Some of my 'Other' problems here - ESL discussion

Motivational problems are only a symptom at my school, really. There are two or three root problems that have caused the proficiency problems I've 'inherited'.

1. My students are segregated by age, not ability.
Proficiency is all over the place as a result. In every single class I have (21 in a school with 520 students) I see this. Proficiency is wildly variable here because students can rely so much on cheating. Most have cheated their way through the years, and now are not able to perform. I believe cheating has even increased in my classes since I've been here. This is because I've been so insistent on moving the proficient ones forward....which leaves the 'unlearned' farther and farther behind.

2. My classes are far too large. Many of my classes are over 35+ number-wise. Two are over 40, and one of those approaches 50. Methods I used in my teacher training simply don't work in such large classes. Combine this with #1 above and you get a lot of disinterested students not doing work, not speaking, and not listening. Another words, they simply don't cooperate...period.

3. 'Gifted' students and students with an aptitude for English are penalized, while the 'unlearned' students, learning disabled, and students who don't have the aptitude are 'rewarded'. These students are never 'forced' to perform, which means they would have to practice outside of class. If I could separate my gifted students from the slackers/cheaters/disabled, I might be able to get the gifted to a decent level of proficiency. But I can never do that, so the gifted are all bogged down in classes that have to cater to misfiring, uninterested students' needs. All parties lose in this situation....I lose, the gifted students lose, and the slackers/disabled students lose.

Thailand has a LONG way to go to solve these problems. I'm not waiting on it to solve them. I'm going elsewhere to teach.

Re: Much appreciated - ESL discussion

Thank you Yingwen Laoshi. It's nice to feel appreciated. Yeah, writing your own dialogues can be fun and can free your creative spirit - if indeed it is locked up somewhere.

Thank you also for the wishes regarding my return to the middle school. I miss them and still think of them as "my kids." Interestingly,I felt it would be meaningful and maybe more of a challenge to teach at a college or university.I have prior experience with international students and adult immigrants in the States and also worked as a private and small group tutor near Beijing with university students, so I wasn't prepared to see such an absence of interest. I feel sorry for the 20% of the students who are truly motivated because I can't give them the attention they truly deserve.

And yes, I too like the idea of dialogue building. I may even try it with my not so motivated college students. Good one Rheno!

Much appreciated, guys! - ESL discussion

Thanks for the feedback guys,it's truly appreciated!

Jinchafa.

I understand your point about rich and poor kids.

My previous middle school in a small town in West China was a lot poorer than the private one I'm in now.

Here the students live on campus and the town is rich and prosperous so you can imagine how well off their parents are!

So,like you in my previous school I generally found the children easier to teach even though I also often had about seventy to a class!

Whenever I've used dialogues in my classes,they've usually been quite staid affairs with me usually copying out of a textbook.Sometimes I've adapted the dialogues a little, but your idea of writing my own and having up to four students involved at once sounds interesting.
I wish you all the best back at your previous middle school!

Thanks!

RT

Your imaginative dialogues appeal to me as well.
When you get them to create their own dialogues do you get them to write them down first?

With the dialogues with blanks do you mean for example you might have two people talking but the second persons speech is blanked out,and the students have to improvise?

Sorry if I'm a pain in the butt,but a few more details would be truely appreciated!

I hope it works out well for you in Korea!

Thanks!

Elephant you are a TRUE Elephant because you have GIANT vision and ideas!I intend to do some research into language labs.Maybe I may find a school in the future that could provide such a facility!

I'm going to have a crack at the above suggestions! I think any failure would be only due to my own incompetence!

Cheers,guys!If I could buy you all a beer I would!

Dialogue-building works - ESL discussion

I've started using 'dialogue building' in my own classes. So far, I'm finding it works.

I start off 'building' dialogues by laying a foundation of easy verbs and nouns. This means my Thai students use their E-T dictionaries (yeap, they work at it--I make sure they do) to build vocab. I then move to grammar and phonolgy, written on whiteboards first and then spoken, first by me and then by my students.

After this, I develop simple written dialogue exercises for which my students write short-answers in blanks. To make completion easier, I put 'clues' under each blank. Usually my students come through with minimal cheating after only a few tries.

Finally, I get them into random groups and have them create their own dialogues. Only a few of the most stubborn students won't cooperate, but most of most of my students not only perform successfully, but of them like it. And they actually learn. Dialogue building works. I've seen it work. I just hope it keeps working.

I hope this helps.

RT

Ppssttt......Over here. Yeah, you. - ESL discussion

I just read your post. Here's a piece of advice that may solve your students' motivation problems:

Start a language lab.

Like it or not, I'm in - ESL discussion

I'm in, dude. and I won't be playing Bozo. Bozo don't work where I will be working.

Whats the alternative? - ESL discussion

> I already know what awaits. I've talked to my new boss and told him
> that he's not getting somebody who buys into the notion students have
> to be charmed. He's good with it. Playing Bozo doesn't work that well
> anyway. Students at my school have gotten 'Bozo' treatment for years
> and still don't know jack. Bozo will get them a job on Koh Sarn Road
> in Bangkok selling cheap trinkets to tightwad backpackers. That's
> about it.

I agree with you that the 'Bozo' treatment won't help students much,but I'd like to know how it's possible to get students to study seriously without an element of charm.

I admit many native Chinese teachers(although by no means all), seem to be able to get their students to knuckle down well without acting the fool in class.

I often sneak a look through the windows of their classrooms as I'm passing and for the most part see the students silent with their heads buried in their textbooks all 'apparently' focused.

I've also noticed a few factors that make it a lot harder for us 'expats'.

Firstly in my nearly three years teaching ESL in China in only one school out of six where I've taught children, has it been necessary for me to give the students exams.

Even that was a farce because It was inferred that EVERYONE had to pass,including the three boys who turned up ten minutes before the exam ended,two claiming that they had to take their friend to the hospital. Sigh!

I even remember an expat teacher mentioning somewhere that a local native teacher told his students not to take the expats classes seriously because nothing hinged on it,(probably no exams of any relevance).

What the hell is going to motivate my average Chinese Middle School student?Any exams I give would be voluntary and have absolutely no bearing on their future. They're not even required!

How useful will English be to most of them anyway unless they plan to one day live in the West?Even for the few that do that's not likely to happen for a good few years!At the moment most of them don't even plan further ahead than tomorrow,unless it happens to be a holiday.

Unless they learn to speak English exeptionally well it won't be a lot of use in their native country when you consider that virtually all their millions of peers up and down this vast country are learning (or should I say are being exposed) to English too.

They also have far to many classes,in my school seven days a week from before seven in the morning until after eight in the evening.
So what are they thinking as they turn up for the foreign teachers class?Let's be honest most of them think of it as a rest period,a break,an opportunity to take it easy.

Nearly every one of my classes begins with at least half a dozen (and often more)students out of a class of thirty catching up on other work as I introduce the topic of the day.
There's nothing more irritating, but who's to blame, the students,the school or the system? I've been blamed in the past for this myself. When I was teaching in a private school in Beijing they said you should make your classes more interesting!
Yeah I thought like most of the native Chinese, teach very interesting exciting lessons!

That brings me on to another problem in China namely the teaching system.

The children are just not taught how to use their brains here.They are not taught to STUDY when they have English with the local teachers.

They are just spoon fed translations of everything they're taught so when they turn up for our classes and they're asked a simple question,its either a case of them repeating it parrot fashion or a scratching of heads and a chorus of 'ting bu dong!'.

Have you tried getting them to simply stand up for an activity(I mean the WHOLE class together).I'm beginning to think I'll have to tell them a week in advance to prepare for it ,because that simple task(just to stand up) often seems difficult and seems to take about half of the lesson to accomplish!They're just not used to doing this in their other classes.

So where does that leave me with when I begin my average ESL class in the school where I teach?

Well,for the most part I have tired,overworked,unmotivated,often brain dead automatons,who have not been taught to think,or use their brains properly,and who can see no good reason for exerting themselves in my classroom!

Now enter myself assigned to teach them ORAL English and LISTENING,something that more than anything else requires that they use their brains,because if not you're just left with the mind -numbing Chinese rote system(and I hear many foriegn teachers saying oral English is easy and anybody can do it).Lol!On the contrary I think with the average child student in China it is the HARDEST to teach! The salaries for this work should be higher!

So what do I do instead of going outside to scream and tear out my hair!

For the life of me I can't see how I'm going to get anywhere without CHARM.If people don't want to do something either they can't do it or don't want to do it.So is playing the Sergant Major going to work?
That's only enough to keep order, but it's not enough to make them study.

Could somebody tell me something that can work better than charm,in these circumstances.I would really like to hear it!

I know where you're coming from - ESL discussion

I've heard kids up South Korea way are much more serious in the classroom than they are where I am in Thailand. Maybe I should run and forget the rest of my contract. As far as money goes, when I finish up here in Thailand, I will be about 1500 USD ahead of where I was one year ago. Mind you, I've subtracted the cost of my TESOL course, air fare to BKK, airfare back to the US, and various 'unavoidable' expenses here, such as food when the mess hall has been closed during breaks (for over two months during summer break), from my salary. If I would have lived like a hermit all this time and starved for two months, I STILL would have been only about 2500 USD ahead. If I were paying for rent and for food at my school, I think I may be finishing up in the RED when I'm done.

I need to get someplace where I can make some good money teaching for a change. Thailand ain't it.

SiamSap

First check CMU, and then BKK Universities - ESL discussion

Given your experience and credentials, you should consider teaching at a Thailand university if you come here. I'm not familiar with pay rates at universities, but I think if you decided to teach in Thailand, you'd prefer teaching at a university to teaching at a high school or primary school. I teach English at a high school here and I don't like it. Understand I teach at a government 'country bumpkin' school and not in Bangkok. Bangkok might be better. I've never taught in Bangkok, but my students here cheat way too much for my liking, and my classes are too large and segregated by age, not ability.

I would highly recommend you look for a teaching job at Chiang Mai University. Chiang Mai is in the northern part of Thailand. I applied for a job there last October just for grins. Even though I was in only my first year of teaching and had only a bachelor's degree and a TESOL, I nearly got the job. I didn't have an MA, that is all that held me back. I wasn't wearing my 'job interview get up', either.

If and when you come to Bangkok, hop on an AirAsia flight to Chiang Mai and go see somebody in the English department at CMU. You'll probably prefer Chiang Mai over BKK anyway. It's cooler both literally and figuratively. There are lots of nice high schools up there if you want to teach at a high school, albeit the pay is rather low.

If you didn't land a job at CMU, there are plenty of universities in BKK you could look into after that.

Good luck.

E

Teaching in Bangkok - ESL discussion

I am a 60 year old individual, in excellent health, with over 10 years teaching experience, plus curriculum development experience and administration experience. I have taught at the university level, middle school level, adult education, and one year of esl experience in conversation english for adult army officers in Taiwan. I am very interested in teaching in Bangkok. I have a Masters Degree in Education also.

I have been offered teaching positions in South Korea, Kuwait, and Taiwan. I know the salaries and benefits of teaching there, but do not know how these compare to those of the Bangkok schools. I am told that there is lots of latitude and that each case is different. The problem is that I do not know the names and addresses of any of the schools there to contact. If anyone has information they can share with me, I would appreciate it.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,
Hunt Allen