Monday, March 15, 2004
Doing The ESL Thing and... Enjoying It
See photos of Ken, Judy and their classes performing for CCTV.
When you’re flying by the seat of your pants with no curriculum, no guidelines, no exams or levels of achievement to judge by, you soon learn to improvise by falling back on what you know. This sums up most of our teaching of oral English. This term we are much more relaxed. We know the students and can more effectively evaluate their differing abilities. While improvisation was the key to last term, this term we have an overall plan for the whole of the remaining year. No more sudden veering in another direction because this or that lesson didn’t work. Fewer discouraging “where do we go next?” questions. Why? We have found the light, salvation is to hand, or rather we have found the popular English language evangelist Li Yang and his unique (for China) way of teaching the language, which he calls “Crazy English”.
So who is this guy Li Yang and what is his Crazy English all about? Our students knew of this man because he has been featured in the national media, as well as being the subject of a documentary film. His teaching methods were not, however, in practice in any secondary school that we knew of. Before we go forward, a little background is necessary here. So here’s the story in summary. Li Yang was a failure. He had no early aptitude for language. He was a shy introverted person who failed 13 of his college exams, including English in his first try. The mystery of his sudden road to Damascus change still needs more analysis, but the facts are these. On his own, Li Yang discovered what many language teachers know. Merely reading a language, studying its grammar and writing its signs are nowhere near to using it as a communication tool. Speaking, out loud and often, speaking with enthusiasm and commitment, speaking with energy in the informal vernacular of the language is the way to go. It is kinetic. It is learning by doing. It is effective. It works.
With this new command of English, Li Yang finished with the second highest English mark in his college, went on to become a broadcaster on the Guangdong People’s Radio Station and the youngest member of the China Translators Assn. China Today says: “His English became so pure that it is hard to distinguish him from a native speaker.” With all the zeal of the newly converted, Li proselytized on behalf of learning English using his method, as the key to the lingua franca of the world, speaking to audiences of 20,000 to 30,000, and thus spreading the word.
His message is practical, nationalistic, evangelical and aims itself right at the heart of China’s desire to overcome “Chinglish”. As well as giving lectures, he’s written many books of exercises which feature practical vocabulary and phrases and conversations, with emphasis on natural expression and current lively usage. While Li Yang’s personal journey in English is inspirational, his get-out-there-and-say-it attitude offers something which few Chinese students have - confidence. We’ve bought three sets of books so far, and find them very useful in the classroom. Once they landed on our desks in the English office, they were grabbed up and devoured by our fellow English teachers, as if we’d just brought down the tablets from the mount! Our adaptation of the material seems to work. The students are definitely enjoying what we have to offer. We know that we’ve taken on an ambitious program that we’ll never be able to complete. But we feel we are at least establishing a beachhead.
We’re also introducing “Crazy Idioms” by Carolyn Choong, books of English idioms, which are colourful in any language. Such common English phrases at “barking up the wrong tree”, “all ears”, and “dead duck” have enlivened their vocabulary, and they enjoy speaking them, both in class and on campus. The teachers have also taken to studying these idioms as a way, we think, of broadening their understanding of English. The fact that colourful cartoons and translations in Chinese are also available in these books helps students understand easily.
We’ve introduced as many gimmicks as our combined imaginations can produce. Anything that can produce sentences in English is grist for the mill. Most recently we have introduced the pronunciation difference between “cheap” and “chip”, and to reinforce this difference, we bring packages of potato chips to class, and offer these as prizes to the students who can make 5 complete sentences in English about this product. The fact that the package is graced by a popular Chinese rock star is motivation as well. Amazingly enough, this incentive works. Students at this age are voracious eaters and seem permanently preoccupied with food. Combine that with oral English and the result is motivation in the Pavlovian sense.
Our move to this new style of teaching oral English received the encouragement of the Vice Principal, Mr. Gao Ji Lai, who talked it up with the students and obviously with the teachers. And truth to tell, we have become somewhat of a showpiece for HRYZ, not so much because we are innovators, but that we know how to do this job well, no matter what the content. So whenever there’s the chance to trot us out as something that the school has to offer to prospective students, our smiling faces are placed before the public.
Which brings us to CCTV International. On Wednesday March 10, CCTV, China’s premiere TV station descended on our campus for a half-day of filming. We were among those chosen to perform in two different venues and to be included as outstanding teachers for the school. Keyan had given us a heads up on this the Friday before, and so we had some time to prepare for a lecture on the teaching of English idioms, and a class lesson in oral English using a television program interview format.
The lecture was scheduled for the prestigious third floor conference room in the Administrative Building. Around a large, oblong wooden table with tropical plants in its centre and bowls of fruit laid out for those attending, and a computer-generated image projected on a screen as background. It was a wait of 10 or so minutes for all assembled before the show would start. The teaching staff dove into the fruit, until at one point we had a row of banana eating teachers. Mr. Gao Ji Lai immediately saw that the visual presented by the fruit eaters was not the one he wanted to be seen as the public image of Huairou Yi Zhong. (Even though this is the year of the monkey!) The fruit was removed. The film crew arrived. The Party secretary, Mrs. Li, gave the signal. The Judy and Ken show began. Of course Mrs. Feng, HRYZ’s own media expert and videographer was there to film the CCTV crew. We had barely made the first sortie into the subject, when it was over. The CCTV crew hurried on to the next venue, the Academic building. Ken’s senior 2 students in class 1 were to be filmed in their oral English class. The students were excited. Ken was breathless, having run from one building to another and up 3 flights of stairs. The class was prepped, the stage was set, and after a 10 minute wait the CCTV crew arrived. The students performed flawlessly. The piece was an imitation of a CCTV program called “Dialogue” and students took the parts of announcer, a professor of social science for Beijing University, and a student at Huairou Yi Zhong. The subject was close to the heart of any sixteen year old, the celebration of birthdays in China. The students spoke fluently, with expression and characterization. With good reason they were proud of themselves...another triumph for the oral English program. Another feather in the cap of two Canadian oral English teachers. Another...well yet another Ken and Judy front and centre experience we survived.
Has it all been clear sailing in the oral English program this term? Well, not really. Our students are gradually worn down by a schedule that locks them into a 15 hour day, 6 days a week. And Senior 3 students go to school every day of the week. Their day begins at 7:20 am with a listening exercise. Formal classes begin at 7:50 am and lunch is from 12 to 1:40pm. Afternoon classes end at 5:30 and after dinner, there’s a 3-hour study session, ending at 10:00 pm. It’s a long day in anybody’s country.
Then there’s what Ken calls the “oh say can you see” problem. Short sightedness is endemic in China. It is here the optometrists will find heaven. Most students wear glasses in the latest fashion and loan them to their classmates so that they can see the blackboard or screen. Judy noted a student the other day who was wearing not only his own glasses but those of his partner. We assumed he was able to see more clearly with this double auxiliary support. Or is this a new definition of double vision? Students often squint and move forward to see. Lately we have been using the overhead projector for study materials and this is often the cause of further viewing problems.
Sure, there are the the usual number of slackers and non participants, but students now know that not paying attention will get you teacher notice and likely a stint at speaking in front of the class. Students are also aware that “I can’t”, even if spoken “I cahnt” in the British manner doesn’t pass muster. The predictable gaggle of gangling boys to whom “life is only a basketball hoop shot and nothing else matters, especially oral English when I already communicate in Chinese, thank you” can be distracting for the teacher. In spite of this we move ever excelsior, ratchetting up the demands in each lesson and enjoying those moments when it all comes together in a success.
Outside of class we have had our fellow teachers consult us more and more on the particulars of our native tongue. They seem to have overcome what to us seemed an initial shyness in consulting with us on the subtlties of the English language. It seems that we have too many words within only shades of meaning of each other. And that is true. The English lexicon is huge in comparison to other languages. Although we are hired as “foreign experts” we don’t push ourselves forward as the only source of wisdom. We find that our Chinese-English teaching colleagues certainly do know a thing or two about our mother tongue.
On the subject of consulting we are in the process of taking on another student to tutor in English in the evening. Some of our readers will remember Richard of bargaining prowess, a 22-year-old student at Wuhan University, whom we helped in the very demanding British International English Language Test System. Well, Richard is back in Huairou/Beijing and consulting with us. Our new student is Luo Jing Xin, a 23-year-old university grad and announcer on the Huairou television news. We liked him the instant we met him. Personable, courteous, intelligent, sincere, committed and hard working, Luo Jing Xin comes 2 evenings a week and we do lessons with him. He is a big strong guy, well over six feet and has a muscular build that comes from working out and being a healthy eating/exercise outdoors person. He is as new to Huairou as we are, having only come here in July 2003. When he speaks you can readily understand that he is someone who knows how to handle his voice. His ear is trained to pick up the nuances of inflection in language and he is learning fast. One night we pressed him to read some classic Chinese poetry and he read the ancient poet Li Bai’s paean to wine drinking with such passion and emoted so beautifully that we felt the music of the language. The cadence and expression made some meaning available to us non-Chinese speakers. It is a poem that many Chinese have by heart. It was clear to us that Luo Jing Xin is someone who loves the feel and taste and shape of language just as much as we do.
With two thirds of our stint at Huairou Yi Zhong nearly over we feel we have gained a perspective on things. We now know that the crowded classrooms will be a thing of the past once the new academic building is finished this year. We know that even as teachers retired from that profession, the old instincts and skills return the instant one is at the front of the class. We know that being here is as much a test of ourselves as it is of our students.
It is a great feeling to be in on something at the beginning. China will be in the centre of what will happen in this new century. We cannot but be moved by Li Yang when he says, “In the 21st century people with a mastery of both English and Chinese will be in great demand around the world. So we must study English, true English, in earnest.” In some small measure we have allowed ourselves to think that we are part of that inspiration.
See photos of Ken, Judy and their classes performing for CCTV.
When you’re flying by the seat of your pants with no curriculum, no guidelines, no exams or levels of achievement to judge by, you soon learn to improvise by falling back on what you know. This sums up most of our teaching of oral English. This term we are much more relaxed. We know the students and can more effectively evaluate their differing abilities. While improvisation was the key to last term, this term we have an overall plan for the whole of the remaining year. No more sudden veering in another direction because this or that lesson didn’t work. Fewer discouraging “where do we go next?” questions. Why? We have found the light, salvation is to hand, or rather we have found the popular English language evangelist Li Yang and his unique (for China) way of teaching the language, which he calls “Crazy English”.
So who is this guy Li Yang and what is his Crazy English all about? Our students knew of this man because he has been featured in the national media, as well as being the subject of a documentary film. His teaching methods were not, however, in practice in any secondary school that we knew of. Before we go forward, a little background is necessary here. So here’s the story in summary. Li Yang was a failure. He had no early aptitude for language. He was a shy introverted person who failed 13 of his college exams, including English in his first try. The mystery of his sudden road to Damascus change still needs more analysis, but the facts are these. On his own, Li Yang discovered what many language teachers know. Merely reading a language, studying its grammar and writing its signs are nowhere near to using it as a communication tool. Speaking, out loud and often, speaking with enthusiasm and commitment, speaking with energy in the informal vernacular of the language is the way to go. It is kinetic. It is learning by doing. It is effective. It works.
With this new command of English, Li Yang finished with the second highest English mark in his college, went on to become a broadcaster on the Guangdong People’s Radio Station and the youngest member of the China Translators Assn. China Today says: “His English became so pure that it is hard to distinguish him from a native speaker.” With all the zeal of the newly converted, Li proselytized on behalf of learning English using his method, as the key to the lingua franca of the world, speaking to audiences of 20,000 to 30,000, and thus spreading the word.
His message is practical, nationalistic, evangelical and aims itself right at the heart of China’s desire to overcome “Chinglish”. As well as giving lectures, he’s written many books of exercises which feature practical vocabulary and phrases and conversations, with emphasis on natural expression and current lively usage. While Li Yang’s personal journey in English is inspirational, his get-out-there-and-say-it attitude offers something which few Chinese students have - confidence. We’ve bought three sets of books so far, and find them very useful in the classroom. Once they landed on our desks in the English office, they were grabbed up and devoured by our fellow English teachers, as if we’d just brought down the tablets from the mount! Our adaptation of the material seems to work. The students are definitely enjoying what we have to offer. We know that we’ve taken on an ambitious program that we’ll never be able to complete. But we feel we are at least establishing a beachhead.
We’re also introducing “Crazy Idioms” by Carolyn Choong, books of English idioms, which are colourful in any language. Such common English phrases at “barking up the wrong tree”, “all ears”, and “dead duck” have enlivened their vocabulary, and they enjoy speaking them, both in class and on campus. The teachers have also taken to studying these idioms as a way, we think, of broadening their understanding of English. The fact that colourful cartoons and translations in Chinese are also available in these books helps students understand easily.
We’ve introduced as many gimmicks as our combined imaginations can produce. Anything that can produce sentences in English is grist for the mill. Most recently we have introduced the pronunciation difference between “cheap” and “chip”, and to reinforce this difference, we bring packages of potato chips to class, and offer these as prizes to the students who can make 5 complete sentences in English about this product. The fact that the package is graced by a popular Chinese rock star is motivation as well. Amazingly enough, this incentive works. Students at this age are voracious eaters and seem permanently preoccupied with food. Combine that with oral English and the result is motivation in the Pavlovian sense.
Our move to this new style of teaching oral English received the encouragement of the Vice Principal, Mr. Gao Ji Lai, who talked it up with the students and obviously with the teachers. And truth to tell, we have become somewhat of a showpiece for HRYZ, not so much because we are innovators, but that we know how to do this job well, no matter what the content. So whenever there’s the chance to trot us out as something that the school has to offer to prospective students, our smiling faces are placed before the public.
Which brings us to CCTV International. On Wednesday March 10, CCTV, China’s premiere TV station descended on our campus for a half-day of filming. We were among those chosen to perform in two different venues and to be included as outstanding teachers for the school. Keyan had given us a heads up on this the Friday before, and so we had some time to prepare for a lecture on the teaching of English idioms, and a class lesson in oral English using a television program interview format.
The lecture was scheduled for the prestigious third floor conference room in the Administrative Building. Around a large, oblong wooden table with tropical plants in its centre and bowls of fruit laid out for those attending, and a computer-generated image projected on a screen as background. It was a wait of 10 or so minutes for all assembled before the show would start. The teaching staff dove into the fruit, until at one point we had a row of banana eating teachers. Mr. Gao Ji Lai immediately saw that the visual presented by the fruit eaters was not the one he wanted to be seen as the public image of Huairou Yi Zhong. (Even though this is the year of the monkey!) The fruit was removed. The film crew arrived. The Party secretary, Mrs. Li, gave the signal. The Judy and Ken show began. Of course Mrs. Feng, HRYZ’s own media expert and videographer was there to film the CCTV crew. We had barely made the first sortie into the subject, when it was over. The CCTV crew hurried on to the next venue, the Academic building. Ken’s senior 2 students in class 1 were to be filmed in their oral English class. The students were excited. Ken was breathless, having run from one building to another and up 3 flights of stairs. The class was prepped, the stage was set, and after a 10 minute wait the CCTV crew arrived. The students performed flawlessly. The piece was an imitation of a CCTV program called “Dialogue” and students took the parts of announcer, a professor of social science for Beijing University, and a student at Huairou Yi Zhong. The subject was close to the heart of any sixteen year old, the celebration of birthdays in China. The students spoke fluently, with expression and characterization. With good reason they were proud of themselves...another triumph for the oral English program. Another feather in the cap of two Canadian oral English teachers. Another...well yet another Ken and Judy front and centre experience we survived.
Has it all been clear sailing in the oral English program this term? Well, not really. Our students are gradually worn down by a schedule that locks them into a 15 hour day, 6 days a week. And Senior 3 students go to school every day of the week. Their day begins at 7:20 am with a listening exercise. Formal classes begin at 7:50 am and lunch is from 12 to 1:40pm. Afternoon classes end at 5:30 and after dinner, there’s a 3-hour study session, ending at 10:00 pm. It’s a long day in anybody’s country.
Then there’s what Ken calls the “oh say can you see” problem. Short sightedness is endemic in China. It is here the optometrists will find heaven. Most students wear glasses in the latest fashion and loan them to their classmates so that they can see the blackboard or screen. Judy noted a student the other day who was wearing not only his own glasses but those of his partner. We assumed he was able to see more clearly with this double auxiliary support. Or is this a new definition of double vision? Students often squint and move forward to see. Lately we have been using the overhead projector for study materials and this is often the cause of further viewing problems.
Sure, there are the the usual number of slackers and non participants, but students now know that not paying attention will get you teacher notice and likely a stint at speaking in front of the class. Students are also aware that “I can’t”, even if spoken “I cahnt” in the British manner doesn’t pass muster. The predictable gaggle of gangling boys to whom “life is only a basketball hoop shot and nothing else matters, especially oral English when I already communicate in Chinese, thank you” can be distracting for the teacher. In spite of this we move ever excelsior, ratchetting up the demands in each lesson and enjoying those moments when it all comes together in a success.
Outside of class we have had our fellow teachers consult us more and more on the particulars of our native tongue. They seem to have overcome what to us seemed an initial shyness in consulting with us on the subtlties of the English language. It seems that we have too many words within only shades of meaning of each other. And that is true. The English lexicon is huge in comparison to other languages. Although we are hired as “foreign experts” we don’t push ourselves forward as the only source of wisdom. We find that our Chinese-English teaching colleagues certainly do know a thing or two about our mother tongue.
On the subject of consulting we are in the process of taking on another student to tutor in English in the evening. Some of our readers will remember Richard of bargaining prowess, a 22-year-old student at Wuhan University, whom we helped in the very demanding British International English Language Test System. Well, Richard is back in Huairou/Beijing and consulting with us. Our new student is Luo Jing Xin, a 23-year-old university grad and announcer on the Huairou television news. We liked him the instant we met him. Personable, courteous, intelligent, sincere, committed and hard working, Luo Jing Xin comes 2 evenings a week and we do lessons with him. He is a big strong guy, well over six feet and has a muscular build that comes from working out and being a healthy eating/exercise outdoors person. He is as new to Huairou as we are, having only come here in July 2003. When he speaks you can readily understand that he is someone who knows how to handle his voice. His ear is trained to pick up the nuances of inflection in language and he is learning fast. One night we pressed him to read some classic Chinese poetry and he read the ancient poet Li Bai’s paean to wine drinking with such passion and emoted so beautifully that we felt the music of the language. The cadence and expression made some meaning available to us non-Chinese speakers. It is a poem that many Chinese have by heart. It was clear to us that Luo Jing Xin is someone who loves the feel and taste and shape of language just as much as we do.
With two thirds of our stint at Huairou Yi Zhong nearly over we feel we have gained a perspective on things. We now know that the crowded classrooms will be a thing of the past once the new academic building is finished this year. We know that even as teachers retired from that profession, the old instincts and skills return the instant one is at the front of the class. We know that being here is as much a test of ourselves as it is of our students.
It is a great feeling to be in on something at the beginning. China will be in the centre of what will happen in this new century. We cannot but be moved by Li Yang when he says, “In the 21st century people with a mastery of both English and Chinese will be in great demand around the world. So we must study English, true English, in earnest.” In some small measure we have allowed ourselves to think that we are part of that inspiration.
All text and photography © copyright Harkaway, 2003 - 2004
