China is growing at a rapid rate, some say too fast, others say it doesn’t matter. Either way, with this growth in China, students are encouraged, even required by law, if they attend college, to learn English. Companies look for students whose English level is the highest. As for teaching English in China it has gone through many stages, from the traditional teacher drilling vocabulary into the students to the introduction of new, more inspiring ways of teaching. Some of the problems that you will run into will mainly come from getting the students to relearn how they are taught. Most students have been in school for a long time, working twice as hard as I ever had to in school. There will always be the normal problems, students coming in late, things like that.

Student in China start early in their learning English and they are subjected to many hours of school. This does make some matters more difficult, most of the students already have ingrained into them some bad habits that you will have to work very hard to overcome in the students, mainly pronunciation and shyness. For the shyness it is easy to overcome; they love to laugh and have fun, and once they get to the point when they open up to the teacher, they become more willing to speak out and participate. When dealing with their pronunciation however the only way I have found to help them so far is working with smaller groups at one’s home, using tongue twisters and a lot of encouragement.

The standard method of teaching and the method that they are used to, is to listen and write down everything the teacher says about English. Then they memorize the vocabulary. The students are basically left to themselves to learn how to actually use it. The reading abilities of these students are phenomenal. They have a huge vocabulary, but they have no practice with pronunciation or general sentence structure (in writing or orally). So the problem for a foreign teacher coming in and teaching these students is two fold, (a) the students have little to no practice with speaking in English and if they were taught, most of them were taught incorrectly, and (b) the methodology of teaching them; students are used to a certain way of doing things and find it difficult or bothersome that they have to change the way in which they learn.

Getting these students to open up and communicate can be very difficult and frustrating. One of the things I have noticed is that every term it starts all over again, once you think that you have them opened up and the class is doing well and the students are making leaps and bounds in their English ability, you get stuck with new students who you have to teach the new method to all over again. This can become a little aggravating after a while, but the key is to be patient and understanding to the students’ needs. When you are teaching college students I think the main focus for you the teacher is to help them feel comfortable using the language. So basically you are using a communicative approach.

For a communicative approach to succeed in China, the issue of student autonomy must be addressed as it relates to student-generated learning activities. Due to Chinese cultural traditions, language classes are teacher dominant. Because of the cultural norms of "social relations in the classroom," the teacher is viewed as the authority and source of knowledge, and "Chinese students would not find autonomy very comfortable, emotionally, or indeed intellectually" (Ho & Crockall, 1995, p. 237). However, autonomy can be encouraged if the students use language in "personally-meaningful, real-world context(s)" (p. 242).

This is where being patient and understanding come in, because you have to realize that not only are you working with them in a language in which they are not comfortable, you are also teaching them in a way that they do not understand at first. Do not be discouraged by some of the students who do not want to work and, despite your best efforts, will not participate. When this happens, move on and just focus more of your attention on the ones that do want to learn. Always remain pleasant; never become angry with them, this is a huge wrong-doing in China. So most of the troubles come in the form of trying to get the students involved with learning what you have to teach them. Encourage them as much as possible (with them, “flattery always works.”)

References:

The contra-tricentric method of teaching English as a foreign language: the pedagogy of Han Zhongliang. (Language Teaching & Learning). Retrieved from,

Richard Jordan