#32 Teaching at Taizhou Teachers College, China (English teachers compete in the class-room)

It is a week of teaching-competitions, and my friend Arthur has been making spectacular efforts, for us to observe the local English-teachers perform their lesson in front of an audience of parents and teachers, in front of demanding judges, in front of extremely orderly students, in a variety of schools. This is the time in Jiangsu Province, when teachers are encouraged to show their "best practices", developed in their classroom, share them pedigogically with other teachers, and have a moment to shine as professionals, ...and that for pay of about 1,000 Yuan, or about $120.00 !!!! per MONTH as a beginning teacher. Oh woe, the value of education around the world!!

I have never seen a similar competition in other countries I have visited, and the courage of the individual instructors to expose themselves to an attentive audience and to the criticism of their peers for some 45 minutes, must be an emotional nightmare, especially for the more shy and under-stated Chinese personality.

In a Western school, teachers may be troubled by one, two, even three visitors to their class. These teachers are scrutinized by many dozens of their peers, guests, and judges, each taking eager notes, and commenting on every weakness and strength, they of course in the security of an audience. Each teacher is permitted 15 minutes with the unfamiliar group of children, prior to their presentation of the lesson. The fourth graders, many wearing their little red handkerchief around their neck, are then marching into a larger room, much like a mini-auditorium, onto the stage, where small desks and stools wait for the arriving youngsters. Room is available to seat 40 joyful, eleven year-old children in groups of 8, (some 20 pupils less than a regular class), but as can be expected, space at a premium.

The students, individually and as a group, acted no different in this format, from any other of the many class-rooms we passed: attentive, focused, eager, and quite surprised to see an older and gray, yet handsome Westener. Large full-size windows permitted anyone passing any of the corridors to observe fully, every entire room, filled to capacity with students. Once noticed, I heard the whispers, though in Chinese, of: "... man, who does he think he is? !!" :-)

The teacher allowes the children to settle a few minutes, permitting them to chat, as children love to do. Once the teacher calls the distracted class to attention, all 40 pair of eyes, follow the teacher's every move. During 2 days of observation, two specific lessons were presented by these brave educators. The first day's topic was " A Shopping List" and on the second day, the topic sounded: "My Goldfish". Many fine and good-looking Goldfish found their way to "animal heaven" on this day in Jiangsu, as object of the day's lesson and excessive attention afforded them.

The pupils were about 10-11 years old, exited about their momentary, new-found-fame on stage, ready to test the fortitude and stamina of their "temporary instructor". Even a moment's hesitation by the teacher would unsettle their attention, and it was clear, that each expected their teacher to entertain them beyond offering a new lesson. They were never distracted by the more restless audience. The students remained on task every minute of nearly an hour, as the teacher focused the lesson with drills and communal repetition. Each youngster, with raised hand, was hoping to be called, and recite any of the offered English phrases, addressing the virtue of owning a Goldfish, while "the Fish" is swimming in panic and desperation in his confining container on the teacher's table.

Always remembering, that his/her typical classroom will be over-populated by some 60+ students, the hopeful teacher of English in China will set a task for each class, and communicate a lesson to a focused group of youngsters, calling on as many as possible in a 45 minute period. The teachers might wrongly assume, that each child is "equally" capable of learning and understanding new information. Time limits concrete explanations and creative reasoning, and relevancy in instruction will improve with the opening of our borders and the exchange of ideas.

In my state of Florida, we have a voter-approved ammendment to the constitution, which limits class-size: In elementary school to below 20 students, and in high school to below 30 students by the year 2010. These quantitative and constructive limits will be difficult to implement in Chinese schools, with a population five times that of the US.; and despite the one-child-policy, still growing by "leaps and bouds", daily. For us Western teachers, who often complain about our pupil-ratio, the amount of students in the classroom in Chinese schools is of immediate surprise and of concern. The learning of English (or any foreign language), is limited proportionally to the quantity of pupils, especially in a Language Classroom, and few pedagogues argue that premise. Solving this problem has already become one of China's great social-challenges, and there is an on-going search for innovative solutions from home and abroad.

The Chinese teacher of English has been instructed in English by previously insolated Chinese English-teachers, and most likely through similar teaching-methods. Their teachers have experienced only the most limited opportunities to practice English with a native speaker, probably in classrooms as crowded, as I have seen these past, several days. The style and sequence and the content of the teacher's lessons follow rather established, if not expected guidelines, yet the young and ever-improving teachers appear less uneasy with their creative spirit, which all good teachers possess.
Responses and answers by students outside the confines of an original text cause "innocent" distress for both, student and teacher, but independent, critical thinking as a method and a concept of teaching is being encouraged with updated methods of teacher-training.

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