[quote=“Brianjones, post:19, topic:160119”]
I’m talking about opening mouths to have a conversation in Chinese let alone English. You know the way neighbors don’t talk to each other in elevators or even when waiting for the elevator. That kind of stuff. A lot of people here find it REALLY hard to talk with strangers or in front of others.
[/quote]I think that’s a good thing tbh. I hate talking to strangers unless there’s like a specific occasion for it (aka involving alcohol).
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A mad teacher be like.
https://youtu.be/Dd7FixvoKBw
But seriously, facing students who have no interest in learning at all and come to school just because their parents have money to buy them a diploma, is a part of the teaching job.
I hear ya, I was just comparing USA and Taiwan. I hear many people say that they are this or that but from my experience, kids in USA are just as detached from reality and usually doing way worse things behind the scenes. The heroin epidemic in the USA has gotten so out of hand. It would be cool though to see this country embrace other cultures a little bit more. They stick.to this 'old Chinese Way but why? They all despise China!
Regarding students, my wife went to Providence University I think? Anyways, they have some art drama.club and she went there one day to do makeup for the students that were putting on this huge play, musical thing. They were all.pretty friendly and outspoken except for one chick. She told.me she was learning English and asked if I had any tips, I told her that she should speak a little more relaxed and that most English speaking people wouldn’t address each other like " pardon me sir, may I please ask you a question?" Anyways… she seemed sort of offended by my comment and I kind of felt like a jerk but I was just trying to explain how people talk in USA. Younger people would never address each other as " ma’am, pardon me please, may I ask you a quick question?".I guess I would be a shitty English teacher LOL I would be like Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam.
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Good thread. I go hiking a lot, by myself. Eavesdropping on people’s conversations what is very clear is Taiwanese don’t like to talk about stuff that is too personal. So every conversation is; favorite hotpot restaurant and lots of work gossip. Its frowned upon to venture into slightly controversial topics so its little wonder conversation classes here die a horrid death. The sort of navel-gazing/philosophizing young westerners like to engage in just doesn’t happen. Opinions are shaped to conform to everyone else’s, hence the 95% support for the death penalty here.
I’ve been teaching in a public schools for last 4 years and I see minor progress. The younger ones are generally more outgoing compared to 3-4 years ago. This is something that will take time. They have to adjust and realize that it is okay to speak up and be like a kid. As a public school teacher, I’m trying to let them know it is okay to be wrong, and if you are, just try again.
This is the part I hate about Taiwan the most. When I teach the teenagers, 95% of them are just empty. They have no life, no hobbies, no sense of identity, never been out of their own cities…it’s a shame.
As for adults, I had completely different experience. Most adults I’ve taught were really outgoing and outspoken with full of opinions. Maybe because most of them are business-minded people who are always traveling abroad, or have had some international exposure while they were growing up.
Akisan2 have you taught at the same public school for that period of time?
I’ve been transferred 3 times. So I’ve taught 9 different schools (all elementary) in my past 4 years with an exception of one Jr. high this year. I’m seeing the trend where the new enrollments were much more outgoing and fun-loving than previous ones.
It can be so frustrating. Being asked a question and knowing that the person asking does not give a jot what your actual response is because they already expect a particular answer. It makes me want to pull my hair out!
Akisan2 I’m currently working for a public school, I did two years in a buxiban and I need to find a new job because this school is closing their English department.
Did you go through an agency or just go to a school and hand in your CV?
I found this current job through an agency but the agency isn’t very good.
In the university (monastery) I am staying right now there is one teacher who originally comes from Germany but emigrated to Taiwan almos 40 years ago and he’s still not tired to force the students to be 主動 in class and it is totally awesome to see the result. People either love him or hate him, there is little middle ground. He just carried his german attitude to Taiwan and doesn’t give a shit to bend down. I admire that a lot. Those students who love him admit that they learn more in a few classes with him than with the typical taiwanese professor over a long period. I wonder how this compares to other asian countries but I do not think that the situation in 中國大陸 is any better. The students here can be impressive in reproducing knowledge, but they usually fail when it comes to understanding deeper connections. for example when studying a language like sanskrit which is made of logical connections and complex patterns rather than just a ton of cryptic characters that need to be memorized, I hardly met a taiwanese person that managed to learn sanskrit well, but I met a lot that tried. 
Like we westerners can be the other extreme. Great at 方法 but poor at 功夫. Honestly we are lazy to memorize texts and learn huge amounts of context, that will make us feel meaningless and stupid. I think there strengths and weaknesses on both ends.
It’s like our chinese professor in Germany will always emphasize that one can reduce all the complexity of 古文 on a few simple grammatical formulars. I don’t think so. I think 古文 is not about grammar, but about reading tons of texts, memorizing them and knowing it. This is how chinese studied 古文 for years and if one want’s to be any good at it one has to follow that route. It might be nice to know what the 虛詞 are doing, and it is certainly not wrong, but by just learning grammar and skipping to read and memorize the original texts one will always be just a very mediocre westerner trying to get whatever meaning one wishes to see in those texts. Unfortunately these people will publish article after article and at times show that certain attitude that I observed in not a few western scholars who think that ‘we understand their texts better than they do because we have grammar, linguisitics and so on’… Can be right at times, but most times I have the impression that this is just arrogance.
I was approached by an agency and they did the rest. The agency changes every year which is frustrating. I’ve seen many postings and advertisements recruiting public school teachers all around the job advertisement websites. If you have all the requirements just hand in your CV and I think you’ll be set since public school teachers are highly sought-after position in rural areas.
Akisan2 where are you teaching at the moment? Which city/town?
I moved from New Taipei to Taoyuan and now I am fearful I need to move further away like Hsinchu or something lol. I think Hsinchu is the furthest I could go. I need costco in my life.
You’re okay dude. You won’t starve.
Hsinchu has Costco.
https://warehouses.costco.com.tw/hsinchu_zh/hsinchu.action
The way English teaching is going you’ll probably need to move to Alishan at some point.
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To each his own. I know it depends on the cultural background, but as a teacher, you have to adapt to the crowd, see what works for them, not for you. We are taught this communicative approach, for exmaple, I found taht with Taiwanese students a functional or TPS or anything else worked better, no matter the Fluency.
Back in the ol country, I taught Spanish to a very diverse crowd of people to all over the world. Yes, the Japanese were a challenge. We once tried to split them up, get them to mingle with the rest, not to depend so much on translating into japanese for each other. Their reaction was to cry us a river. It was so bad. And it did not work.
I also taught English to our own people, in different settings, both in the classroom and their offices. Corporate setting was teh most difficult as they were terrified of revealing their true skills. The good ones I mean. Even if they were the boss. Our culture is also very “social” and emphasizes a lot on no one standing out.
So basically I know it is fruistratinmg when you enetr a classroom with certian expectations. You think it is hard for you to ellicit a response, so you blame the students? Think of them, who have been investing so much time and money -buxiban hours, years of rote memorization, paying for expensive tests- and all that rides on them learning English -going to college? Try gouing to the right school -elementary or secondary- so you can get to teh right high chool so you can enter the right university or elase all is for nought as no one wil hire you or yo will have to accept a lower salary. If you are not elite, then you are lazy. Actually, how demotivating can it be that if you are not from a top school you are considered scum, no matter your creativity/abilities/enthusiam/passion? So why even try at all. Classes are divided per ranking, and that ranking values academic achievement, not personal achievements, so why botehr with extra curricular activities? Why have a life outside of books if that life will not be worth in the eyes of teh world nor help you make a living? See what I mean.
Finally, one more time, this ain’t Kansas, Dorothy. Yes, the world is more than US. Many people are way more reserved and that does not make them stupid. It is just a different environment. And I do not mean North Korea.
If Kansas is all you know, do not judge. Learn. You are a teacher, set the example. Caveat emptor: Do allow for individual variation.
It has been said that Asians are visual learners, not very verbal. I can understand this now with the classrooms being essentially teacher-focused direct education across the board. What fascinates me is the expectation that talking will not be compulsory.
I’ve seen parents pester their kids for (what seems like) an eternity just to get them to repeat an English phrase. Still, the kids refuse to speak and I think it has become an accepted practice to just shut your mouth and wait for them to give up. I do think that Chinese teachers will allow a student to “give up” more readily than an American teacher. I could be wrong about this but it does seem that, if the child doesn’t want to learn, its not incumbent on the teacher to compel them.
Perhaps this is just one more factor.
Also, if a student doesn’t come back to your school its always going to be your fault… according to your boss.
I’m teaching in the south, and if you search around you should have ample opportunities, especially the semester is about to end soon.