But what about the sounds themselves? Beginning phonics, how I do it outside the walls of the buxiban, don’t even have words yet.
A child traces the letter “a” that is made of sandpaper and glued to wood. “This is /a/.”
A child traces “s.” “This is /s/.”
"Show me /a/. Show me /s/. Which one is /a/? Which one is /s/? Hide /a/. Hide /s/. Trace /a/. What is it? Trace /s/. What is it?
What is this? (/a/)
What is this? (/s/)
No vocabulary yet…that just adds too much to the simple lesson of understanding the most common sound it makes. Once a child knows enough words and has enough sounds, they can begin forming words they know with a different material.
I do also see this as a good time to help with pronunciation. (Yes…I know others will disagree). I can teach where to put the tongue for /l/ or isolate the sound to get rid of “tuh” and “guh” for /t/ and /g/. It does carry over well into helping with pronunciation when they say words.
I think the system we’re used to in Taiwan just makes the process much harder than it has to be.
Today the CT had wanted me to go to a student whose pronunciation I corrected and have to have her read the whole sentence over again. Not just the word she had mispronounced. She wanted me to point at the words for the student as she read. She said I should have her say it five times correctly for every one time she says it incorrectly . When I pointed at the word, she said I was pointing in the wrong manner and to use my other hand so the student can see the words. This CT has not complained about me (to my knowledge) but she is driving me nuts to the point I am thinking about quitting. I don’t think I would get far taking this to the management. I have actually not said much to anybody except for here.
I see some use in using phonics for teaching reading, but this experience is teaching me that being a pronunciation Nazi can be counterproductive. I think it is best to read for meaning and try to have the students guess the vocabulary they don’t know from the context of what they are reading. Pronunciation should be emphasized in all areas of spoken English and not just reading.
There are ways this can be done in class without embarrassing the student. One is to hear the mistake and not say anything until the end of the activity. Then, say ‘By the way, I heard somebody say ______. Is this the correct way to say it?’ The smarter students will say no. At that point you can say ‘Okay. Let’s all say this correctly as a class. Look at my lips.’ The student who missed it gets the correction and is saved the embarrassment.
Have the CT pronounce “si shi si ge shi shizi” (the famous tongue-twister in Chinese: “44 stone lions”.) Each time she messes up on one of the initial sounds (there are few Taiwanese who can pronounce it correctly, since most speakers of Taiwan Mandarin don’t distinguish between the /s/ and /sh/ sounds) stop her and make her start again after pronouncing the offending word correctly five times.
Ask her how that made her feel. Ask her how it would have made her feel if the person correcting her was someone important to her, someone in authority. Then have her imagine she is 9 years old and having that happen to her. Now ask how she would feel if she were 9, it was an authority figure, and it was done in front of all her friends.
It won’t change her mind, because obviously children need to be humiliated to know their place, and how much the teacher knows compared to them, but it might be fun.
I’ve been in a “correct pronunciation class” for Mandarin taught by famous broadcaster Bai Yin. Her method was even better: instead of offering correction or ways to improve the pronunciation, she would yell the correct sound into the student’s ear over and over, and have him repeat. Of course he would just repeat the wrong pronunciation, and she would yell louder, and so on. Fortunately she was so confused by my accent that she just gave up and went on to the next victim.
Ironlady, you understood my point exactly. There is also a chance that the student cannot tell the difference between correct pronunciation and incorrect pronunciation. That is what happened to me when I was learning Chinese. Correct pronunciation comes with time for some people. Time is what it will take and not stopping everything and correcting one student over a minor error.
The student started to cry a bit. This was a no crying class, but children can only take so much. Heck I almost cried in class once. (That was when I was substituting a class of darling nine year olds for a teacher who was killed in a scooter accident. I walked in and they asked me where their usual teacher was. I had to step outside and collect myself.)
An approach that focusses more on understanding content is more student-centered and will teach students to think for themselves when the teacher isn’t right at their side to guide them.
Whole Lotta Lotta: Ask her to back up her ideas about why she is so right with reputable research. Ask her what she has read/studied about education. Of course, that won’t make a difference because it’s not about that. It’s about her sense of power and probably even if you try to do what she wants, as you’ve indicated, it still won’t be what she wants because she’s addicted to the power-trip and has issues. I don’t envy you at all. Being in a situation like this is hellish. I don’t know how much you do or don’t like the job other than her, but it’s certainly not a great position to be in either way.
Actually, if WLL wants to get along well in the buxiban, challenging the CT won’t help. It will only be seen as confrontational.
Maybe the best way to deal with it is to smile oh-so-sweetly each time she makes a “suggestion” and say, “Yes, what a great idea!” Then continue to do exactly what you know is right. That way you’re not being “unfriendly.”
ironlady: Indeed. That’s precisely the way to do things: acknowledge that someone has said something and then promptly ignore it and continue with how you were doing things. I get that treatment all the time here, and I used to act confrontationally. Now, I just do it right back to people.
[quote=“ironlady”]Actually, if WLL wants to get along well in the buxiban, challenging the CT won’t help. It will only be seen as confrontational.
Maybe the best way to deal with it is to smile oh-so-sweetly each time she makes a “suggestion” and say, “Yes, what a great idea!” Then continue to do exactly what you know is right. That way you’re not being “unfriendly.”[/quote]
Sensible advice Ironlady. That is how I try to handle it everyday and hope she doesn’t say much outside of class. :uhhuh:
I am planning on getting a CELTA-YL sometime soon and am reading some course material as preparation to make it easier when I commence the class. The early stuff that I have read has focussed on the importance of good relationships between the student and the the teacher. Young learners lack the ability to discern that some authority figures are only telling the children to do something because the higher-up told them to do it. In other words, the young learners shoot the messenger (the teacher). I am worried that the yong girl I corrected a few days ago will view me as some sort of Nazi and not see that the CT was pressuring me to do that. This also happens when teachers at junior high school give out test that they have to give out because of the test mania of Asian educational culture. When I teach junior high school students and I have to give them a test, I let them know that I am on their side. Such things can put a strain on the student teacher relationship.
One way I try to get young learners to sympathize with me is to let them know that I read too. I read books for adults. The point of this is to show them the joy of reading for its own sake and not just because you are going to be tested on it. As a warm up for this one time I brought in a book that I was reading (Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys). I told them a little of what it was about. I did this in about two minutes. The point of this was a warm up to show them that reading for its own sake is good and to show them I am a good example of that. Then I led them into their own reading.
I don’t think the Chinese teacher really understood this. In her mind I was bringing in outside pointless stuff that was unrelated to the class. However, the students did understand my point
I will admit that the connection between my reading Anansi Boys and what they were reading was a bit tenuous, but I felt I had a good relationship with the students. When you have a great relationship with your students, you can get away with things that you normally couldn’t get away with.
BTW, when I read Anansi Boys I did not point to everyword and try to sound out every word. And I am sure that, had I read it aloud, I would have slightly mispronounced some words. I scanned the pages. This is something my students will have to learn eventually to become fluent readers.
I would recommend Thom Hudson’s book “Teaching Second Language Reading.”
ISBN 978-0-19-442283-3
It’s from Oxford University Press. I have not been a fan of all their books, but love this one. I got mine at Cave book store in Changhua. If you can’t find it, let me know and I will see if they have it here. I will be glad to meet up for a service charge of a beer to deliver a copy.
I have not told my school this, but I have decided to quit over this. The way this CT insist that I teach reading and is trying to pull strings to get me to fall in line is too much for me. I am back on the market for a PT school and will quit putting up with this BS when I find something else :snooty: .
Okay. Now I know I am making the right decision. Today I was supposed to teach a book called Wagon Wheels. It is a story of a family of slaves. I both hate and love to teach these kinds of stories. I hate them because they have absolutely no connection at all to the lives of my Taiwanese students. What do they care about slavery living in a country that is not multicultural. On the other hand I can love this stuff because it gives me the chance to talk to them about fair treatment for all people no matter what race they are.
Anyway, because I have to warm the students up to this, and because it is good to teach about such things to kids who don’t know much about them. I tried to give them an introduction to what slavery was. The Chinese teacher wondered why I was wasting time and wasn’t just leaping right into the book. I tried to preview the book by showing them the pictures. My CT just wants me to read through the text with no preview questions. What the…? Anyway, I did my best to ignore her. It is a chapter book, so I stopped to ask comprehension questions at the end of the first chapter only to be told that I was to run through the whole book in one class. The next time I am to run through the whole book again and again until they have it memorized. I don’t expect much of a good experience from this. Slow and steady wins the race. The children really get into me doing role plays to show what slavery was. The CT is not giving me the chance to do this and has complained to administration that I am wasting time in class.
I expect behavior problems in this class in the future as rote memorization and reading the same story again and again class after is extremely boring :aiyo: .
Get a Taiwanese friend to write a note to the school as though he were the parent of a child, but who doesn’t want to use his name because he fears possible retribution against the child. Complain about repeating the same story over and over again.
The Chinese teacher sounds like an idiot. Obviously the kids will understand the book better if they have some background knowledge.
Reminds me of when I was expected to teach a reading about the Liberty Bell (why, in Taiwan, I don’t know.) But the article was written for Americans, and so the writer assumed that the reader already knew what the Liberty Bell was. When I suggested to the Chinese co-teacher that I had better do an introduction about the Liberty Bell before having the kids try to read the article, she seemed absolutely astounded. She explained that she didn’t know what the Liberty Bell was either, and had just picked the story at random, not thinking it mattered. Once I pointed out the potential problems with comprehension, though, at least she agreed a short intro was a good idea.
[quote]The Chinese teacher sounds like an idiot. Obviously the kids will understand the book better if they have some background knowledge.
[/quote]
Not only that. It will be hard for the Chinese teacher to jam the whole book into every single lesson. As I said, it is a chapter book. I will not have to worry about that as I am not even going to try. I am just going to read to a certain point. Ask some comprehension questions. Do a comprehension activity. Ask them to predict what is going to happen in the next chapter of the book and then leave :snooty:.
I just learned that the Chinese teacher did try to give the students some background knowledge and that it may reveal her attitude about me. She said the story we are reading is about slaves escaping to free land. She said that they were trying to escape people who looked like Teacher Whole Lotta Lotta :fume: .
Ok. I was not happy about this either. How did you find out?[/quote]
I don’t like to give away my name online.
The teacher herself actually. I later confirmed this with a student. Her attitude may be a large part of the problem.
. When I pointed at the word, she said I was pointing in the wrong manner and to use my other hand so the student can see the words. This CT has not complained about me (to my knowledge) but she is driving me nuts to the point I am thinking about quitting. I don’t think I would get far taking this to the management. I have actually not said much to anybody except for here.