III. Curriculum

Introduction

There is no national ESL curriculum emanating from the Central Government of China. Each public and private educational institution is free to develop and implement its own ESL curriculum so long as public degree granting institutions meet the total required instructional hours (private schools are not allowed to grant degrees). The ESL teaching curriculum in public institutions is broken down into separate classes teaching vocabulary, reading comprehension, listening comprehension and oral conversation. In private institutions ESL is taught as a homogeneous subject. As a result, public school students with six or more years of ESL classes are well schooled in grammatical rules but unable to produce an intelligible basic English conversation; while private school students are capable of producing advanced English conversation within three to six months and are able to advocate and debate in English after only one year of ESL training. While the latter group may not be well versed in grammatical rules, they are effective ESL communicators.

Band 4 and Band 6 Tests

Band 4 and Band 6 are standardized ESL tests for Middle School, Senior School and University students in Public institutions. Chinese ESL teachers designed the tests. These tests purport to measure student accomplishments in vocabulary, listening comprehension and reading comprehension, a somewhat dubious claim with even more suspect results, which have come under increasing criticism of late. (There are even professional exam takers who will sit as a proxy for someone who is not capable of taking the test. This type of cheating requires the knowledge and assistance of the test monitor and further dilutes the validity of the process.)

In any event, these tests do not test oral communication or production ability. Tragically, these tests actually discourage oral English teaching throughout the various levels of public academia in China .

Oral English

The goal of the Oral English or English Conversation class is to have the students utilize and practice what they have learned in the vocabulary, phonetics, comprehensive reading and comprehensive listening classes. A more apt class title would be "Speech Lab." The FE is the Lab supervisor who facilitates the Lab activity, i.e. speaking. This is not a lecture class that imparts substantive content for future reference, although interesting issues can serve this incidental function.

In China , Oral English classes in public schools have 60 to 150 students sitting in a lecture hall all facing the teaching platform in the front of the room. (Teaching and Learning Forum 2001, Zhichang Xu, "Problems and Strategies of teaching English in large classes in the People's Republic of China ") There are two, forty-five minute class periods per week. Students sit in lecture hall type seating facing the front of the room. With 60 students in a class, this provides each student with less than 1.5 minutes a week to practice oral English production with the FE.

In private schools there are usually no more than 10 to 12 students sitting in a small room with the desks in a "U" configuration for easier and friendlier conversation. There are ten, forty-five minute class periods per week. This provides approximately .5 hour per student per week for actual oral English practice with a FE.

The Speech Lab should be designed and equipped to facilitate speech production. Round tables, with which the Chinese are very familiar, or "U" shaped tables that provide teacher access in the middle, are the best seating arrangement.

A close, friendly, non-threatening atmosphere should be established to induce a friendly coffee shop approach to the small group conversation. As in a coffee shop, the topics should be current events that are relevant and interesting to the speakers. The best source for such topics is the local English newspaper, just as in the western Countries.

English conversation textbooks written by native English speakers are usually old and boring, using stories outdated by at least twenty years. The language is also old and outdated, culturally out of step with current language usage. English dictionaries are updated annually but these English textbooks are not. This is primarily due to budget constraints.

Textbooks written by Chinese English speakers often use inappropriate vernacular. They are usually authored by Chinese English speakers who have had little or no exposure to English culture and must rely upon their understanding of dictionary definitions for word choice. This dictionary definition English is too formalistic, rigid or brittle, and can produce tears of uproarious ridiculing laughter in a native English speaker who hears it. When was the last time you heard a native English speaker use any of the following expressions in daily conversation? 1. I am so sorry, pal. 2. Beg pardon. I didn't quite catch your meaning. 3. I must atone for calling you so late. (Interactive Speaking, 2001) Current production, at least in America , would be closer to: 1. Sorry. 2. What? 3. Sorry for the late call. The following are some random examples of sentences from Interactive 2001 that simply do not reflect the way L1 English speakers talk:

It's time to say our farewells. P55
Could they make me known the exact time the plane takes off? P69
Have I got the go ahead to put out the fire? P119
I wonder if you'd excuse me for a moment. P152
… I'm afraid. P183
I'm afraid …. P 24, 167, 182
Will it be convenient if I call upon you at seven this evening? P220
To be openhearted, your denial that you had witnessed the accident dumbfounded me. P 249
He chooses to look into the matter till the truth is out. P264

More often than not the FEs are left to their own devices to obtain materials for the oral English class. When materials run short or the well runs dry they resort to showing DVD movies or playing games like "hangman" in class to "kill time."

The FE must also keep in mind that topics for discussion must be of interest to a majority of the class members. A female to male ratio of 6 to 1 is restricting on the quantity of sports related articles that may interest the class.

Ad Hoc

When a recruiting school encourages a FE to bring cultural materials from home, it is a pretty good indication that the teacher is expected to provide their own teaching materials and that the school has little or no English teaching resources. There are probably not any English books, magazines, movies, or other written materials suitable for English discussion, not even the prevalent out of date, twenty-year-old texts used by so many modern Universities throughout China. Those FE who require a structured or "set menu" curriculum may view this as a detriment. However, the truly creative FE view this as the greatest and most challenging opportunity to develop their own teaching program using up-to-date articles of local interest and relevancy that will interest, excite and encourage their students to participate in the discussion.

Some schools provide English resources and materials but the teacher is free to select the specific materials and organizes them in the order of presentation. And of course there is always the school that does not provide any teaching materials and also forgets to advise the Fe to bring their own.

IV. Recruitment

Introduction

The only universal guidelines, regulations or laws regulating salary, travel expense, housing, medical or teacher qualifications appear in a 1994 publication of the State Bureau of Foreign Experts (Guide for Foreign Experts Working in China, republished in 1999). While there are controlling national immigration laws, FE certification requirements appear to vary from province to province, notwithstanding the guidelines of the State Bureau of Foreign Experts. Some of the remote provinces have allowed U.S. high school graduates to teach while Shanghai and Beijing will not.