|
|
|
Guide Page
|
The First Day of Classes 3 September 2007 Once again, The Old Codger is left with the feeling that he is living and working in heaven. After teaching for three and a half years in Thailand, I am wondering why I spent so much time there banging my head against the wall - both literally and figuratively. The only drawback is that the 80 minutes that I was in the classroom went by way too fast. First of all - the class room was a dream. Every computer assisted teaching tool imaginable. A complete sound lab - equipped with all sorts of resources. At each table for the students, there are head sets and microphones and a computer monitor. Two students for each monitor. No white board (the newer version of the black board) - but instead an over head projector that goes through the teaching computer and the information on the projector is transmitted to the student's monitor. No excuses for the students not being able to see what is being shown to them. And of course, the biggest blessing - the room is air conditioned. No more sweating like a pig like back in Thailand. The first class: English majors in their Junior year at the University. I was surprised - very pleasantly so - at how good their English was. Not perfect - but damned good for starters. Their English was much better than many of the English teachers that I have met in Thailand. They all spoke loudly, clearly and slowly. Some pronunciations were off a bit - and there was some problem with the tenses - but it was all minimal and nothing major. A total of 18 students - 17 girls and one boy. A highly manageable class load. To say that they were talkative would be an understatement. I start out new classes doing an evaluation of their abilities - to find out how well they can speak English combined with their abilities to express thoughts. I do this by writing down 8 simple statements:
These students all talked for an average of 2 and a half minutes each! And, they all spoke clearly, slowly enough and loud enough to be heard and understood. That is when I started to feel like I was in heaven. Can this really be possible I wondered? Granted, one could pick up that the students had had various types of conversations drilled into them because some of the things that were said sounded a bit "caned" but all in all, I couldn't really find any fault. I was a bit surprised at three of the responses that I got from the last question: Why teach English? Three of the students freely admitted that they really didn't want to really teach English, but were doing it because their parents or family told them that they should become teachers. One wanted to actually be in television, and work as a hostess on some sort of television program. The second one wanted to go into journalism. The third one didn't really state what she wanted to go into - other than "be a clerk" - and because of time constraints, I didn't push the issue with her. Two of them regretted majoring in teaching, but were sticking it out until they get their degree, and then they will, hopefully, be able to go on to what they want to do. About three of the students wanted to be teachers because one or both of their parents were teachers. One of them gave the perfect reason, I thought: Because teachers get a lot of holidays so they can do other things when not teaching. The majority of them did state that another reason was because teachers are highly respected in Chinese society - more-so than any other profession. (Their words, not mine.) The second half of the class was devoted to giving the students an opportunity to get to know me - which they accomplished by asking me a number of different questions. I was a bit surprised at the forwardness of some of the questions as they were typically so "un-Asian" in nature. Direct. No shyness. It was a relief not having to drag questions out of the students as had been necessary in Thailand. After that, I branched off into something that I had never done before. In talking with another teacher who had taught here last year the other night, I had been led to believe that the best way to teach the students was to play a lot of games with them and show them a lot of movies. In other words, nothing serious. The students who are studying with a foreign teacher are taking the class as an elective - rather than a required course. As a result, they were reported to expect some "lee-way." Whilst I do know a number of "games" that can be played, I am also of the opinion that they have limited benefit in the learning process. Rather than using a game to teach - it should be used to break the monotony of the class room environment from time to time. I knew that it would be futile to ask any Chinese directly associated with the faculty what I should possibly do, as I would receive a very non-committal and vague answer best stated as: "It is up to you." That could also signal to them that I am not confident in what I am doing - and hence 'inexperienced' (despite them knowing full well that I have never taught at the University level) which would or could merit them closely scrutinizing what I was doing. Another thing that I have learned teaching in Asia is that if the students are happy with the teacher, then the teacher will receive high ratings with everyone. It is kind of one of those "out of sight, out of mind" situations. So, I simply decided to ask the students what they expected from me. I gave them about five minutes, working in pairs, to come up with their vision of the ideal class. The results were a bit different from what I had been led to believe by the other teacher. Even though watching some movies and playing some games were on their lists, so too were things like practice oral skills, listening exercises, discussions about culture and just general discussions. And so, it is now quite simple for me to plan a syllabus of sorts for this particular class. In short, my first class of the week should be quite simple and easy to plan for - and easy to get through. One thing that I find amazing about Asian schools is the under usage of technology. Teachers still - here in the 21st Century - are keeping paper records of grades, attendance and student's names. That also means that the teacher must also manually calculate each student's grade and attendance record at the end of the term. The grade books are difficult to use as there is not enough space to enter all of the necessary information. This in turn leaves room for errors to be made. However, I must admit that the books here are much easier to use than those that I experienced in Thailand. It shouldn't surprise anyone that this does not have to be. After all, databases can be created fairly quickly - that is something that even the Old Codger can do. Surprisingly - or not so surprising - depending on one's perspective - there are even free ware programs that can do everything that needs to be done. One program - the best one that I tried - has a "Pro" edition that can be purchased for $30 which does enhance the program considerably. Naturally, I am going to see if the school will accept the results from this program rather than requiring everything to be entered by hand. I shall see how progressive they are. (For teachers that may be reading this, contact me if you would like information about this particular program.) Naturally, my entire schedule was given to me in Chinese. Fortunately, someone from the Dean's Office had quickly explained everything for me - so I think that I have it all figured out now. This does give me the advantage of some of the other teachers - they haven't been given any advance information at all. Certainly does make me happy that I had showed up here earlier than the others. I am teaching 8 different classes - all Oral English. Six of the classes are for Juniors, majoring in English Teaching, Foreign Trade, or English Translation. Two classes are Freshmen - one class majoring in English Teaching and the other one in Foreign Trade. Class sizes average 33 students - which is a manageable number - a far cry from the 50 to 55 students I had in Thailand. The classes are about 97% female to 3% male. Lowered testosterone levels can enhance the teaching experience! As I stated in a previous edition, (Lies, Lies and More Lies) even though my contract states that I am teaching 16 hours a week, a period is only 40 minutes long. With each class then, I teach them for 2 periods back to back - 40 minutes - a 10 minute break - and then another 40 minutes for a total of 80 minutes a week. Not very difficult to handle. So, the schedule is quite simple now:
The Friday schedule is rather hard to deal with. It means that I will miss about 1 hour of Happy Hour at the Captain's Bar. That is one less pint of highly affordable beer per week! Oh, gloom, despair and agony on me... It just never has been easy being me! Actually though, in all honesty - despite my lamenting about the Happy Hour issue on Fridays - I can't complain about the schedule. The University actually offers classes from 7:00 PM until 9:20 PM. Now, that could really ruin a Friday night! As stated, all of the information given to me is written in Chinese - which includes the student's names. Student's names are actually only 2 to 3 Chinese characters which should give an indication of how difficult it is to read Chinese. One Chinese character can have many different meanings. Guess I won't be learning how to read much Chinese. Fortunately, for us poor foreign teachers that can't read a bit of Chinese, each student has an identification number for each class. To make it even easier to decipher, all of the identification numbers are in sequential order and consist of 10 numbers. But wait! It gets even easier: Here in China, all of the students adopt an English nick name - such as Jane, Mary, Sandy, Jenny, Ed, Sam, etc. There is just enough space in the grade book to write their English name. This is so much easier than in Thailand, where each student was given a Thai nickname, like Oui (pronounced as Oy - not the French "we") Took, Boom, etc. Many of the Thai nicknames were difficult to pronounce because they did not follow any of the phonetic English rules. The student name lists can be pasted into the grade book which makes entering the initial information quite easy. Entering in the English names is also easy - have the student find their name in the list and have them print their English name. Don't have an English name - we'll give you one. Don't know how it can get much easier than that. In conclusion, ultimately, the first day was a piece of cake. I wasn't worried about to be honest - guess that comes from a lot of experience facing new students once every six weeks. Fortunately, there is not much difference between Chinese and Thai students. I anticipate that tomorrow will be just as easy given that my two classes are all upper levels, so their English abilities should be quite good. Of course, as in everything in life - especially here in Asia - always expect the unexpected and have a contingency plan. The Old Codger
|
