I am very, very, very disappointed right now. Fred just got done grading two of his classes. Only 42% of them did NOT plagarise. One WHOLE CLASS just copied their stories off the Internet or out of books. One actually turned in a photo copy of their "original story". I haven't even gotten to my classes yet. The assignment was to write your own original 5 page made up story. They have been learning English for over SIX years straight.
The result was, we gave them zeros for the assignment. It won't fail them, but they certainly won't be doing very well for the rest of the term. We were informed that we CAN NOT RIGHTFULLY FAIL THEM. Yeah, that is right, we CAN'T teach them to be honest. We have to "allow" them to re-do it. We have to "allow" them to make it less than a page long. We have to "allow" them to pass.
I can honestly say as crappy as most of my friends and I think American schools are, at least they have standards. China's education system has no standards even at the top level universities where they just say, "You shouldn't have done that. Go back to class." We were also informed that many, many of the masters and Ph.D. students plagarise their thesis. They are noted, but nothing is done about it.
I change my mind. I don't want to go to school in a country where the standards are so unbelievably low. I wouldn't want to be associated with liars and thieves. While I realise not all the people here are like that, I'd still rather not be associated with an education system like this. I have standards.
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I forgot to mention that we not only gave them over a month to write the story, but we also reminded them every day for said month that it was coming. We even posted notes. It isn't like it was a surprise.
The sanity within is overwhelming.
I forgot to mention that we not only gave them over a month to write the story, but we also reminded them every day for said month that it was coming. We even posted notes. It isn't like it was a surprise.
The sanity within is overwhelming.
I teach English at a junior college in Japan. I can only imagine what my students would do if I gave an assignment such as a five page original story... but I bet it would have a similar outcome. In Japan, too, a student cannot fail. They are simply given another chance. At first I hated this, but I have gotten used to it.
Perhaps the majority of your students cannot do it. Maybe they do not know where to even begin writing an original story. My students have all been learning English for at least six years, but most of them would still not be able to do an assignment like that without a huge amount of support.
Do not be discouraged... it is frustrating, but stick with it. Perhaps consider lowering the page requirement so the assignment is less daunting for the students.
Thank you for your advice. Many of the students give us conflicting feedback. One will tell us things are too easy, to up the bar, and they are still bored. Sometimes they stop showing up to class. Others will tell us we speak to quickly, they don't understand, or they have a teacher or head of the department tell us a month and a half later.
I do get very frustrated since I want them to learn. I know they aren't stupid, even if they aren't going to a key university here in China. What I don't understand is why they fail to try. We have done everything we can to make it so they understand what they are asked, know what is going on in class, etc. I feel like a failure. The only redeeming thing I can say is that I never wanted to be an English teacher. I wanted (and still do want) to be a history and archaeology professor at a university.
The sanity within is overwhelming.
You probably have a variety of levels in your class. I know how difficult and frustrating that can be... is your class a writing class? If so, try breaking it into smaller groups by ability. Meet with each group individually for a while during class so you can target the specific needs of each level. While you're meeting with one group, the others can be working on whatever you tell them to.
I know exactly what you mean... I want my students to learn as well, but it's hard when the abilities are so mixed and some students don't seem to care. I guess all we can do is our best, and hope the students try as well.
Yeah, we have a class that was labelled as reading and writing to us, but they told the students to expect an oral English class. We also have classes that are just oral English classes. All of them seem to have some complaints or another.
We hadn't thought to divide them into levels before. We can't really identify what their levels are really. The only ones we know for sure are the ones that volunteer in class. We'll have to put extra effort into finding this out so we can utilise it in what little time is left of the semester.
Luckily, we will be teaching at a different university in a while, so we'll have a chance to refine our strategy. I appreciate any more advice you can share. The admin here in China is difficult to get along with since they either don't make or share decisions with the teachers (even foreign ones) until the very last moment. Then they expect one to do a really, really good job. We do wish to do a good job, but it is difficult without a lot of experience. Sadly, this is our first semester designing our own lessons and teaching.
On an update, even the head of the department was shamed that her students would do this. It might be assumed that she gave them all a stern talking to considering all of the students actually showed up for class today.
The sanity within is overwhelming.
Dividing into levels is very helpful.
How we do it at this college is through interviews and testing. Interviews are perhaps the most useful. We design a list of questions and conversation topics (ranging from "How do you spell your last name?" to "You and your partner are going on a picnic. What will you bring with you, and what will you do there?") and then interview the students in pairs. Interviews are about 10 minutes per pair, and it really helps give us teachers an idea of their English level. For writing classes, we have a short writing assessment with some grammar and sentence structure questions. Then, based on the results, we divide the students into classes. Of course testing has its flaws, and cannot always be accurate. However, as a general rule, the result is far better than just lumping a random group of students together. Leveling the students is helpful for the teachers, and it also helps with student confidence.
I know what you mean about the administration. The administration at this college is pretty much a joke... so we (the foreign teachers) just take matters into our own hands. As long as the students are giving good reviews, the admin won't complain about what we're doing. I have found that dealing with the administration is very frustrating, so I've learned to come up with my own ways of making things work. As long as I don't break any rules of the school, I'm not finding any objections from the admin, especially since the students seem happy with their classes (taught by foreign staff).
Feel free to ask me any questions at any time... we can even share some lesson plans if you want.