Teaching Chinese Students

In at least one respect, I'm not a typical expatriate teacher of English. Many-perhaps most-of us make out careers teaching overseas. I came out here after many years of teaching and teacher training in England only three ago, so I'm still relatively a newcomer. And of course I make comparisons. Of course former Colleagues ask me what it is like to teach Chinese students? In what ways do they differ from native speakers of English? How do they compare with the students in English schools who are of Asian parentage, but who hardly remember a home elsewhere than in an English city? To these questioners my answer is that Chinese students differ from one another just as do those of any nationality. The longer I stay, the less I am willing to generalize.

When students ask me similar sounding questions,I find that I want to give a rather different answer.There is, I think, more to their questions than friendly curiosity.They want to know(even if they do not put it like this)where they stand, and how they rate, as users of English as an international language. They know, as I do,that for all the hard work that has gone into their learning of the language, their attainments still fall short of their hopes.They want to know if that English is good enough, and indeed what "good enough"means.They would like to know if there are ways in which their bilingualism, and their biliteracy, gives them and appreciable advantage, and whether, especially,their limitations and weaknesses in English are identifiable and can be remedied.

These are some of the answers I think are true, and that I hope are useful. Learning any foreign language takes a long time and a great deal of effor, but learning any foreign language takes a long time and a great deal of effort, but learning one that belongs to a different language family from your mother tongue is especially hard.I knew in England experienced teachers of English to speakers of Asian languages belonging(as do the languages of Europe) to the Indo-European language family.When these teachers met primary students from Hong Kong they perceived them as diligent but slow.Those teachers simply failed to recognize that if Cantonese is your mother tongue you simply have more to do than(say)a Punjabi speaker, so of course you need longer to do it. It is easy to get discouraged and, in effect, to give up. Some people do--every if among those who go on attending classes conscientiously! many more fail to recognize how much they have actually learnt and to respect their own achievements.

Realistic Targets

It is important to set yourself realistic targets. For all but a small, exceptionally gifted minority,native proficiency is not a realistic target. A Chinese user of English should not feel that because he sounds and seems Chinese when he uses English that he has been less than successful in acquiring it.To have learned English well is to be fully intelligible to another user of standard English and to understand him,in ordinary circumstances."Of course"ordinary circumstances"differ between users.Highly technical vocabulary is entirely ordinary in the context of air traffic control or information technology or any one of the many scientific and technical contexts for which English is the language of international communication. Advanced students of English need to consider what are the range of purposes for which they are likely to use their international language, and to select courses where those purposes are recognized and understood by their teachers.

Appreciate Your Strengths

I have said it is important to recognize your achievements. It is also important to appreciate your strengths. Failure to do so leads to misplaced anxiety and misdirected effort. In my experience Chinese students usually have(relative to the stage they have reached)a large vocabulary. In addition, they are good at spelling.(Many intelligent native speakers fail to come to terms with the writing system of English, which is not irrational, but is complex, and spell badly)Chinese students have some characteristic weaknesses too. Even when they can distinguish unfamiliar English sounds quite well,they often fail to do so beacuse they speak much too fast.Then they wonder why native speakers have trouble understanding someone whose English is so fluent! They need someone to say--just slow doen!Take it easy!Stop trying to prove how fluent you are, and your spoken English will improve.

Compositions Not Too Soon
Some-not all of the weaknesses students display in writing English are, I believe, aggravated by the educational system, and the pressures it exerts on teachers and students alike. In particular, I believe that students are often required to write English compositions too soon. Writing so as to express your own thoughts,
opinions and observations is difficult even in your mother tongue.There are pitfalls and opportunities to error at every turn when you are using your second language!The stage of guded writing,the exercises where you are given the ideas or where you are expected to complete or change or adapt sentences, rather than to invent them,is a very important stage, and should be an extended one.I think it is too often cut short in case students get bored. If the exercises are suitable though, they are difficult enough to be interesting, but not so difficult that most students have no real expectation of success.

Reading a Bilingual Magazine

Students often say to me that they would like to improve the level of their English---what can they do on their own?Reading a billingual magazine is obviously one answer!Some of these suggestions are helpful to some students.Read the English language newspapers and concentrate on the pages that really interest you--sports or fashion or the stock market if you like. If your family doesn't want to watch English language TV,see if you can have a small set in your bedroom.

Use English

You do need to use English with speakers who are not teachers of English. This isn't easy, since everyone feels constrained speaking English with friends with whom it would be natural to use a shared mother tongue. Joining an English Club is a good idea and joining a club with an international membership(Where English is in use at least some of the time)is,for many people, even better. If nothing like this is accessible, you might consider what would be involved in getting something going.

What I say in answer to questions, is as you see,what I have learned and I am still learning. This is natural enough, given that the study of a language is a collaborative effor between teachers and students, Success in it, it seems to me, is conditional on avoiding not boredom but discouragement, of setting goals that matter to you and targets that are attainable,of realistic assessment of what has been achieved and of what has still to be done, and of finding opportunities of putting what you have learned to enjoyable use.