In five and a half years of teaching English in China, I have never found myself in a situation where I had a Chinese Assistant, or where I was required to teach 'specific lessons' from 'Specific Books'.

Because school attitude's have always been one of just throwing a foreigner into a classroom and hoping that this will produce some magic effect whereby Students will suddenly acquire language skills, I've always been left to my own devices in trying to develop the student's language fluency.

Over the years I have learned many ways in which to get otherwise shy students to speak, and have learned to heavily rely on Chinese cultural thinking to break through the culture barrier.

Over the last 2 years I have published 19 articles at Kingscalendar about what I teach in Class, and many foreigners have written to thank me for those articles, because the articles have given them something with which to work.

Recently I was asked if I have a 'Teaching Plan'. Whilst it is obviously true that I have a plan and methodology in my teaching, I have never actually sat down to write out a 'Teaching Plan'.

What I present here today, is the Introduction to such a Teaching plan, the full version of which will soon appear at  Kingscalendar.

I hope that those foreign teachers who have been looking to gain something of my experiences in China might have a clearer understanding of how I proceed.

Cautionary Note:  Some Chinese believe that it is not possible for Chinese Students to acquire conversational skills unless they live in a foreign country.

Luo Laoshi's Conversational English Teaching Methodology 

This particular article sets out R.P.BenDedek's (Luo Laoshi) Aims, Objectives and Methodology  in his teaching and is a natural follow on from  What is the Foreign Teacher's Job?

Preface:   

The teaching plan as presented herein, when successfully followed by Students, is designed to provide them with the following Skills:

i)  Natural Conversational Ability based on English Language Culture Discussion Skill.

ii)  Aural Appreciation of  Normal English spoken at Normal Speed English with no distinct separation between syllables and words.

iii)  Understanding and correction of, Oral Grammar, Tones, stresses, Chinglish, Language Ambiguity and Idioms. 

Foundational Premise of Teaching Plan
  
1.  Chinese Social, Educational and Political Culture prevent students from engaging in English Language Culture. In practical terms it means that students have no ability to engage in normal conversation with foreigners.

2.  Cultural Prohibition prevents students learning conversational skills and techniques that allow one to avoid hot topics or to otherwise control or direct conversations.

3.  Unfamiliar with English Language Culture, students are ill-equipped to deal with foreign culture.

Introduction 
 
Within the Chinese Educational system, the highest importance is given to learning grammar and passing tests. English Grammar is not synonymous with the English  language, and passing language tests is neither synonymous with nor indicative of conversational ability.

The objective within class is to release students from the Cultural, Political, and Educational restraints that prevent them from exercising the English Language in it's normative state.  This is achieved through a variety of methodologies that are flexible enough to meet the needs of students irrespective of their current level of competence.

Methodology       

1.  Theoretical Skills Teaching - in English
2.  Intellectual Brainstorming - Group Discussion in Chinese
3.  Practical Demonstrations - in English
4.  Real-Time Examinable Discussion - Group Discussion in English. 

1. Theoretical Skills Teaching - in English (Technical Terms)     

Language skills are normally acquired through the actual use of language, but the deficiency in use of the English language within classroom situations has robbed Chinese students of acquiring the necessary language skills.  It is therefore necessary to explain and demonstrate the technical aspects of the usually naturally acquired skills.

2. Intellectual Brainstorming - Group Discussion in Chinese   
 
Over emphasis on Grammar combined with the cultural, educational and political cringe reaction of Chinese when a wide range of normal, culturally acceptable topics (within English language culture) are raised, results in either a lack of consideration of a topic, or fear of expressing one's opinion about a topic.

Chinese Group Discussion (based on an English Text from China Daily that students must translate into Chinese), is designed to first set the students up to form an opinion in Chinese.

The next step is to work out how to express those opinions in English with the Brainstorming group, and then later to enter into English discussions with competely different groups.

3. Practical Demonstrations - in English    
 
Educational methodology has place a major emphasis on memorization of texts, but unfortunately this has resulted in Memorized dialogue rather than 'free expression' of one's thoughts and opinions.

Having had time allocated to translate articles from English to Chinese; to discuss in Chinese and to discuss in English, students are then called into 'demonstration' groups to test their ability to converse in a normal manner.

This normally requires constant reminding of the necessary skills, and repeated interruption by the teacher to demonstrate how a certain point, question or reply should have been handled. It heavily accentuates the use of Open Questions, Informative Answers, Word association and changing topics through the use of keywords.

4. Real-Time Examinable Discussion - Group Discussion in English.
     
Once Students have demonstrated that they understand the basics of conversational skill, they are no longer given articles to translate and discuss in Chinese, but rather, they are called to take part in discussions with randomly selected students, none of which have had time to prepare for the discussion.  This facilitates a naturally acquired skill of 'thinking' in a language.

Additional Skills Teaching  
 
a) Word Association:    

One of the skills students must learn is how to change topics by the use of keywords.  In order to develop this skill, students are taught how to 'word associate'.

This is demonstrated in a variety of ways, and a variety of exercises are provided to develop this skill.

b) Aural Skill:    

English Grammar teaching as taught in China consists of an explanation of a series of words and syllables that make up language, and Chinese tingli tests are designed to test comprehension through answering written questions which themselves relieve the student of the necessity to understand everything that they hear.

In my classes I spend time requiring students to listen to tapes for which there is no text, and about which no questions are asked.  In order to pass the test, students must be able to hear and write down what is spoken.

The major difficulty demonstrated through this exercise is that students do not recognise 'normal' spoken English.  To give an actual example of a situation in which I was teaching English Teachers, a teacher asked me to explain the meaning of a word on the tape.  I made the teacher write the sentence on the blackboard, and write as best he could, the word he did not understand.  He wrote:

 "The cowsarin the field "  No person in the room knew what 'cowsarin' meant and it could not be found in any dictionary. The actual sentence was:  "The cows are in the field. "

Students have little familiarity with the way words and syllables run together; of how 'h' often disappears; how consonants join with the first letter 'vowel' of the next word or of how one consonant will disappear when the last letter of one word and the first of the next are the same.

These exercises teach students to hear normal spoken English and to understand it.  

c) Speeches, Thesis, Letters, Memos    

Having gained language skill, students are taught how to apply basic language structure to the construction of Speeches, Thesis,  Letters and Memos using basic models of 'Presentation Formula'.

Note:     The Teaching Plan is not rigid in presentation as much depends on the level of the class as a whole, the degree of self-motivation demonstrated, and the speed at which the class as a whole understands and functions in any given area of teaching. This plan is but an outline of the steps involved in bringing students to a point where they are relaxed enough and confident enough to engage in any type of conversation.

R.P.Bendedek - aka - Luo Laoshi

Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com

R.P.BenDedek is the pseudonym of the Author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' (http://www.kingscalendar.com/), and is a guest columnist at Magic City Morning Star News. An Australian, he currently teaches Conversational English in China.

Photographic Stories from China at Magic City

"The King's Calendar" is a chronological study of the historical books of the Bible (Kings and Chronicles), Josephus, Seder Olam Rabbah, and the (Essene) Damascus Document of The Dead Sea Scrolls.