The supply of teaching aids will vary from school to school and possibly, from classroom to classroom. Our classrooms were equipped with a large blackboard, a small raised platform at the front with a small desk

54、 for the teacher. A typical classroom with moveable DesksWhile some teachers chose to sit at the desk in front of the class, I preferred to stay on the move for better interaction with the students. A supply of chalk and a blackboard duster were usually available but occasionally we had to send the

55、students off for replenishment. Most classrooms had a large plastic bottle of drinking water, on a securely padlocked dispenser that may or may not contain water. It was common practice for students to bring personal bottles of drinking water with them. Although no food was supposed to be brought in

56、to the classroom, it was quite normal to see students finishing off their breakfast when I had an 8.00 am lesson.None of our classrooms were equipped with heaters for the winter season, but most had overhead fans for the summer. Some of these classrooms can get very cold in winter and often the stud

57、ents, and I, remained well rugged up with gloves, scarves and padded coats.Female students were in the majority in every one of my classes; representing around 75% of the total. It is fairly standard for the men in the class to congregate at the rear and to find the first few rows of desks, empty. W

58、ith Oral classes, this didnt matter because I broke the class up into groups and allocated some of the men to each group. With the Writing classes, the pattern tended to change as the students became more comfortable with me and as they became more interested in what they were doing.Sometimes I woul

59、d arrive at the classroom to find many of the students reading aloud from their English books used in their Chinese lesson. This generated a totally uncoordinated din, but apparently, this was a normal process for the students to memorise passages.On some of these occasions I would quietly take a se

60、at at one of the empty front desks and let everyone keep at it it was, after all, English language they were reciting irrespective of the technique used. After a while, some of the students began to look at me to see what I was up to until, eventually, the noise tapered off whereupon I would then co