I recently posted on
Facebook a comment about a student in class here in China. It was
nothing very unusual, just the issue all of the teachers here face
every day – students doing the homework from other teachers in
their class. What made this a little different, and a little amusing,
was that the student, instead of trying to hide it, as they usually
do, had actually had the cheek to ask me to help him.
A trivial anecdote to
be sure but that's what Facebook is for.
It drew a response from
an acquaintance who deserves a public acknowledgement of his
contribution. He is an unfailing source of inspirational input who
never lets his total lack of knowledge on a subject prevent him
giving you his opinion the facts. With that in mind,
of course I don't feel even slightly insulted by his opening remark
that the student clearly finds the other teacher's work more engaging
than mine. Why would I? After all, if he suggests that I am not a
good teacher, who am I to argue?. He has never seen me teach but why
should that matter?
Similarly there is, to
my mind, absolutely no hint of passive aggression in his assertion
that I must find it “quite difficult to make language teaching
interesting”. My teaching qualifications and my years of experience
weigh very poorly in the balance when compared to his deductive
reasoning skills and his conclusion based on a single paragraph
about slightly amusing incident.
Now I don't wish to
seem ungrateful, after all I value his input every bit as much as
everyone else he interacts with does, but I would like to expand on
it a little.
It's clear that the
Chinese school day which is, at my school anyway, eleven and a half
hours long followed by a minimum of two hours home work each night
(and six days a week) will have no influence at all on whether the
kids try to do their homework in class time or not. The merest
suggestion is ludicrous. If the class is interesting they will be too
absorbed to do anything other than listen, won't they?
And if I gave homework
(which I am not allowed to do) I am sure that the other teachers
would be so interesting that there would be no temptation at all for
the students to try to do it in their lessons. In fact it would
probably be so dull that they wouldn't do it at all. And who could
blame them?
Later he goes on to
suggest that as my classes are intended to focus on speaking and
listening I could make it a rule that only English is to be spoken in
class. It is brilliant in its simplicity. I wonder why I never
thought of it. Get them to speak in English. It's quite breathtaking.
Of course there would be no difficulty at all in a class of eighty in
making sure that everyone speaking at once is speaking English. I
shall certainly have to try that.
I might also think of
some more rules – don't carve your names in the desk, don't read
comics in class, don't set fire to the bookcase, don't play cards.
Why this stuff is revolutionary. I must remember to tell the Chinese
teachers about it. I'm sure they have never even considered it. I
know I haven't.
His support for my
difficulty is well expressed when he goes on to say that he “can
appreciate the challenge with a class of that size”. Of course he
has never tried to teach a class of eighty eleven-year-olds but his
theorising is, as always, welcome input.
So to summarise, I am
inexpressibly grateful for these invaluable suggestions. As it will
take me some time to implement all of this groundbreaking stuff
though, I'd appreciate it if there were no more suggestions – at
least for the time being.
