ESL Teacher

Please Note: The first part of this posting is pretty negative and pretentious, so please read the second half to find the silver lining. Thanks!

A page from my basic English textbook, which demands that my students engage the great issues of the day.

The last two weeks have been busy ones for me: I have begun teaching English to undergraduate students in the International Exchange College here at Shi Da. I am in the classroom fifteen hours a week—more than at CBC. I have five separate classes of between 32-35 students who I meet with two times a week each for three hours total. I am becoming an ESL teacher, an job which, I must admit, I am ambivalent about (no offense to my ESL colleagues at CBC).

I had first imagined that I'd be teaching history here. When the idea of teaching "Spoken English" was raised, I warmed to the idea while speaking to Yongsheng, Arienne, and Philip, a friend of mine who had taught English in Greece back in the 1980s. The impression I got from those conversations was that I could use "spoken English" as a vehicle for talking about ideas and engaging in the kind of cross-cultural interaction that I desired to have during my trip to China. I imagined that I'd be coming to classes and simply speaking with students in an informal way. I figured these students already spoke English reasonably well. They just needed practice talking with a Native speaker. In speaking English, I thought, we could discuss the environment, politics, and culture.

The reality is that "Spoken English" classes here are not what I had envisioned: “This is a subway station” as opposed to “What do you think of the concept of democracy?” The course I teach, "Basic English 1," follows a strict lesson plan. Our textbook asks students such deep questions as "What do you think about online personal ads?" and "Where was Nicole Kidman born? Where was she married?" and "When did she win an Academy Award?"

Ok--so people have to learn how to speak English before they can discuss Foucault's "Pendulum." I realize I sound pretentious, but it is discouraging to encounter full classrooms of students who, despite seven or more years of English, are speaking and comprehending spoken English at a grade-school level or below (they are much better with the written word). To be fair, their English is far better than my American students’ Chinese! And yet, it does feel like banging my head against the wall. I'm just not sure I have what it takes to sustain my enthusiasm through a semester of mindless rudimentary drills: “Everyone repeat: When I was a kid, I used to be very messy, but now I’m very neat.” I clearly have to reform my thinking. Perhaps I should be sent to the countryside to work on a collective farm to learn the value of real labor. For now, I sometimes feel like I'm embarking upon a semester of drudgery (kudos to my ESL colleagues at CBC—you have far more patience than I).

Beyond the elementary subject matter of my classes, I also have this lurking sense that I’m simply another cog in the ESL machine here. Despite the lofty title of “Foreign Expert,” a foreign expert (meaning English teacher) in Hohhot seems to be any warm body, as long as it’s a warm foreign body. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter that I have a Ph.D. in history as long as I’m a native speaker. They could just as easily pick up a foreigner off the street. At Shi Da, I’m lucky to have three college-grads as my colleagues, but only one of them, Karen, a former elementary school teacher from Wisconsin, actually had teaching experience before coming to Hohhot. Tyler, 25, is a business major from Oklahoma who came to China and began teaching English three years ago; Kenneth, 22, just graduated in Public Administration from UNC Lafayette--he's never taught a day in his life. Knowing that any one of my students at CBC could be doing my job here is not an uplifting thought.

So what is the other side of the story? What is the silver lining, despite the obvious fact that this teaching assignment has given me the opportunity to experience China for seven months (which was the main goal anyway)?

For one, I didn’t have ONE STUDENT MISS CLASS during the entire first week of classes (over 150 students). One student was absent from one of my classes on Monday, and he visited me on Tuesday and begged me to let him return to class (he also gave me a box of chocolates). Another student missed on Tuesday of this week: he actually came to class late and then, not wanting to interrupt the lesson, he waited in the hallway for the entire session and then apologized to me immediately afterwards. EVERY student completed the homework that I assigned the first week (including the two delinquents who missed class).

My students respectfully refer to me as "Teacher." They say "Hello, Teacher," "Goodbye, Teacher," "Have a good weekend, Teacher," "Thank you, Teacher." They write me emails like the following one from John Nan (Nan Wei):

“I am John Nan. Weekend I was too busy to send a E-mail to you . Today's weather is too bad . Raindrops kiss the earth ,but it's not warm and hot kiss.In this water world ,everything feels a bit cold.

I searched the Web of your college--Columbia Basin College. She is very beautiful !

Oh ,it's time I must go to have English Writing Lesson.See you tomorrowa and I will finish my home work.

Wish you everything is OK."

There is something old fashioned and endearing about all of this, coming from the American education system where students are almost totally oblivious to any form of social deference. Many students in my college classes never even bother to learn my name. Some of them simply call me, "Arnold." They miss class. They come late and leave early. They don’t bother to do their homework and don’t feel the least bit apologetic about it.

And yet, is the deference that Chinese students display meaningful or simply part of their social training? In America, at least I know I can earn the respect of students and that such growing respect can be measured. Here, it is hard to know. If I was the absolute worst teacher they ever had, they would still sit in their seats respectfully and say "Thank you, Teacher."

Then there is Seymour (Liu Shao Peng) who, on the second day of class, said his hero is Osama Bin Laden. The class laughed--clearly he was making a joke. I was a little taken aback. In an American classroom I probably would have asked some follow-up questions to get him to defend his choice, but, with the low level of comprehension here, it was futile. I simply brushed off the comment and moved on. Later I received this email from him:

"Mr.David

I'm very sorry to say Ben Lardon is a hero in my heart. I think ,I'm not only hurt you ,but also hurt your country. I want to say you ,in my heart,my hero is Liu Xiang .He is the first Asian gained the step 110 metre railing's Gold- medal in 2004 Olympic Games .

At first , I want to make a joke to you .I hope that you won't angry with it. You know , I love the peace of the world . I love my country. And I like your country ,too . I hate that who destroy the country and peace .

I hope you can forgive me."

Despite the fact that the subject matter of my ESL classes is not intellectually stimulating, I’m still learning a lot about life and culture here in China (or at least I think I am).

For example, one exercise in my basic English textbook asks students to "match the words in columns A and B to make compound nouns."

Most of the words are connected to public transportation systems: column A contains the words bicycle, bus, parking, street, subway, taxi, traffic, and train. Column B contains the words garage, jam, lane, light, space, stand, station, stop, and system. The only exception to the "transportation" theme is that column A also contains the word "news," which can be successfully matched with "stand."

The most complicated concept in the exercise was explaining to my students the meaning of "system." Leaving out the full range of possible definitions, I told them that "system" in the sense it was being used here meant something that is "organized, coordinated, and planned." I wrote these words on the board and asked them which matches made sense. They could easily see that city buses, subways, and trains are organized, coordinated, and planned: we know where they will go every day; they have schedules, numbers, colors, and routes.

What was so fascinating to me was that EVERY one of my five classes also claimed that there was a "news system."

"But is the news planned?" I asked. "We know what the trains will do today," I explained, "but do we know what will happen in the news?" "Do we know if a plane will crash today?"

They nodded but did not seem to fully understand. Was this is language misunderstanding or a cultural misunderstanding? It is well known that during Mao's time, and even after, news outlets in China were required to report only "good" news. Even today, everyone knows that during the stifling heat of Chinese summers when the mercury often approaches 40 degrees, the temperature is always reported at 35 degrees because of a law that gives everyone the day-off if it is above 35. In a country where for so many years the news was (and still is) "planned," were my students simply stating the obvious? Likely, it was just a language thing, but I couldn't help noticing the irony.

So I’m learning a lot. And I’m in China. And teaching English is not my only job. Today Mrs. Wu Yunna called me about the teacher’s seminars that are now scheduled for Thursdays from 4:30 to 6:00pm. Originally, I was supposed to continue seminars on history and teaching methodology with the junior faculty from the International Exchange College. But now, the English Teachers from the Foreign Language Institute also want to be involved, so there will have a big group of intellectually curious faculty participating in these seminars for the entire semester. What we will talk about remains to be seen, but it should be very interesting.

Thanks for reading.

Dave