The End of Term at Last

Well there we have it, the end of another term and with a bit of luck I just might be off to Nanjing to take part in a further teacher-training programme to hone and improve my own teaching skills.

In fact, I was asked in an interview today for Nanchang TV 1 and Nanchang Evening News what improvements I would like to see in Nanchang’s education system. One improvement I would like to see is for Chinese English teachers to require their students to be more active and engage in lessons more - by this I mean, to present problems / different leaning scenarios for students to work together on in groups and to generate their own answers; rather than just sitting passively in all but most of their lessons simply drinking in the knowledge being transmitted form teacher to student without analysis. Though, that would be no small change for China. I would like to see a concerted effort from all teachers, not just a select few or even a few foreign teachers. The training course in Nanjing is about helping teachers learn and implement more teaching methods in the classroom.

Am I right to make that suggestion? During my teacher training it was put to me that, as the economy grows and becomes more complicated / sophisticated workers / people are required to develop more thinking skills, which become necessary in the workplace for progress to be made - and Marxists may point out that this is a central weakness of a capitalist system, because as workers learn to read and think there is less control what workers should think about: religion, the glue in a medieval society, would start to dissolve and the potential for a revolutionary consciousness becomes greater. Society will always need ditch diggers I guess, but most desirable jobs require workers that can move quickly with the times and think on their feet - as it is commonly argued that modern workers now will be required to changed careers at least once in their working lives to keep pace with the ever changing job market. Workers would have to be dynamic, not only in their own job, but in being able to remain employed in a volatile market. The education system in Britain in the 60s and 70s tried to cater for this outcome and certainly in my own life I have had to change careers abruptly, which I did successfully. During my teacher training I was always instructed to guide my students to the nature of their subject, that is, the structures underpinning what constitutes their subject not just the surface. As example was given: if one looks at a working office; there has been many modern technological improvements, such as computer / faxes etc, but the essence of what an office is achieving is essentially the same. When one looks at the deep structure in an office, one can see how technological improvements are only helping to achieve the same goals - and I find it interesting that America has been the first to realise that company use of emails is all too often hindering not assisting office work.

Therefore, students need to learn not just how to learn, and certainly not just 'knowledge', but how to learn more effectively and as a lifelong process. They must be in possession of thinking / analytical skills so that they can grasp the essence of something and seek to improve both themselves and the tasks which they are engaged in - there must be constant improvement. No better example would be of the Japanese motorbike industry, which single-handedly destroyed the British motorbike industry - and rightly so, as the British motorbike industry had become static and stale. The Japanese grasped the market and through creativity and sheer dynamism transformed motorbike design and production, and became a world leader in motorbike production.

Isn’t student-centred teaching, albeit an overused term these days, an attempt to generate a sense of termwork in students ready for the world of work? Certainly the modern companies I have worked for have gone overboard in seeking to generate a culture of teamwork in the workplace - though there are ample words once could write about this. At a sociology seminar at Manchester University I attended a professor lectured that modern production companies, such as car companies, require their workers to generate their own solutions to problems of production, which is facilitated though groups sessions and quality circles; and I have even experience this approach in the Royal Air Force, while serving as a fireman. Modern companies, we are told, have flattened out the hierarchy and the issue of managing problems can be both up and down a company. Although, it has always been my personal experience that, good though these ideas are, they are defeated by Britain’s class structure - which is why, I believe, Britain’s economy is always second best at best: full potential, which would come from workers, is stifled. It is not by chance that Japanese companies operating in Britain have tried to use techniques to break down barriers generated by Britain's class system.

Although, I would still question, does the economy really need so many thinking individuals in the workplace? Society may need its share of ditch diggers, but it also needs an increasing amount of routine office workers / call centre workers and the like, which require only a modicum of education. Though, again, are teachers educating students for the benefit of employers or for the benefit of students so that they can reach their full potential?

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A comment from Tall John in Korea:

Hi John Taylor, some good points about teaching methods. One of the problems I remember about student group work in China was that although they helped each others in the group, it was usually only one or two students that did all the work. Also students from the same dormitory would be in the same group. (They would eat, sleep, socialize together-virtually 24/7!!) Breaking up these cliques was like pulling teeth! Their experiences becomes very limited, which must affect their working life when they have to separate and work with new people in different cities.

Tall John: Hi. Thanks for your input. Yes, Chinese students can be trying at times. For the uninitiated, Chinese students, despite living in a socialist country, actually only think of their own learning needs - they can be very self-orientated. Asking Chinese students to share their learning experiences and work together either in pairs or in groups can be hard work. Sometimes, with some classes, group work is a non-starter, although, during my teacher training, our trainer told us that, if students really don’t respond to active stimuli, then stop doing it and let them learn the way they want too. They may not reach the levels they should be reaching, but students also have to take responsibility for their own learning needs, and as you mention the real test is when they start work and have to ‘work with’ other people.

Though, I have been to several work related seminars and training sessions in Britain teaching the virtues of team work, learning and developing together, bonding and what have you, all taught through the medium of modern teaching techniques, beautifully parodied by the television show named The Office. I have taken part in the same exercise several times about how messages are passed on to highlight the way in which it should be done to ensure maximum communication, though I have never worked at a company that actually improved its communication techniques with people making the same mistakes as before.

At the bank I worked at, team building and team work was more about control over an increasing disgruntled workforce than about efficiency. Team work ensures that anyone with an idea or a criticism of the way things are done, stand out as being outside the group and therefore extreme. Bad news, and by bad news I mean longer working house and lower wages etc was presented to small groups on different days to ensure workers didn’t react collectively. I smelled at rat when most of the time the bank preached team work, but on a Bank Holiday or Christmas Eve or Day, there wasn’t a team leader in the building to be found.

I do like the more progressive methods of learning and I think it is high time China experimented and implemented some of them on a wider scale, but new teaching methods mustn’t be looked upon as a new religion.

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Actually, I was having a read of some of the documents the training course in Nanjing have sent me. They purport that when my Chinese students have a foreign teacher they are faced with no less of a culture shock, the same as if they went abroad. Students should acknowledge that the things that foreign teachers do or ask their students to do will be alien to what students normally perceive as normal - the whole point of having a foreign teacher I would have though? I am beginning to see now that too many Chinese students try to circumvent a predictable culture shock, which may present problems of adjusting, by trying to have foreign teachers teach in the same manner as Chinese teachers - or I have notice that there is a certain amount of cherry-picking with only the unusual things that they like. Next term, I might add in to some of my lessons a discussion of student perceptions when faced with a different culture. I have some experience of these kinds of lessons from some of my former sociology lessons, but the way they were presented to me may be a little too off-the-wall for my students - but I can always try.

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