Davyhulme
- 2016-12-07
That reminds me of some english bloke in China, who on his first day and first lesson at a chinese university where the students level was not great to begin with, started by teaching elipsis, and having a debate on "Is english literature necessary?" or something like that. Needless to say he was fired sharpish, and had to skedaddle elsewhere. Seen it time and time again, overeducated types over thinking the lessons like they are reinventing the wheel, and the bloke with an unrelated degree and no fancy teaching quals is well liked by his students in China. I am not saying one should not get properly qualified, it is all strings in your bow at the end of the day, but it is no good if on day 1 of a job you think you are smarter than the subject you are trying to teach (ESL) and then you do yourself out of a job. Best to stick to what they like in China, simpler stuff, have a laugh with the students, make them like you.....and save the literature discussions for nice teacheress under the bedsheets, not in the ESL classroom, or you will do yourself out of a job, and then be seen as a belligerent when you complain and whine to the uni english office, lol
Foxy
- 2016-12-07
Yes ,Shakespeare might be an overkill- but not all literature.
It's all 'overkill' in China. Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, the whole bloody lot! Most ESL students couldn't even get to grips with Enid 'lashings of ginger beer' Blighton.
It's difficult enough to get them to write a grammatically correct sentence in the first place, without attempting to introduce different styles of sentence construction and the thought processes behind them.
An ex-colleague of mine tried to teach George Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language' to grade 11 students. No prizes for guessing how successful he was, lol.
Meanwhile, I spent an hour yesterday, (sorry, WASTED an hour), trying to explain to a Chinese-English teacher why we don't say something like: 'We can, shouldn't we?' or 'We won't, might we?'
She then went on to ask me if the following sentence is correct: 'So quickly did she finish her homework, that she was praised.'
Technically, it's not 'wrong', but it almost sounds 'poetic' rather than 'natural' and I'd bet all of Pigsy's houses that you'd NEVER hear a NES use that type of sentence construction. Teaching them Eng Lit? Not a chance, Flossy.