First class
The Chinese reticence to speak aloud in class is legendary. Again and again I was told, before leaving and since arriving in China, that I would need a crowbar to get my students to open their mouths.
I thought hard about how best to counter this. Here is what I came up with:
- I resolved to never ask for volunteers, and to only ever nominate students for answers.
- In the even of students remaining silent in response to being nominated, I bought a tennis ball.
- The first thing I wrote on the board was the words “Attendance, Participation, Effort.” Below them I wrote “
Perfect English” - Then, when explaining how the class would be assessed, I made very clear that if a student completed the examination perfectly, but had missed classes, not tried hard, and had not spoken, they would fail.
- On the other hand, if they found English very difficult, and did not do well in the exam, but had come to all the classes, spoken aloud a great deal, and made lots of genuine effort, they would do better.
Heavy handed? Maybe. The first thing that they learned was that I would fail them for silence. Actually, that’s about as heavy-handed as it gets. From there:
- I opened class with “Find someone who…” - my favourite ice-breaking game, as it forces everyone to -gasp- get on their feet, and move around the room, talking to other students. It’s designed in a way to make it impossible to complete unless you move around the room and talk to different people. That said, I didn’t do a very good job of explaining it, which limited its effectiveness somewhat. Still, got them moving, and filled the room with voices, only a small number of which were speaking Chinese.
It worked. Class participation was so high that I retired my resolution to never ask for volunteers, and that Mr. Tennis Ball never had to leave his drawer. Success.
There wasn’t even that much giggling, from the 39 teenage girls, though some of them were definitely showing off. Fine, I thought, as long as they’re talking!
One tried to force upon me personal Chinese language tuition. I respectfully declined - I’ve been advised to keep the students at arms’ length, which seems very sound advice. The email address I gave (in the event of a problem; if you cannot come to class, etc, contact me at…) was made especially for the purpose.
Feeling very positive for lesson two, different group of students, Wednesday.
