The Monkey Kings 美猴王

I just had my first English corner. English corner at Web means you, the foreign teacher, are holding an hour long seminar. I see it as a great way to get experience in holding a meeting and speaking in front of a group.

I don’t know how successful it was. It is often difficult to tell just what Chinese people are thinking, because so many of them hold their emotions–happy, sad, angry or ecstatic–inside. If I were in Germany or Italy I’d probably know exactly what most of them thought; but most Chinese people don’t want you to think they disapprove of you.

Anyway, my subject was American comedy and I analysed an episode of Seinfeld with them. The show is based on everyday subjects, familiar things; characters that drive the plot, and not the other way round; relationships; common things made funny; repeating words until they become funny. The reason I don’t know if it was successful or not is that there wasn’t a lot of participation and my students didn’t get a lot of the jokes. But they appreciated a lot of the humour when they understood it, and they learned about what makes American comedy funny, so I hit my goal.

Today was the Monkey Kings second day of teaching English at our new company – Web International. When preparing for a lesson you know the maximum number of students attending but that’s about it. It’s only when you walk into the classroom right at the start that you notice how the group dynamics will play out.

I enjoy teaching classes with 1-4 students and ones with a large number of students. It is the classes with 5-10 students that are the most challenging.

Classes with only one or two students are the easiest and most rewarding. The students are engaged and active. There is no way to coast. Plus, students learn the most in these classes. It helps that the classroom is very small so you are physically close together making it tough to ignore the teacher. It is mostly the same with 3 or 4 students but usually in this size group, at least one person will be more shy than the others which provides a bigger challenge to bring him into the group and engage him.

The toughest classes are with 5-10 students. The classroom is bigger so the students aren’t in the action as much. They are tempted to lay back and let the other students be more involved. The problem is everyone thinks that way so everyone waits for the others to respond. Of course, no one does. The classroom also has one large table which acts as a physical barrier much more than in smaller classes.

People, no matter where you go, want to take the path of least resistance. One usually has to motivate themselves through goals and a purpose in order to choose otherwise. Being the class is only an hour long I haven’t so far made time to find out why many people want to learn English. But it is usually obvious when someone is self-motivated and want to be there vs. when they are only there because of someone else.

After my first couple of days of teaching English I have learned a few points that can help me be a better teacher:

1. Always try to use students names as much as possible. “That’s right Jane” seems to receive a much better reaction than just “That’s right.”

2. Use physical movement as much as possible. This is tough to do with small rooms but even a little movement helps to get the brain working better resulting in better retention.

Some of the challenges I still need to overcome more are:

1. Helping the students avoid using Mandarin in class. One possible solution could be to keep track on the board of the number of times each student uses Chinese. At the end of class there could be a small reward or funny punishment for whomever used Chinese the least/most.

2. The first minute sets the tone of the class. I’ve noticed that if things aren’t engaging in the first minute, it can take ¾ of the class to make that up and get everyone engaged again. I need to work on getting everyone engaged from the get go.

English teaching is quite rewarding as you are doing something worthwhile – helping people advance their skills. You have a direct impact on someone’s progress and also witness their growth first hand.

The Monkey Kings have been in Shanghai getting training from our employer, Web International. It seems like a good school with a solid business model, which could explain its relative success and fast growth. We learned all about how the school works, how to teach better and what is expected of us.

We each taught small classes. The key to teaching these classes is that you, the teacher, limit your presence. That means as little talking as possible. Most teachers want to lecture and some just talk to hear themselves talk. “Flip open those beginner textbooks, turn to the page on compound nouns and knock yourselves out.” But we are teaching conversation. You don’t lecture conversation into someone. So your job is to get them talking to each other, using the language that is the goal of the lesson.

And then you need to strike a balance between accuracy and fluency. Accuracy means getting it right. You can correct people when they make a mistake, but is that really how they learn? There is a part of the class where you should correct them. How do you correct them? You learn by thinking about what you are trying to say. Therefore, if you stop people and tell them, they won’t learn, they’ll just parrot you. Instead, stop them and say the same thing back to them. “We went to shopping.” “We went to shopping?” “Um, we went shopping!” But don’t worry too much about errors, because fluency is more important in language learning–speaking fast rather than speaking properly. As long as you can make yourself understood, you are communicating. So most of the class you want to focus on letting them speak to each other, asking each other questions and even correcting each other if they think about it.

Little talking from the teacher means maximum from the students. Making them think about their mistakes makes them remember them. And giving them the goals of the class and then sitting back helps their fluency. Sounds easy, right? We’ll see how well we do.