This is China

I've been teaching English in China and not really writing about teaching English in China. So here goes.

I did pen a poem in my first week here.

In China students take tests that determine their progress. After seven or eight years of daily English lessons one might think they could speak English. Such is not the case. They are able to pass tests, yes, but tests of the reading and writing kind. Not oral English.

The tests they take are standard tests, given by Chinese teachers, teachers who can't and needn't speak English. This, more or less, is the way it's done for a hundred million Chinese(but who's counting).

The Chinese have naturally recognized this and remedy it through oral English lessons administered by college level courses and private English language schools.

All this presents a bifurcated challenge to the would be teacher of English: teach to the test or teach oral English to the finished product. That is, if you want to get a job. Teaching to the test would seem to replicate a broken system that favors rote memorization and a general dullness to, if not all language, at least English. The kids are tired, their eyes glazed over, not enthused. Teaching oral English, at the college or private school, at least finds some motivated students. But now you have the prospect of an 18 or 22 year old embarrassed to stumble in putting together a simple sentence. His immediate concern is, as in taking a test, not to make a mistake, and when he does, it's akin to losing face.

I joke that I'm out to change all this, one Chinese at a time. We'll see.