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Q: Does Chinese have a place in an English class?
I mostly teach kids, and do so without a Chinese classroom consultant, and have one class that I recently started who were at the ABC stage. After about five months of teaching them i'm pleased with their progress but i've not been able to teach them without using their own language a great deal. For example in setting up an exercise I will explain what we're doing or the rules of a game in Chinese, then of course we will continue in English. I've often heard people say that English should not be spoken at all in the classroom, but I honestly don't see how I could have progressed at the rate I have without using their own language in the process. In fact I think classroom management itself would be unbearable and maybe impossible, for me at least, if I were to try and do the whole class in English. I find Chinese necessary in different amounts depending on their level, just to maintain the fluency of the lesson and to keep them focussed. I may cut corners in this way at times but on the whole I feel I only use it where I really have to. Another example is an exercise simply called 'translations' where after reading some English dialogue and going through the question/answer phase, I then repeat the same questions i've asked them, but this time I do so in Chinese and the students are required to translate the questions into English. I will guide them through this process and elicit their answers in English, but the exercise itself of course requires me to use Chinese. I find this a hugely productive part of the lesson, and immensely valuable as they are building their understanding through self discovery, and the students always compete hungrily during this exercise, searching their English vocabularies to make the correct translations. But what do you think? Is this an unforgivable breach of the teacher's rule-book? Do any of you teach youngsters? And if so, do you do so without using their own language at all? If you do i'd be very interested to hear how. Cheers.
11 years 2 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
Ideology purification often makes things low efficient. Why pursue such useless things? Just be practical. The progress is real. It seems you've been doing great.
I've always used vocabulary keys (English, pronunciation key, Chinese and an example of how the word can be used in a contextual sentence. Works wonders, saves time and it is much appreciated by students.
Not in mine it doesn't.
If they speak to me in Chinese, I answer them in Spanish.
Amonk:
Hah, I answer in German! Thought I was the only one to pull that tactic. Nice.
If I had enough Chinese of course I would use it.
Fact is I don't so for me it's an irrelevant question.
I do predict though that you will get many saying it's wrong, but how many of those who do say it's wrong have the ability to hold a lesson in Chinese?
Keep up the good work. I wish my Chinese was good enough to do what you are doing. Best of both worlds. Most of us, I presume, use a Chinese assistant for English classes which is basically what you are doing minus the assistant. Some of the assistants are kind of....ummm....useless and their English is poor. My dream is to speak Chinese fluently enough to run classes without an assistant.......then ask for a pay rise!!!
I used to teach for a school that was 100% adamant that you shouldn't speak any Chinese in the class as to keep the kids in the zone of English as you will. Obviously patience is key here as you mainly rely on body language to instruct those who don't speak a word, though I found the demand a bit unrealistic when teaching kindergarten classes, as when they were going mental, shouting "SIT DOWN" and waving your arms around doesn't work too well. I started using very basic Chinese commands just for discipline, though any explanations of activities/games etc were done by the Chinese TA (teacher's assistant) as not to let them known teacher spoke good Chinese.
mArtiAn:
That's what it largely comes down to at the end of the day, classroom management. I understand the value of taking time to make something understood by using English alone as this is all part and parcel of building a general understanding, but when you're teaching young kids you have to keep them on their toes or you'll lose their attention. It's no fun when you get that feeling you've wandered into the monkey enclosure in London zoo without your stun gun.
If you are able to, then I say more power to you. At my current level, my students are more entertained by my attempts so I rarely do.
I would love to be at the stage where I can speak a little more Chinese in class. I think it would add a new dimension to the ESL teaching experience and that it would help enormously in terms of class discipline.
You don't have a Chinese assistant? Aw, you poor thing!
A Chinese assistant would be invaluable!
A Chinese assistant will explain everything you say while you're doing your dangdest to get the children to learn what "very good" means from the context.
If the children can't immediately answer your questions, a Chinese assistant will eagerly answer the questions for you.
A Chinese assistant will be glad to translate for you when you say "Which one is the elephant?": and "Which one is the monkey?"
A Chinese assistant will help with the discipline by screaming at the children at the same time that you're speaking quietly to the children.
What you need is a good teaching opponent--I mean asisstant.
So, you're 'cutting corners' - implying you're getting to your destination faster (destination being good English speakers), they enjoy doing the exercises... and they're improving at a good rate...
Why would you think there is something wrong with this??
The aim of the game is to get them good with English - not to stick to a puritanical prescriptivist mentality.
My students are university level... while I get annoyed when they use Chinese - because they should be better than they are - I will allow it sometimes when it will cut the teaching time down - 2 seconds of Chinese to save 10 minutes of English... why not??
