Teaching English Abroad

[Monoriu]

When I was a student I hated those Simpsons and Sesame Street videos that the non-local teachers loved to show.  I was totally bewildered when I saw them - incomprehensible words, incomrehensible accents, incomprehensible cultural references.  I am the sort of person who must get the meaning of every sentence 100% before I am willing to move on to the next.  So if I don't get 100% of the first 3 minutes of the show, the rest mean nothing to me.  Those shows are very frustrating. 

[Neil]

When I was a student I hated those Simpsons and Sesame Street videos that the non-local teachers loved to show.  I was totally bewildered when I saw them - incomprehensible words, incomrehensible accents, incomprehensible cultural references.  I am the sort of person who must get the meaning of every sentence 100% before I am willing to move on to the next.  So if I don't get 100% of the first 3 minutes of the show, the rest mean nothing to me.  Those shows are very frustrating.

But you are forgetting the reason that you are learning English to begin with:  To service us.

It is essential that you learn those cultural references, because that is the why that civilized people speak.

[Monoriu]

Those videos were totally incompatible with the rest of the curriculum.  Starting from grade 1, we learned to listen to English by doing weekly listening tests.  We put on our headphones and listened to a tape.  The tape was a woman with an announcer type perfect English accent.  She would speak a sentence or a paragraph then pause.  We must write down the sentence/paragraph on a piece of paper.  Marks were deducted if our answers differed in any way from what the announcer spoke.  It was not enough to get the meaning right.  It must be a word-for-word exact match.  We did the same sort of test for 11 years straight, every week.  We were trained to get every word down.  Every time I watched the Simpsons I was horrified - if I needed to put every word of the dialogue down, I would fail the test. 

[jimmy olsen]

Those videos were totally incompatible with the rest of the curriculum.  Starting from grade 1, we learned to listen to English by doing weekly listening tests.  We put on our headphones and listened to a tape.  The tape was a woman with an announcer type perfect English accent.  She would speak a sentence or a paragraph then pause.  We must write down the sentence/paragraph on a piece of paper.  Marks were deducted if our answers differed in any way from what the announcer spoke.  It was not enough to get the meaning right.  It must be a word-for-word exact match.  We did the same sort of test for 11 years straight, every week.  We were trained to get every word down.  Every time I watched the Simpsons I was horrified - if I needed to put every word of the dialogue down, I would fail the test.

The only test I've given so far is a face to face interview with questions I wrote. The other tests the teachers give are paper tests, but I'm pretty sure headphones aren't used. I'm the go to guy for the evaluation of their spoken English.

[Eddie Teach]

Are your students attached to a school or are the classes open to the general public?

[jimmy olsen]

Are your students attached to a school or are the classes open to the general public?

Public school.

[The Larch]

I am the sort of person who must get the meaning of every sentence 100% before I am willing to move on to the next.

Which is the worst thing you can do when trying to learn and use a new language.

[Caliga]

I am the sort of person who must get the meaning of every sentence 100% before I am willing to move on to the next.

Which is the worst thing you can do when trying to learn and use a new language.

Well, he speaks English perfectly now, so I guess his method (strange as it sounds) worked.

[The Larch]

I am the sort of person who must get the meaning of every sentence 100% before I am willing to move on to the next.

Which is the worst thing you can do when trying to learn and use a new language.

Well, he speaks English perfectly now, so I guess his method (strange as it sounds) worked.

Either that or the fact that, you know, he emigrated and lived and studied in Canada for several years?

[Caliga]

I forgot about that. 

[PDH]

Down with robot chinese schools.

[KRonn]

They way I get around having to drink at company functions is to take a sip or two in their view, and dump the shit in a plant when they aren't looking.

That won't work against Chinese officials.  They all drink, and when they see that you don't drink, they'll ask you to take a tiny sip.  Once you do that, they'll be sure that you do drink, and there is no end to it.  The trick is not let anything through at all.  No sip, no beer, no wine, no spirits, nothing.  If you do that, they'll either back down and declare you a pussy, or the entire table will say you don't give them face and you risk all out war with them.  Since I'm from Hong Kong and is considered a guest in Beijing, they'll likely back down.  That's what happened last time. 

Also, Chinese tend to sit down around a table, not walk around like in a cocktail reception setting.

Wow, pretty militant drinkers, eh?       I'd be with you - I drink little or nothing, and have no desire to drink alcohol heavily.

[DGuller]

The offer/refuse rule is that a polite person declines an offer at least twice.  You can accept on the third offer.  If you're offering only to be polite, you offer twice.  If you really mean it, you offer three times.

If everybody knows this, then doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose of both parties being "polite"?

[DGuller]

Wow, pretty militant drinkers, eh?       I'd be with you - I drink little or nothing, and have no desire to drink alcohol heavily.

It was the same in Soviet Union, according to my dad .  The pressure to drink is enormous, and there is no way to refuse without becoming a total outcast.  Nobody wants to have a sober guy watching and remembering all the elites making idiots of themselves, and not reciprocating.  It's a very degenerate culture.

[KRonn]

Wow, pretty militant drinkers, eh?       I'd be with you - I drink little or nothing, and have no desire to drink alcohol heavily.

It was the same in Soviet Union, according to my dad .  The pressure to drink is enormous, and there is no way to refuse without becoming a total outcast.  Nobody wants to have a sober guy watching and remembering all the elites making idiots of themselves, and not reciprocating.  It's a very degenerate culture.

Well, I just tend to think that drinking, socially or otherwise, is done too easily, too often, resulting in one of the larger addictions and problems; in the US anyway.