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Posts: 23

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Q: “How do you get students to speak?” What is the correct answer?

Yesterday I had an online int review with some English guy about an online teaching job for kids and although I think I did a good enough interview, I think I blown it in the end. The subject of how do I teach and how do I teach cane up, and I basically stated that I tend to be relaxed around the children and have fun with them and I encourage two way dialogue which I stated was different than the Chinese method in school of teacher teaches and children listen.

 

So out comes the question I hate and can never seem to get the right answer for....

 

”How do you get the students to speak?” This to me is the death question and I always seem to give a wrong answer. I explain that I try to make the class fun for the child and offer encouragement or something along those lines. The question really annoys the fuck out of me because there is an answer that these interviewers fish for and I always fail this question and the job goes out the window. I lost out one college job several years ago because the Chinese lady who interviewed me claimed that Chinese students were “shy”. Which I think is a load of crap? Chinese shy? Strangers come up to me all the time and the people tend to talk their heads off.

 

What is the right answer to this question? What is the pat answer that they want to “How do you make students speak?” Hell, I don’t know, they talk or don’t. Most do. I think with children it’s encouragement from the parents more than anything.

 

Lastly, I hate being interviewed by a Westerner because they tend to give a western style interview which is such a bunch of shit and a pain. Crap like “Why do you want to work here?” and stuff like “Do you use PPT (whatever that is)?” and methodology and just try to throw curveballs to mess you up. I hate westerner interviews. I lost out on a job several years ago teaching History and Social Studies (subjects I have a teaching certificate for and absolutely love) by some English cow woman asking these ridiculous questions of me. This idiot yesterday was English. The guy even asked me how long I was going to stay in China and I was truthful, for at least one more year and then I want to go home with my wife because my father is elderly and besides, I can do this job in America or anywhere on Earth. Don’t think as a foreigner that if you get a foreigner interviewer it will be easier. It won’t and it is actually more difficult.

 

So, what is the answer to my above query? If I made spelling mistakes here, I am typing from my phone and the letters are tiny! Boogie Boogie!

5 years 30 weeks ago in  Teaching & Learning - China

 
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Something to remember is.. while they're going through the motions asking all the questions they think are sensible and professional 'manager type' questions, what they're actually doing is making sure you aren't obviously deformed, mad, from somewhere other than where you claim to be from, weird looking, highly strung, coming off your last hit from the pipe etc..

 

They have to make sure you're a prduct they can sell. Oh, if you have some teaching ability that can't hurt either.

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5 years 30 weeks ago
 
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You can't get some to talk so I use a power point and make the stand up and talk.

 

I once had a teacher pedogogy asshole critique my teaching methods in a class, really pissed me off, I was a corporate hands on trainer, blue collar workers, and they had to perform, if they fucked up, people died, and osha would put my ass in jail.

 

I told the pedogogy asshole the following statement when he said you need to be more energetic. I said these kids have been a classroom for 40 minutes of English every day 180 days a year with 60 students in a class. So if the teacher walks in with tape over their mouth and each kids is allotted speaking time and the teacher does ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING, they each have 40 seconds to speak English.

 

That is the reason they can't speak. I use NBA, olympics, movies, tv shows with subtitles and I make them get and say the lines they just watched. We go over a 20 minute Big Bang Theory and four groups each have 5minutes of the show to speak out the lines.  For younger kids I go over Disney Characters, someone plays Nemo, DOra, etc.

 

I am not an education major but of the 7 high schools that we run programs to Canada, my students always score the highest among the 7 schools on the IELTS speaking tests. I find that educators are full of themselves and my answer is make them talk.

 

The other arguement I have with students is I ask them can I learn Chinese the same way they have learned English since grade 3 and speak Chinese. They say of course not teacher, you could not speak Chinese, then I say, why in the hell do you think you can speak English then?

ambivalentmace:

My worst interview was for the CELTA class, some young punk giving me shit for being old and wanting to teach English. Luckily I was short listed on a waiting list and someone was a no show in Prague so I got the class.

 

After you force them to talk about 3 months then you can use Celta techniques, the problem is if you don't have discipline from your Chinese peers, they use cell phones in class, never do the writing assignments and basically you have about a third of the class that pays attention, but this is for spoil rich kids, the regular students are much better, if you teach rich kids, it's just a chaotic clusterfuck everyday and you drink alot.

5 years 30 weeks ago
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5 years 30 weeks ago
 
Posts: 827

Shifu

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There is no right answer. Most of the time you will be interviewed by someone who doesn't know how to interview. I have never run into the type of interview you are talking about here in China. Actually I have always got the first job I applied for. I was interviewed once by a non-chinese person for a job in Tianjin. I find that there is too much demand for foreign teachers for them to be asking idiotic questions. Just move on to another recruiter/school.

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haha,,, I always think the interview process is funny.  90+% of those idiots have never stood up in front of 50 teenagers and conducted a class, but they are self-proclaimed experts.  lol,, It's classic.  

Just like hangin' out somewhere in SZ or GZ and some 25 yr old kid from the US starts explaining China to you.  haha,,, Cracks me up inside.  I just sit there and nod and say things like, 'oh really?',,,'you don't say',,,,'oh really?',,,

 

same thing I do in the interview,,,  just spout some canned bs to them, seems to do the trick.  

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Something to remember is.. while they're going through the motions asking all the questions they think are sensible and professional 'manager type' questions, what they're actually doing is making sure you aren't obviously deformed, mad, from somewhere other than where you claim to be from, weird looking, highly strung, coming off your last hit from the pipe etc..

 

They have to make sure you're a prduct they can sell. Oh, if you have some teaching ability that can't hurt either.

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5 years 30 weeks ago
 
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Governor

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Depedn on class size you can create an account on a site called ClassDojo. You can accumulate scores for an academic session, and at the end of the year points mean prizes.

 

Also some students just dont want to speak or read out their work in front of their classmates, you have to respect their rights as a learner not to. When they have an activity to do in class you can seek out the quiet ones for a little one to one feedback. You can't get through them all in one lesson if the class is too big but you should get to speak to them a couple of times per week.

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General

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Stiggs got it right 100%. Talking about East Asia and if I use China as an example then it's too see if you are white, not disabled/deformity, accent is like your passport and know what you're going to be doing, that's actually it.

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Just make-up some answer from this 'How to make ...' guidance:

 

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/albertrayan/making-students-spe...

icnif77:

https://owlcation.com/academia/10-Fun-Classroom-Activities-to-Help-Students-Practice-Speaking-English

 

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/getting-the-ESL-student-talking-marc-anderson

 

http://www.eflpress.com/teacher/100.html

 

https://busyteacher.org/5760-7-tips-to-get-your-students-speaking-easily.html

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