Ms. B.'s TESOL

What a pleasant surprise!  Apparently, Sweet and Sour Pork is not an American invention, but a real Cantonese dish – or at least one that has been adopted back.

Most meals at the House of Prayer consist of steamed rice, whole fish (last night was Snapper with Rainbow Shreds, “shreds” apparently being slivers of bell pepper), some kind of other meat dish, soup, and fruit.  Breakfast includes fried eggs and hot dogs, and a huge bowl of what looked like muesli.  I hoped it was congee (a sort of porridge like grits but made from rice).  It turned out to be very thin oatmeal.  Drinks are generally hot, which is a bit hard to take when the temperature is in the humid 80s.

Since we are a large party, each day five of us are tasked with cleanup duty. After scraping the dishes, we give them a quick soapy wash and put them in the “dishwasher”, which is more like a rinser/sterilizer. A single tray of dishes goes in at a time, but it comes out in about two and a half minutes!

Then we dry and put away.  I was (firmly) corrected in this last task. It seems that not only do all the mugs go into the cupboard upside down, but they must be stored according to color and type. Mugs with Mickey Mouse on them do not go on the same shelf as those with Donald Duck.

After dinner I met with Ms. E and Mr. P (the last arrival), both barely out of college and very eager, to discuss how they should plan their classes.  Ms. K joined us, which was helpful since she has conducted training sessions in a large number of foreign countries on a large number of business topics. I explained my personal class routine (based on what I did last year and about which, more later) and they mentioned several of their own ideas, which sound both appropriate and useful. I think they went to bed very encouraged, because, to be honest, the guidelines Fr. B gives are so broad that it’s easy to feel completely lost.  At a minimum, I think I was able to reassure them that they didn’t miss anything – we really do have a great degree of latitude in what and how we teach.

And then, the end of a perfect day…
. . . discovering in the newly-uncovered closet a large electric fan!

We arrive in Jilin on Saturday and will meet some of the students on Sunday, with classes beginning on Monday.  This is slightly different from last year, as our flights north from Hong Kong were badly delayed then, not arriving at Jilin until 2:00 am!

There will be five periods a day, at 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, 2:00, and 3:00.  For the first period each day, all 180 students and all teachers will assemble in a large chemistry lecture hall. Each person will have a booklet full of news articles from the China Daily.  Using a Power Point presentation, one of the teachers will present some new vocabulary found in the article, providing definitions in English (with both English and Chinese on the presentation screen).  Then the teacher will read the article aloud, to demonstrate pronunciation and inflexion.  If time permits we may call on a student to read, or drill the group in pronouncing the new vocabulary.

For the second period, each teacher willl take his students to a smaller classroom, where we’ll review the vocab, see whether there are additional words the students don’t know, and then possibly have them read the article aloud.  After making certain that everyone understands it, we move on to discussing it.  I loved this part last year:  breaking my class into groups of three or four, giving each group a discussion question, and having them present their consensus to the full class.  As Fr. B said today, we are not just teaching English, we are teaching young people.  Watching them do this makes we wonder to what degree they ever have discussions in their regular classes (English or other subjects).

After these first two periods the teacher has the freedom to do what he thinks best for his class. For some, pronunciation drills will be in order. Other times, discussions of less serious topics (foods, music, home towns) are good, or games.  In a departure from last year, Fr. B suggested…almost recommended…giving a short writing assignment during the 2:00 session; he did insist, though, that we correct any writing so the students don’t persist in mistakes.  (Apparently their usual teachers tend to simply acknowledge that the work was done, the student receiving no feedback on the quality of the work.)

It’s not clear yet what the 3:00 session is for. This is the period that I suggested be used optionally for special activities, which I expect to present to the others in a day or so.

There will be thirteen news articles used, two of which were voted, by last year’s students, interesting enough to be repeated this year.  Topics include:  racism, gender imbalance in China, suicide, sports and drugs, funerals, the cost of care for the elderly, giving “English” names to Chinese students, gambling, consumer rights, the Chinese Brain Drain.  There are two additional ones that were described to us as “Too Close to Call” and “What’s Up, Doc?” but Ms. W couldn’t recall exactly what those discussed.  We take turns presenting, in age order starting with our youngest teacher, who is all of 21.  Of course, this grew embarrassing as the scheduling reached those of us who are a little “up there” in age.

Other news:
It has been raining like a firehose for two days.
Mr. E, the Englishman, has had to leave due to a sudden illness.

 

Four full training sessions today.

Fr. B started off with a brief history of Maryknoll’s presence in China, then went into detail about the wide variety of activities they sponsor, lead, or support within China, especially in the Jilin area. These include not only the China Teachers Program but a number of ventures related to social work, medical training, teacher formation, relief of the poor…and even mustering student volunteers from the universities to help harvest corn when a local farmer fell ill.

Next, Dr. D. gave us the next installment of the history of China, running over the geography, history, different ethnic groups, and various languages.

In the afternoon they explained the “nitty-gritty” of how our teaching will run.  More on that in another post.

Finally, Ms. W gave a class in Survival Mandarin. While brief, it was pretty intense, especially because she is not a language teacher herself (being more of an administrator) and so had a little trouble explaining exactly how to form the various sounds.  Dr. D, who speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese, was a great help, as well as Mr. J #2 and Ace, both of whom are from Jilin.  We covered pinyin, pronunciation of various sounds, and a dozen short phrases of greeting, etc..

From our “You Learn Something Every Day” department:
At lunch time today I discovered that my room actually does contain a closet!!!!  Now I don’t have to trip over my suitcase every time I want to use the desk.

A reader posted the following comment, which is important enough that I’d like to address it here rather than as a reply:  Are teachers busy planning in the evening? Is there a particular instructional style and curriculum that teachers follow? I didn’t get a sense that there are many ESL teachers in the group. Is there a focus on teaching during the training on teaching English as another language?

China, as well as other Eastern countries, has long desired and required that their students study…and master…English.  For the last generation or more, it has been a widespread belief that you cannot learn English properly unless you are taught by a native English speaker.  This has translated to actual policy in many places, such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, where every school is required to have at least one Native English Teacher (NET) on staff.  In too many places, all you need to teach is a bachelor’s degree and “native” status, that is, first language English and coming from the UK, US, Australia, Canada, or South Africa.  Oh, and you must be Caucasian (though the schools will not tell you so, this is understood to be a given).

As you might guess, this kind of thinking disregards the level of English knowledge, let alone teaching knowledge, that the NET may bring with him.  Hence, the value of the instruction being offered to the students is sometimes questionable. Further, non-native teachers (that is, Chinese or other Asian nationals) who have been properly trained as teachers of English are often both better qualified than the NETs and at a disadvantage when it comes to hiring.  How many average Americans can name all 12 tenses in English?  The Chinese teacher can.  How many Americans (or Brits) can use the International Phonetic Alphabet?  The Chinese teacher — and his students! — can.

Thankfully, non-native teachers are starting to band together to bring this too-common disparity and, yes, discrimination into the spotlight.  For example, take a look at teflequityadvocates.com.

I do personally think there is tremendous value in using NETs — first, in short-term programs like this one where the emphasis is on developing and refining conversational fluency and exactitude of pronunciation, and second, as an adjunct or enrichment piece to understanding the Western/Anglo mindset. After all, language study is all about communication, but communication is more than language study. The NET can provide cultural information that the non-native teacher often cannot.

That said, you don’t belong in a classroom unless you have some idea how to teach.  This is, I think, where the NET scheme too often breaks down.  In the case of our Maryknoll program in China, I think a real effort has been made to choose people who can bring a educational background.  About half of our teachers have experience in school administration, special needs or counseling situations, or they are recent college grads themselves. A couple are full-time teachers (both bilingual), while another has many years of tutoring adults behind him.  I am the only one with any explicit TESOL background training.  I think this group can well serve that second purpose, of offering enrichment to augment the instruction provided to our students by their Chinese teachers during the regular school year.

At the same time, no, we are not given much in the way of guidelines for our classes, or “taught how to teach”. There are some explicit tasks we must accomplish (more about that in a later post), but we have a tremenous degree of freedom in creating our classes. This is a wonderful chance for innovation and experimentation, as well as idea-sharing. Do teachers prepare?  I do. But that’s my personality — I always have at least a short outline of what I want to accomplish.  Will my colleagues do the same?  Honestly, I don’t know.

For me, the freedom to invent is both exhilerating and inspiring.  But for anyone unwilling to “take the bull by the horns”,  it must be daunting…and would not play out well from the students’ point of view.  I think Fr. B and Ms. W have made sure to select people who are up this challenge.

Fr. B and Ms. W started the first training session off with a welcome and a  summary-level description of how the program will work (see previous post).  Then Dr. D, a professor of Eastern religions at a small midwestern university, took over to present his first lecture on the development of philosophy, language, and religion in China.

The House of Prayer, where we are staying, expects silence except in our classroom (with the door shut) and the religious sister in charge did not hesitate to point out that policy to us. Dinner without chitchat is a bit hard for us Americans to swallow (get it? get it?) but we were heartened by a little sign on display near our table.

 

As of today, we are at the St. Paul House of Prayer in Sheng Shui, in the northern part of the New Territories, nearly at the border with “mainland China”.  Each person is assigned a room (with private bath!) measuring about 8 ft by 9 ft. I have a bed, a small desk, a lamp, and a chair. And a balcony.

Our entire contingent has arrived, except one poor man whose flight apparently has been delayed.  Here is our Cast of Characters:

• Ms. W – a glamorous Chinese lady who speaks excellent English
• Fr. B – the head of the program
• Fr. R – a Guatemalan-American working in Jilin, China
• Mr. J #1 – young brunet from Ohio
• Mr. J #2, Mr. J #3, Mr. P, and “Ace” – Chinese students from Jilin
• Ms. D – a child care teacher from Chicago
• Mr. D – former school psychologist, an Irishman by way of San Francisco
• Dr. D – an expert in Chinese culture and religions, guest lecturer
• Ms. R – a private school headmistress (from Virginia) who formerly taught for a year in Jilin
• Ms. K – from New Jersey with a background in the sciences
• Ms. E– a very pretty Texan
• Mr. E – a Special Education teacher from York, England
• Mr. G – mild-mannered retiree from New Jersey who taught this program last year
• Mr. M – a 6’4” redhead from the Twin Cities
• The Divine Ms. M – a high school science teacher from Illinois who taught this program last year.

This year’s program will serve 180 students, which is 30 more than last year. Even so, 360 students who wanted to attend did not make the cut, eligibility being based on their final grade in English at the end of last semester, or on their score on the CET (national exam of English proficiency).

Each of the 14 teachers will have 13 to 15 students for three days at a time before rotating to a new group. This gives the students exposure to a variety of accents and teaching styles.

Like last year, the first two sessions of the day are focused on reading, dissecting, and discussing news articles from China Daily, China’s official English-language newspaper.  The third and four period content will be up to the individual instructor to devise. A big change from last year is the addition of an optional fifth period – which is (alas?) my doing.  More about that in a future article…

Lafayette, I am here!  (Psst…Lafayette? Yoo hoo…?)

Arrived last evening in Hong Kong in time to take a quick tour of the hotel (adjacent to the airport and quite swanky) and crash into bed.  Today I’m swimming at the “spa”, relaxing, and organizing my travel and teaching materials while waiting for the rest of the team to arrive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breakfast (in the airport, because it’s cheaper than the hotel) was a bowl of noodles, beef, and scallions in broth.  No chopsticks anywhere in sight!

I’ve just received a message from Ms. W, the coordinator of the program, with our schedule for this week in Hong Kong before flying to Jilin:

Monday:
Overview of the Maryknoll China Teachers Summer Program
Chinese Religions

Tuesday:
History of Maryknoll in China
Chinese Religions
Summer Program Teaching Format
Survival Chinese (i.e., Mandarin and pinyin)

Wednesday:
Aspects of China
Chinese Religions

Thursday:
Chinese Religions
Survival Chinese
Experience Sharing by former teachers *

Friday:
Chinese Religions
East vs. West

*  I assume I will be involved in that session, as I am one of three teachers who also participated last summer.

The apparently lengthy focus on Chinese Religions is a series of lectures on Chinese philosophy and historical thought and how the resultant point of view differs from that of Western, Judeo-Christian peoples.

 

On my way, at last. Not ready, of course. Time just out-raced me.

This is the lightest I’ve ever packed for a trip this long, but my airline limits me to a single bag. Oddly enough, I seem to be carrying mostly equipment – teaching aids, such as index cards, playing cards, pens, Post-Its, and my Uno deck (about which more later); assorted OTC medicines “just in case”; and my all-important water filter/purifier. This last may sound silly to Americans, but having got sick for three days in Hong Kong in the early ‘80s from swallowing one mouthful of tap water in a nice hotel, I don’t take chances. Last year I was the only teacher who didn’t experience some kind of water-related difficulty.

I’m bringing along only four sets of clothes, which may seem odd but both Hong Kong and Jilin were so hot and muggy last summer that I ended up rinsing out my blouses and slacks every day. Besides, most of our students only wear two or three outfits during the program. Chinese students often don’t make the distinction between what we would consider “fancy” clothes and more informal wear: the same student may attend class on Monday in a T-shirt and shorts, then show up on Tuesday in a cocktail dress.

Things I am hand-carrying that I consider most important part of my luggage:

• an outline of lessons as I conducted them last year;
• a dozen “extra” lessons that I hope to present in partnership with at least one other teacher;
• the plan for a research project I hope to conduct, consisting of two surveys to gauge students’ perceptions of themselves as English speakers before and after the program.