My new education campaign

[Lotus Eater]

I spend a looooooot of time listening to speeches and debates from university students from all round the province and nationally. The ones who do well are - no surprise- widely read and informed about the world.

But the majority know their majors and bits and peices of approved Chinese/world history. Not much else. This also does not make them intersting conversationalists - the whole point of Oral English is to communicate, so we might as well communicate about more than the university canteen food or their hometown!

So my new campaign, currently being waged on my poor 1st years, is to increase their general knowledge. So to this end I sat up last night and trawled through this weeks newspapers on line and other bits and peices, and created a set of general knowledge questions.

I have divided the classes into teams (they have chosen names for their teams - from Terrorists to FireBirds) - they all have the same questions - and they have to research the answers. EACH team member has to know the answer to all questions (only 7 this week to break them in gently) because they don't know which question I will be asking each team. No answer = 0 points. They need to know a bit more than just the direct answer to the question.

The 2nd part to my campaign is for them to prepare a 3 minute speech on a topical topic - decided by me - each week. This weeks topic (dear to Hamish' heart) - the environment. Each team has to choose a different sector of the topic, prepare and deliver the speech (it is Oral English after all!), and then the other teams have to ask questions arising from the speech - listening skills!! They will not know which team will be chosen as this weeks presenters, so all still have to do it and turn the prepared speech in each class. All team members must take turns in answering the questions from the other teams. No answer = -1pt.

Points tallied at end of semster for (as yet undecided) prize. I have a year to see if this campaign is evenly vaguely useful - but already I am feeling the benefit of it - I now know a little more about my world.

Want to try the general knowledge questions for this week?

1. Who was the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000?

2. Name the President/Chancellor/Prime Ministers of: France; Germany; Japan; North Korea.

3. Who will be the next United Nations Secretary General?

4. How long would human being’s ‘footprint’ remain if we were made extinct tomorrow?(http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20572358-30417,00.html)

5. What is dengue fever and where is its latest outbreak?

6. What response has the United Nations taken regarding the North Korean nuclear test? What is China’s response to this test?

7. Who has won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize and why?

[Becster79]

Hi Lotus,

Sounds good! You're in Xian, I'm correct? I wonder if this would work for my young'uns out here in Baoji? Probably not, I'm loosely following the text as well as my own things and new vocabulary (anything other than 'beautiful' or 'delicious', or 'in a word every coin has two sides' !).

How exactly are you doing this? Are you taking in newspapers to every class, or is this a homework assignment to prepare using the net etc?

Speaking of which, the first week of December is HIV AIDS week, and seeing we have VSO voluteers, we're all doing something related to this in class. I'm not sure just how far I can go in class, but surely it's acceptable to take condoms to the classes, no? I'm thinking of having a discussion about AIDS, how transmitted etc, but not sure best how to do it with a class of 30 odd students. I don't think they've got either the maturity or knowledge to have a roundtable discussion.....

[Lotus Eater]

Please also encourage them to lose 'colourful' as a description, 'each sword has two blades', and the bane of my life during contest season "I have a dream". One more time and they can take me out for MLK's death!!!! My students and colleagues know this now and as soon as another student says it they all look at me, waiting to see if this is the time I point my flame-thrower and the student disappears in a flash fire - spontaneaous combustion is my plea!

The general knowledge thing should work with yours - I set it for homework - I want the answers right and learned!! One thing Chinese students are good at is regurgitating facts! So they learn it, then eventually have to use it in speeches, debates etc. It will all gradually add up.

Watch the taking of condoms into class - don't forget many universities are still having major debates about having condom machines on campus - most are still located outside the campus boundaries - check a couple of your outside walls! Having a teacher openly discuss use (and possibly - shock horror - demonstrate on an innocent vegetable) - how to use them ... scary! This stuff I do outside class time when the students come to talk to me about life, the universe and everything! Also during debate and speech training - another area of creating discussion, but without threat to campus morality - it is debates and speeches isn't it - not me teaching them stuff! Evil grin smiley please!

[Ruth]

Lotus, that sounds like great stuff. Your students are lucky to have you. Maybe they don't think so as they are researching the answers to these questions, but you are truly stretching their brains.

As for me, I know the answer to #6. Just read about it before signing into the Saloon. The rest... Your students would win in a debate with me.

[Mr Nobody]

"I have a dream" is so bloody misunderstood. That's due to Mao's interpretation for his own political gain concerning who he saw as a revolutionary in USAnia during a time when that was what he hoped for.

And yeah, it annoys me too. Every second speech.....

[Missi]

Or the ending of speeches? "Thank- you. That's all" Who tells them to do this sort of stuff? I even had students saying "The End".

[hankuh]

I just asked my wife that question; because after hearing hundreds and hundreds of students finish their speeches or finish their creative written efforts in plagiarism in that expected and dreaded manner, it had gone past amusement and toleration for me.

Anyway, she said this manner of conclusion is in their textbooks dealing with speeches; she also mentioned that when Chinese give speeches in Chinese, they also conclude their speeches in the same manner.

I used to make a point in my classes in China in dismissing my students with the same thing. They thought it was hilarious I did it that way.

One week I taught my classes using those repetitive cliches in my lectures, "In a word...." "What's more..." "etc." "so on," and the big one, "What a pity," and the absolutely disgusting, "With the development of science, economy, and technology." I would use those cliches in every other sentence; after a while, they got the point; it sounded ridiculous to them. I even would use the number 5000 in just about anything I could think of. I also would tell them about my ancient history, creating these ad lib monologues, and even one time, I manage to integrate the WTO into a lecture on Theodore Dreiser, and talked about how the 1996 Olympics had made every American citizen filthy stinking rich, and so since I was now rich, I decided to come to China, teach, and get married.

My point is, that I think in my own small, lunatic way--driven out of boredom, probably, than anything else, I got most of them to see the point of the ridiculousness of using those staid expressions, and how the repetiveness of those expressions could go into the Theatre of the Absurd.

Thank you. That's all.

[Mr Nobody]

Yeah, I have my students just about out of the "that's all", the "and so on" and stuff. I am working on self introductions now.

The introduction of a speech isn't about the speaker, but about the speech. OK? The announcer is supposed to introduce you, not yourself. That's his job. Yours is to deliver the speech. OK?

And try to stick to the topic. Talking about one part of it isn't answering the question. And you have to show why it is. Not just say anything and hope no one notices.

And public speaking isn't a public performance art like singing or dancing, but a method of communication, whereby the listener usually learns or changes in some way, emotionally or intellectually.

Speeches can (and perhaps should) be entertaining, but that is a method, not the point.

That is more than enough to occupy the remainder of my life, should I live for another couple of centuries. With the same students. And the teachers, too.

Sheesh.

Timeline: I like pointing at the 40,000 years the aboriginals claim. Or the 10,000 years of Western or Indian civilization compared to the 5,000 years of China. Plus the Yellow Emperor destroyed all the books 2500 years ago, so well, that leaves them with 2500 years. An eyeblink. No reason not to include the cave paintings in places like France - they're even older.

Linedrawing is a useful thing.

[Lotus Eater]

Do what I have done - start up a Public Speaking and Debate group! Reach a wider audience!

[Mr Nobody]

err no. But thanks.

[Vegemite]

This week I had to be one of the judges at our 'International Week Speech Competition.' It was, I must say, rather interesting. A lot of the speeches were obviously taken from the internet or from Crazy English texts. There were even two sets of students who gave exactly the same speech...only a handful seemed to be original speeches that actually communicated something that was meaningful to the speaker. Thankgoodness, one of them was the winner.

Other speeches though, mmm...

One speech was this young (about 20 year old) woman talking about the joys of teaching and then reflecting back on her career as a primary schoolteacher 50 years ago...mmm... Another spoke about how good life is, how we must appreciate and value life...yep, very true but then she lost it with me when she started to talk about how she learnt all this after surviving Vietnam.

Last term I had several speaking classes and really enjoyed getting them not reciting and spouting what is expected but to actually discuss and analyse and give their own opinions. Only two of those students entered the competition and they came first and second After listening to the speeches and then reading your post Lotus, I want to get back into teaching Speaking.

Maybe I should start up a Public Speaking Group... I could try and talk my daughter into coming and arguing with them...

[Lotus Eater]

daoding said:

"I have a dream" is so bloody misunderstood. .

I showed "Freedom Song" to my students the other night - part of my next module "Changing our Society". And they were amazed that the Civil rights movement HAD to exist - they said - but we thought America always prided itself on equality and freedom. Lots of discussion afterwards. _{(Especially from my P/G students who rock up to audit the course, not actually take it!)}

So the connection between MLK and civil rights isn't too clear.

Next week will be the suffragette movement - Iron-jawed Angels. Should be an interesting one as well.

Speaking of students auditing courses - do you regularly have extras in your classes? I have extras in every one of my classes - even the 1st year Oral English. The P/Gs come to my 4th year classes, teachers and other P/Gs (non-English majors) come to my P/G classes, and other 1, 2, 3rd years come to the Oral English classes. I don't mind but my rule is - you have to do the same work as the registerd students - you can't sit there and just watch. So I get extra input from keen students, but don't have to do any extra marking. Nice.

[Mr Nobody]

Yes, about half my classes have extras, but only a few come every time. I would have more if I just let them listen, but they must be involved, not just sit there. Many don't come back. Only one teacher stayed more than one class - she is a vietnamese teacher who wants to improve her English. When the students start correcting the English teachers, they don't return.

[Vegemite]

I'm teaching UK and USA culture this semester and the students got quite excited to learn about the Civil Rights Campaign in Northern Ireland. They had a little understanding of MLK and had heard the phrase 'civil rights' but the majority had only linked it to the movement in the States - I even had one student want to know where all the Black people were in Northern Ireland!

So, Lotus Eater, do you do one module a week or develop the themes over time? What resources do you have available?

This semester I'm using the computer a lot - after just a couple of lessons I realised the students 'knew' the vocab and could regurgitate facts but had no real understanding so now I take in my MP4 and show them a lot of pictures and even short video clips of whatever we're covering that week. For example, this week we were looking at festivals and focused mainly on Guy Fawkes and Halloween - so TV news clips of a bonfire and a guy competition were greatly appreciated, plus a Donald Duck Halloween special. Classes are 120minutes long so I have plenty of time to show them things.

Now I'm thinking I'll combine more talking in class and prepare them general knowledge questions on the UK and USA...and get them communicating more about what we're studying in class. Very good ideas, thanks Lotus Eater.

And, yep - I have the extras in class as well. I treat them exactly the same as the other students. Even had some ernest boys from the Architecture School sit the final exams last term.

PS. Don't forget good ol' NZ when you talking about the suffragette movement - first country to grant women the vote And Australia was second, wasn't it?

[Mr Nobody]

yep

[Lotus Eater]

Todays general knowledge questions. How will YOU go?

1. What is the Gini Co-efficient? How does China rate on this score?

2. Where is the coldest place on earth? (Include coldest temperature recorded)

3. When is World AIDS Awareness Day?

4. What is the current currency conversion rate for the RMB to the U.S. dollar, the Euro, Japanese yen, British Pound?

5. What are the organisations full names and what do they do?

a) UNESCO b) CCCP
b) CIA d) KGB
c) UNICEF

6. What is Kwanzaa?

7. What is a shearwater?

8. Who said “"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose"

9. How long does it take carbon dioxide to disperse? What effect does this have on our climate? www.bbc.co.uk/climate/evidence/too_late.shtml

10. What are the general tenets (beliefs) of Daoism (Taoism)?

[Newbs]

Pass

[Lotus Eater]

You mean you got 60% (pass mark here) or you gave up?

[Newbs]

deborann said:

or you gave up?

[Ruth]

Sure am glad I'm not one of your students. Someone might learn something in one of your classes, if they weren't careful.

Really, this is great stuff. How did last week go?

[Lotus Eater]

It was interesting - they had done the research and found all the answers, papers were written on various types of pollution, living an eco-friendly life, China's response to pollution (new 5 year plan from this Congress), etc but were a bit dodgy on answering questions on their paper from the other students. I asked each student after they had asked and had their questions answered if they were satisfied with the answer and pretty soon they were quite happy to make the questions a little more difficult and then suggest a fuller answer could have been in order - but their turn will also come!!

Pronouncing Jacques Chirac, and the others names was a bit tricky for them as well.

Next weeks topic is "Healthy living" - with just the smallest touch of direction from me re topics - smoking, heart disease, nutrition etc. Will see what happens.