How do I get these kids to talk?
I teach at a 3rd ranked university in Wuhan and I am really enjoying my first-time ESL teaching experience. The kids (mostly girls) seem friendly and open enough, and there is just enough old-China charm instilled in them that they stand to speak and follow directions.
My frustration comes in trying to get these kids to talk - not to each other, not on a cell phone and not in Chinese.
Physically arranging them in groups is impossible; the classrooms are set up lecture style (and that is what the students are used to). Permanently assigning them to a group is counter-productive as it costs them the opportunity of working with a variety of students. Calling on a group to present work from an assigned activity generally results in the group selecting their best speaker to present.
Calling on individual names had its advantages, but also some major drawbacks. Girls especially are taught to not be loud, so they virtually whisper their answers. Even though they are standing, I have to practically stand next to them in order to hear, and I'll just leave to your imagination what happens with the rest of the class. Also, having not learned everyone's names yet, if I call on a student, I'm liable to be calling on some member of a group I've already called on.
Posing a question to the entire class brings virtually no results.
Today I brought a ball to class and tossed it to the student I wanted to address for the vocabulary portion of the lesson. That helped some... but I could use other suggestions!
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Well, i'm not english but french teacher. The student are the same so is the technic.
First, you probably know, but the chinese society tell their kids to shut up and listen(or repeat)from the early stage of the school. So you can't be surprised they don't say a word sometimes.
My advice is to
1) give them a preview of he lesson before class (like the day before for example), you take 5 min. at the end to tell them what is the subject of the next lesson and then, if your school is not too greedy give them each a simple paper with the most important sentences they've got to learn. Don't forget to tell them you will check if they studied the document. I also make a mp3 file with all the sentences (it takes you 2 min to do it and that can really help, especially the shiest ones)
2) about their names, why don't you have a class plan and a list with the position of the students, their age, major. On this document you can give marks for oral. You can also put a board on the wall with the ranking of the students. Unfortunately chinese students really believe in competition but it can help.
3) movements, moving is very important. Few chinese words from time to time. In China it's not abnormal to meet the students outside class, this is the best way to geting them to trust you. When they know you, everything is so easier.
You have to know anyway that to be teacher in china, it's actually like doing a one man show. If you get them to listen carefully it's already a good thing, to make them intervene by themselves during the lesson it's whe hey like and trust you.
Most of my ESL teaching was with younger students, but I did do some university classes, and can definitely empathize.
My suggestion would be to make sure you give the students a clear objective and plenty of time to prepare. This will help focus them on what they need to do and give them enough time to get comfortable with what they want to say.
As by university most students' written English is lightyears ahead of their spoken, you might want to warm them up for a couple of classes (or at the start of each class with prepared homework from last class) by having them read something short ("This weekend I plan to", "Last night I...", "This summer I hope to...", etc.). Stick to topics they like with relatively simple English (movies, pop culture, food, dreams, etc.)
Using more structured situations for speaking will get them comfortable with it and open up new possibilities for group work. I know from the other-side (learning Chinese at a university) there was nothing more fear-inducing than a teacher calling on me to answer on the spot when I wasn't prepared to answer. It pushed me, and so was good motivation for me to prepare, but it can easily go the other way and demotivate as well.
The 80/20 (maybe more like 90/10) rule is in full-effect with large classes of ESL learners, and as much as it's painful as a teacher to leave any student behind -- many are just not interested. Give them all as much opportunity as you can, and try to light a fire under as many as possible, but ultimately with large classes, a bit of learning triage is sometimes necessary to assure the ones that are there to better their English skills don't lose out.
Source(s):
A few years teaching ESL