In the Classroom

It just occurred to me that one thing I have not spent much time speaking about so far is what actually happens inside the classroom. I spend 12 hours each week teaching English as a second language to Chinese students, but what does this involve? Let me start with a bit of background and then try to describe some of what we do...

In the classroom, I am a different person. The Scott Kennedy that many of you know exists in a slightly altered form. In class I am louder than usual (50 students in large rooms warrant this change) and I speak in a different voice - my speaking English to Chinese people voice. I do this, which drives Janet crazy, because I find that otherwise I tend to speak too quickly. After complaining in my own Italian and Chinese classes that "they speak too fast," it is funny for me to think that speakers of other languages think we speak English too quickly. My changed tone speaks much more slowly and clearly and seems to be easier for non-native speakers to understand. Inside the classroom, I also move through the aisles of desks frequently, change the inflection of my voice to add special emphasis and try to bring extra energy into the setting.

Perhaps one of the toughest aspects of teaching or learning a language is having the confidence to speak knowing that you will likely make mistakes. I find that if I can bring in some energy and perhaps not be afraid to sometimes play the role of teacher/jester, I can disarm some of the fears and help the students speak more freely. Of course, if the students are nervous speaking to me when they outnumber me 50 to 1, you can imagine how I feel trying to speak Chinese when I am outnumbered here 1 billion to one!!!

Earlier I mentioned trying to bring energy into the classroom with me. On good days this works. On bad days it may not and the students notice. I remember a number occasions where, sitting in a desk listening to a teacher, I thought to myself of a multitude of places I'd rather be than there. I never before realized that the teacher may be thinking the same exact thought!

Anyways, on to the teaching...

Today I had three classes (6 hours of teaching time) and I'll talk about what we did for each class to give you an idea of what it is I do.

8 AM - Reading Class

I was up bright and early for class this morning. The thing I hate most about morning classes is the obnoxious music that plays over the school loudspeakers as I am getting ready in my apartment. It is some horrendous march that is played every morning and would be appropriate on a Triumph of the Will soundtrack. I half expect to look out the window from brushing my teeth to see students Seig Heiling away as they walk to class.

By the time I've downed a bowl of oatmeal and made it to class, I'm in a better mood. This is the first class I have had since the mid-Autumn Day break, so I begin by asking student's about their holiday. They are college students and have a fairly good understanding of English. We spend about 15 minutes in a free talk session. I ask: "What did you do for the holiday?" - "eat with our families." "What did you eat?" - "Mooncakes." "Why?" - "It is the traditional food for mid-Autumn Day." "What are your favorite kind of mooncakes?" - "We like the ones with fruit inside." - and so on... This is a good warm up before I take attendance.

I like to take attendance about 10-15 minutes into class because some students are habitually late, which would otherwise result in me having to stop and mark them down as they enter. Better to talk first and then just take attendance once.

Today, it was out of the dry business English textbook passages. I had run copies of a short article from Time Magazine on China tapping geothermal power with the help of the nation of Iceland. It was a short article, but most students have the bad habit (some may disagree with me here) of looking up each word they do not know in their dictionary before proceeding. I encouraged them to not do this, but rather to try and understand the main point(s) of each paragraph and gain the other words from the context, if possible. It took a while, but most of the students were able to make it through the article.

After discussing the article, I split the class into groups and had each discuss if they thought pollution was a problem in China, what should be done and what the role of the government should be in the process? This went over fairly well and the groups discussed with each other and then shared with the class. There was some confusion when I asked them about "trash." They didn't understand. I said "waste." Then, finally, one student said "rubbish" and they all instantly understood (sigh - the problems with being taught British English).

Most everyone discussed how pollution was bad and China should seek more renewable energy sources to help. The government should help educate the people about pollution. I have not yet tried to have a debate in class as it seems that most everyone is generally of the same opinion. Perhaps later in the semester I may try and find some semi-safe issues and introduce multiple views to see what happens...

2:50 PM - Speaking Class

My speaking students are the ones whose BBQ I attended on Saturday night. Today the dialogue in our textbook was about budgeting at a business meeting. I selected volunteers to read the parts of the dialogue . The passage was more or less dry and worthless, but I used it to segue into asking the students if they had ever made a budget? I asked what types of things go into their budgets: clothes, food, books, school supplies, etc.

Next, we split up into groups of four and I asked each group to plan and budget for a BBQ they would hold. Having just recently held a BBQ, the needed information was still mostly fresh in their minds; now it was just translating it into English. I put some discussion questions on the board:

1. What types of food do you want? Meat, Fruit, Vegetables, Drinks, etc..
2. What types of meat? Which fruits? etc...
   
3. When and Where will you BBQ be?
   
4. How much will everything cost?

After a bit of discussion, most of it in English, the students were ready to share. Some groups had elaborate plans for the BBQ with lobster and octopus, others featured staples such as ribs and chicken wings. Some budgets were large, others spent less. The point was to get people up and speaking English and it worked.

Afterwards, running short on time, I decided to skip the next dialogue and have some time for free talk. I asked the students, "what would you do if I gave you 1,000 Yuan?" This worked well - they loved spending my hypothetical money. Some decided to buy clothes, others wanted to eat nice dinners, one girl wanted a new camera and still others wanted to save the money in the bank.

The goal of my speaking class is to have the students do as much of the speaking as possible. I just try and facilitate and moderate. Today we took a dry passage about "budgeting" and transformed it and most students spent a good deal of the time speaking in English.

7:30 - Listening Class

Tonight I had Listening as a make-up class since we missed it during the holiday break (more to come on this topic later).

Having a class at night is not fun for anyone. It requires more careful planning to keep the student's attention, particularly when the course materials are some low quality tapes of boring English dialogues.

A previous teacher had put together a list of words that he had found the students had a tough time saying. I used his list and turned it into a game I call "Phonetic Bingo." On the board I wrote pairs of words that sounded similar or could be confusing to say:

• ill - eel
• heel - hill
  
• crawl - law
• still - steal
• charts - hearts - parts - darts - tarts

and others. I had the students repeat the words after me, slowly getting faster and faster as we went along. For the longer strings, I would mix up the order from what was written on the board and crawl-trawl-drawl-awl-fall-law-tall quickly became a tongue twister for the students as they tried to repeat after me as fast as they could.

After I had about 35 words on the board, I passed out sheets of paper and had students make 25 boxes in a 5x5 grid. They then picked words from the board to use to fill in the boxes on their paper, one word per box, any words in any box they like. After explaining the rules of Bingo, I began calling out words. The students really had to pay close attention to know which word I was calling out as many had similar sounds. Sometimes on a particularly stumping word, one student would spell it out for the others who would then check their page to see if the word was there. The game was a hit and I felt it was a great listening activity. The best part for me, was that it worked well and required very little out of class preparation, always a plus!

After a few Bingo winners, it was time to move on to our next listening activity. I had previously had the students give me the names of some of their favorite English songs. I downloaded these songs and the lyrics and prepared a worksheet for them to complete using the song lyrics. They would have to fill in the missing words, put phrases in order, or other similar activities. This worked well since the students really enjoyed listening to the songs, but my plan was thwarted a bit since most of the students had the songs memorized which meant the worksheet required less active listening and so they thought it was too easy. Next time I will try some new songs that hopefully they don't all already know the words to!

It has been a long Thursday (and a long post), but I'm glad to be done and will enjoy my day off tomorrow and hope you enjoyed the glimpse into my classroom on the other side of the world.