Ben - China
Sixteen students are
absent from my grade one lesson. Almost half the class. This is by no means a
common occurrence - there's no place for truantism in China's rigidly
disciplined school system - yet they seem to think they can get away with it
during my lessons because to them I'm simply not a teacher. I'm a Foreign
Teacher, an entirely different species, and what I say or do just doesn't carry
the same weight as my Chinese colleagues.
"They are not
here," pipes up one of their more outspoken classmates "because they
think your lessons are not very interesting."
"Do they do the
same in your other lessons?" Even as I ask, I know I'm flogging a dead
horse and that this line of reasoning will get me nowhere.
"Haha. It is not
allowed." By now I've become accustomed to this particular variety of
humourless Chinese laughter; it says, "Don't ask such a stupid
question."
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Another of the more
vocal members of class 6 joins the discussion:
"Your lesson is
not very important to us. There is no exam."
As hard as this might
be for me - their caring, sharing, progressive teacher - to accept, in a way
it's actually true. No exam means that my Spoken English course will not
contribute to their all-important final grade, and therefore will have
absolutely no bearing on their chances of getting a good university place, and
ultimately a job. To these students, grades are everything.
"We must study English
well; it is vital for the development of our China", I have been told. But
bland platitudes like this aside, and despite China's current obsession with
adopting English as de facto second language, when it comes to the crunch for
most high school students - not to mention their parents - the only thing that
matters is a percentage score on a piece of paper.
Every student in China
is required to study English up to and including University level, and
standards in reading and writing are often very high, especially in schools
like mine - this is one of the provincial education bureau's 'key schools' for
English teaching. Grammar, vocabulary, sentence constructions; the traditional
aspects of language learning are taught and tested thoroughly and by rote -
perhaps not the most pedagogically useful of methods, but at least it helps
pass those exams. The spoken and communicative aspects of the language,
however, are almost never assessed. Even though there are some very talented
students simply begging to be challenged and inspired in their English classes,
my lessons will always play a poor second fiddle to grammar rules and textbook
work.
"You're not like other Foreign
Teachers, Mr. Ben. You don't want to play games."This frustrating situation is what
an American colleague of mine has described as the dancing monkey syndrome.
Balanced precariously between valuable educational resource and cut-price
entertainment service, the role of the Foreign Teacher is not often clearly
defined by the institutions that recruit or employ them. This is a situation
which isn't helped by the flooding of the circuit in recent years with young,
unqualified teachers who see an ESL job in China as a stepping-stone to an
expenses-paid holiday in return for sixteen periods of hangman each week -
acting the fool and playing the dancing monkey to keep the students happy.
While I see nothing wrong with that in itself - China needs all the help she
can get when it comes to English, and it's certainly great experience for
anyone considering a teaching career - it leaves in the minds of my students a
confusing and conflicting impression of the purpose of the Foreign Teacher.The schools
themselves don't help matters either. Competition in the education sector is
strong, and having a pet Foreigner is a very prestigious mascot for a Chinese
school. Middle-ranked schools especially feel they have to set themselves apart
from local rivals, yet in the race to attract us the schools are tripping over
themselves.I am left
largely to my own devices when it comes to teaching. On one hand this is no bad
thing - complete freedom in the classroom to teach whatever and however I see
fit, with no textbook to slavishly follow is, I'm sure, a situation that many
teachers would envy - but the flipside of this is that my classes just don't fit
into the larger scheme of school life. Since coming to China I've taught
classes of up to 60 for only a single, 45-minute period each week. You don't
have to be a maths teacher to see that this doesn't amount to a lot of contact
time per student, but this is all the timetable space the school have been
willing to make available for what is - so they claim - one of their most
important subjects. Not only that, but my classes are regularly moved or
cancelled at no notice to make way for something eminently more important -
like yet another set of exams. To add insult to injury I'm not even on the
timetable as an English lesson. I'm a 'Foreign' lesson.Neither are
many institutions especially rigorous in their recruitment. The luckier ones
get to work with organisations such as VSO or the British Council, who
guarantee a certain standard and commitment from the teachers they provide, but
this route is not open to every school - in most cases only to those, such as
key schools, which already have a high calibre of student. The remainder, being
almost too eager for their own good to employ a Foreign Teacher, seem to
operate a no-questions-asked policy. I've even come across non-native speakers
employed as English teachers; in many cases all that would seem to be required
is merely looking Foreign enough.As a result of
all this, the students - too used to a rapid turnover of dancing monkeys - have
decided not to co-operate. In short, they don't want my carefully crafted,
inspiring, life-enriching lessons; they want a clown who plays hangman. At
times I have felt like a wasted resource.Outside the classroom - as a novelty, an interesting
Foreigner to talk to, confide in, ask for advice or just to make fun of - they
love me, but as a teacher they'll never truly like me.
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