next time we're using a textbook

I know what would make my students happy, and I know how they want me to teach. I don't know much, but in my crash course as a teacher, I've learned that what I view as the best method of teaching English is pretty different than Chinese pedagogy.

My engineering students are so boring, I want to pull my hair out. They're all very nice and make me feel very welcome, but they just all sit there, smiling and nodding like bobbleheads. I taught them the phrase yes or no question. As in, "that was not a yes or no question." This phrase is relevant because I say it at least 5 times per class period, after I ask a question and all I get in response are bobbleheads.

Again, I was given very little background information, so I asked my students (PhD students and professors) what they would like to learn about. Big surprise here, American culture. We want to learn things: Why do Americans eat turkey to celebrate? What are the important cities? Where are they? What are the people like in that city? Seriously, how can I answer this question, What are the people like? I guess in New York they're loud and rude. In LA they're skinny and beautiful, but not really. Not everyone is like that, and I'm not keen on teaching generalizations. Even if I did want to teach them stereotypes, how would this be anything more than a 10 minute lecture that maybe leads into a lesson about how stereotypes are a bad thing, which isn't what they're interested in learning at all. So I stuck with "important cities."

I spent half a class period showing pictures of various cities, showing them on a map, and giving a few facts of each. I did this to get my students thinking about cities in America, but I then asked them to each go home and pick a city in the US, do a little research about the cities, and bring in this information for an activity this week. The idea being, I'm not that interested in lecturing about this stuff, so instead I'll have my students (inadvertently) do the work for me. I put this [very casual] assignment on the overhead, read it aloud and then went over it again, gave some easy, helpful English websites, asked if there were any questions, asked them some questions to be sure they understood, and dismissed class.

So this week, how many students did the assignment? 1 1/2. 1 student did the assignment, 1 brought in a city name but had no information about it. Which was awesome because then I had 2 hours in front of me with like, no applicable lesson plan. This isn't the first time I've encountered this kind of attitude. I'll teach the same group in the fall, and I'm giving up on such fruitless attempts at creative lessons. I'm gettin me a textbook.

People seem to think that because I'm a native English speaker, I hold some magical power that allows me to give them English. It's assumed that anyone from Europe or America can teach, and it's assumed we'll be "fun" but also teach a way that makes the students comfortable, ie the Chinese way. Which I don't do. I want to teach the students how to fish, they just want the fish. I tell my students I'll be teaching them the "American" way (sort of), and at first this sounds like a fun idea, but this can frequently make them uncomfortable. For instance, I play Scattergories with them. The class is broken into teams, and the team who can name the most adjectives that begin with the letter H in 30 seconds win that round. I think it's a pretty fun game, but they don't like it because of the time pressure and the fact that there isn't really a right or wrong answer. They would like it better if I gave them 20 adjectives that begin with the letter H in advance so they could memorize them and be prepared... which defeats the purpose of the game. They don't care if they learn, they just want to have the right answer. Who wants to relax and have fun when you can be a Bobblehead?