A "Talking Stick" for English Corner

I introduced the concept of the "talking stick" to our English Corner students this week, trying to get them to see the importance of one person speaking at a time and respect for the person holding the stick. Rather than carve something out of a deciduous or conifer, I hiked to a bamboo forest in the nearby mountains to fetch a length of bamboo for the talking stick. I nearly amputated my index finger trying to cut the bamboo, although I was saved by a dull Swiss Army knife. Now we have a talking stick to use during our weekly "circle talks". And at the end of the year, I'll be able to carry away the stick as a memento of these fun experiences with the students. The stick will hold their communal energy and the accumulated dirt and oils from their hands. And I'll have the memories.

Group Work in English Class

With my brightest classes, I'm trying to maximize the time I give them in small groups where they can practice English. In a large class of 60-80 students (I counted heads this week and found that I had 80 students in one class), individual students have very little "talk time". The small groups provide that time, although it gets quite noisy. Since the Chinese have much interest in the culture of America and other countries in the west, I plan to build some lessons this term around activities of American high school students. I started this week with a presentation on "field trips" made by American students. I prepared a slide show of photos with students visiting the White House, going to the museum and aquarium, making cycling trips and going on visits to national parks and nature sites where they learn more about science. First I had to pre-teach new vocabulary which always involves a lot of creativity. The students loved the presentation and laughed and "wow"-ed all the way through the slides, but it seems that I lost them when I moved them into groups of eight to dream about and plan -- all in English -- a class trip they'd like to take. I'm not sure if they just weren't able to reflect on the presentation and use critical thinking skills to see that I was asking them to plan their own trip, or was it simply that they didn't have the language to understand the task. It worked well in some classes and not so well in others. I'll do some revision next week with more simple language to see if it works. These small groups will be an opportunity for the students to improve their language skills, so I want to stick to the strategy if I can get it to work. Standing in front of the class and merely having them repeat what I say or read from the board won't build fluency.

English Corner

We meet weekly on Sunday afternoon for an informal "English Corner" during which students practice spoken English in smaller groups. Today was my first and I hosted about 20 students, mostly seniors, who were eager to hear more about ME. Since the idea is to get them to practice their spoken English, I steered the conversation toward talk of their own families. I learned that some of them come from families of more than one child (the official policy in the PRC is "one child family"), and that a second child is permitted in exchange for paying a "tax" of about RMB 6000 (slightly less than $1000).

Getting the students to talk about issues really helps them manufacture new language, so I asked if they had heard about the recent Guizhou earthquake. They easily became animated and expressed sadness, wanting to be able to do something as a school. When I asked what they wanted to do, one student carefully described that the victims needed help to build new houses -- "because that's where love is found", he added. It was great to hear them using their English without fear. It's not that way in a classroom of 60 students, so these English Corner sessions on Sundays allow smaller groups more freedom to speak.

The Welcome Luncheon at Yilong

The headmaster and director of the school hosted the two foreign teachers - self included - at a spectacular and formal "Welcome Luncheon" on Saturday. We met first at the headmaster's office to hear about his goals for our work. Mr. Jang has been with the school for 20 years and is, himself, an English teacher. It was exciting to hear his vision for this generation of Yilong students whom he sees as the future leaders of a new China. In order to ensure that, he hopes that we will integrate lessons about our own culture and about key global issues in our teaching plan. I'll start this week with a series of lessons focused on cultural practices of American teens and high school students, asking my language students to discuss the material in small groups and then build language around how the practices in America contrast with those in their China. These "content based" lessons allow students to acquire new language in a context of material that is meaningful to them. It's a much more efficient strategy for second language learning than doing grammar drills! Teaching here is really exciting! Anyway, back to the luncheon. Take a look at the spread of food which included seafood, chicken feet, marinated pork, eel, Peking Duck, tangy vegetables, Sichuan-style soups, corn congee and rice. We were happily spared the local brew (baijou) and were offered beer or wine instead.