[720P] 张学友《祝福》

Rethinking English Language Teaching and Learning in China

Rethinking English Language Teaching and Learning in China
Posted on 25 November 2013 by Deena Boraie
I have just come back from a very successful TESOL Symposium held in Guangzhou, China. We were hosted at the beautiful Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, which is located near Baiyun Mountain. The theme of the conference was really intriguing: “Envisioning and Creating the Future for English Language Teaching and Learning.” Although the focus of the discussions was on China (because almost all the participants were from China), I think this topic is extremely important at this point in time in our field, and we should have these discussions all over the world. One of the issues that generated a lot of debate was the proposed reform of reducing the weight of the English examination used to admit students to universities in China from 150 points to 100 points, while at the same time raising the number of points for Chinese and the arts and sciences. This means that more emphasis will be placed on Chinese and less on English. Over the years, the role and status of English has fluctuated in China, reflecting the political climate. This proposed change in the examination implies that the demand for teaching and learning English in China, which increased dramatically in the past few years, may have peaked. It also reflects a change once again in the role and status of English. In an article published in the Deccan Herald on October 22, 2012 entitled “China’s English obsession slowing down,” the author states that China’s obsession to learn English to catch up with the rest of the world showed signs of wariness amid complaints of stressful experiences of students over mastering the language as well as fears it could overtake Mandarin in the long run. Although the China Daily on October 26, 2013 reassured English language teachers that interest in English will not wane and in fact, would become stronger, the discussions during the TESOL Symposium showed that many teachers believed that this policy change will have a significant impact on their careers. See photos of this event Personally, I question English language policies that impose a one-size-fits-all approach that does not allow for flexibility and does not take into account the available resources and the level of demand for English in the various regions of a country. For example, in Egypt (as an Egyptian, this is the context I am most familiar with), English is a compulsory subject and is taught from Grade 1 in all public and private schools in the country. After 12 years of studying English, the level of proficiency of most Egyptian high-school graduates is low. This is a low return on investment by the government and the challenges for improving the effectiveness of the system are high. The quality of English language teaching and learning needs significant improvement and many students do not actually need or use English in their lives. I wonder whether there is a more effective approach to implementing English as a Lingua Franca all over the world. Please share your thoughts on this! This entry was posted in TESOL Blog, TESOL Leadership Blog and tagged deena boraie, EFL in China, ELF, ELL assessment, English as a lingua franca, English in China, evergreen, TESOL President, TESOL President's blog, TESOL symposium. Bookmark the permalink. - See more at: http://blog.tesol.org/rethinking-english-language-teaching-and-learning-in-china/#sthash.VbD5OmOD.dpuf

English Lesson in China (China vs. U.S Education)

Cantonese vs Mandarine

http://www.zgyyzx.com/1.

why Cantonese is not a language but a dialect of Chinese?

http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2858/why-cantonese-is-considered-as-a-dialect-of-chinese

they're not completely different, but similar in some ways. You should know, all dialects are different.

• Mandarin Chinese is not a natural language. It grabs pronunciation from Beijing dialect, vocabulary from all the northern dialects, grammar from the articles written by great writers during the New Culture Movement.
• Modern dialects have only one root -- Middle Chinese. Middle Chinese (中古漢語) is the lineal descendant of Old Chinese (上古漢語). Cantonese is also from Middle Chinese.
• Although the written form is different. The original characters are the same. The new characters are only made to show the pronunciation of Cantonese.
• Northern dialects of Chinese lost the entering tone (入聲). For example, 力 is pronounced as "li4" today in Mandarin, but it's "lik" in Middle Chinese. Many southern dialects still have entering tone.
• Cantonese is not the same as Middle Chinese, but a descendant. In fact, all today's dialects are its descendants.

You see: Cantonese is from a language which all other dialects (including Mandarin) are from, so Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese, not a new language. 

Profile: Xi Jinping: Man of the people, statesman of vision

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-12/23/c_132058866_2.htm

Critical Pedagogies in Korea: Some Closing thoughts and Materials

Critical Pedagogies in Korea: Some Closing thoughts and Materials: A friend of mine is teaching various lessons based on the Tao Te Ching.  You can see her blog here . And esletc is a fantastic blog full o...

Class Plan

CLASS PLAN

1.      Teaching context description: I teach at a foreign language high school. My students are second graders, two classes are Chinese major and the other class is English major learning Chinese as their third language. There are 5 writing classes a week for Chinese major and 4 writing classes and 4 speaking classes for English major. Because of the curriculum design, English major has more class than Chinese major; however, their Chinese level is similar to Chinese major students in general. Most of the students start learning Chinese from the first grade of their high school and several students have lived in China for a while. Therefore, the students’ Chinese speaking level ranges from lower intermediate to advanced level.

Because Chinese is not one of the compulsory subjects for their university entrance exam, students do not have deep motivation to learn Chinese especially second graders. in order to make Chinese learning interesting, I introduced a popular Chinese language game to my students which is the main activity I will do in my Chinese class.

There are 23-24 students in the class. It’s big for a language class with only 50minutes class time limitation. In the class, not every student has the chance to speak Chinese, and not every student understand my Chinese class. This situation limits students’ participant into the class. 

2.      My activity rational:

There is a popular Chinese language game in China’s variety show, which is called who is the spy. The game is played by 7 famous stars in China, 6 of them get the same vocabulary, 1 of them gets the different but similar vocabulary. The different one is the “spy”. Every person should say something to describe the vocabulary in hand. The team members should guess who the spy is from their descriptions and after each round they will point to one person that might be the spy they think until they point the spy out and the game will be finished. If the spy cannot be found until the game finished it means the spy wins, otherwise the 6 person team win.

The interesting part of the game is even the spy himself/ herself doesn’t know he/she is the spy. They have to deduce who is the spy from the description.

I think this game is very helpful for students to learn Chinese because it involves the ability of speaking, listening and the deduction based on the understanding. Moreover, it’s not only a language game but also involve the social culture that embedded in the vocabulary.

In order to adjust to students’ Chinese level, I changed the game rule for a little bit and design the activity as a 3-class unit.

3.      The activity for my language class

1^ST Class: Preparation—game introduction and vocabulary searching.

After a brief introduction, I showed students the variety show video clip that famous stars play in. The 2 video clips are about 15 minutes; students almost understand how to play the game after watching. They all look interested in the game but some students showed concerned that it might be difficult for them to play.

With this concern, I asked the students to work in groups of 4 to list some vocabulary pairs that could fit the game and fit their Chinese level to play from the topics that we have learned in speaking Chinese class before mid-term: transportation, Chinese festivals and jobs. During the discussion, I walked around to help students. At the beginning, one of the groups has no idea about what they should do. I have to explain again and they started working. One of the groups not only list the vocabulary pairs but also had discussions about how to explain the vocabulary in different way. When the class finish, I collected students’ vocabulary list.

2^nd Class: Game playing

Before the class, I made vocabulary cards according to students’ vocabulary list.

In order to adjust to students’ Chinese level, I changed the game a little bit.

There will be 8 volunteer students to play the game and 2 of them will be the spy. Students are allowed to take dictionaries with them. Instead of playing alone, they can ask help from a partner and have 2 minutes to do preparation together. The audience will have the right to point to the spy. With this change, it involves every to participate.

During the 50 minutes class, the students have played 3 times of the game and when the class finished, they were still talking why they think he/she is the spy.

3^rd Class: Game reflection

Students are required to review the vocabularies they played in the game and draw a tree map to write down anything they remembered from the game or new ideas come from the game. They can work in pairs and some comments on the game are welcome in order to improve the game