LEARN TO SWIM
Throw a baby in the water. Watch them struggle to get to the surface. Watch them struggle to stay on the surface. Watch them figure out how to stay on the surface without struggling. No baby drowns. That is how we teach a baby to swim in the west.
You have been thrown into [...]
MARKETING
Rainmaker
Thank You For Not Smoking
The Constant Gardner
Wal Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
McLibel
Jerry Maguire (sports marketing)
Ted Koppel documentary on China-US trade
Thank You For Smoking
LANGUAGE LEARNING
The concept of language learning is linked to the traditional approach to the study of languages and today is still generally practiced in high schools worldwide. Attention is focused on the language in its written form and the objective is for the student to understand the structure and rules of the language through the [...]
INTRODUCTION
At any given moment there are twice as many Chinese learning English as there are citizens of the U.S.A. English instruction begins in kindergarten and continues into postgraduate study, for both English majors and non-English majors. Everyone in China must study English. Local variants of English such as Chinglish and Chinese English are discouraged as [...]
English Corner
MY ENGLISH CORNER EXPERIENCE
Also: go to the download page and read the free article China EFL: English Corner
Over the years I have attended enough English Corers to know that it is better to avoid them like you would avoid SARS, they make me sick. Many foreign teachers have no choice; it is written in their [...]
CHINESE ADMINS
I just published a study called “Dissatisfied Customers” of a Shanghai joint venture business institute. (It is available on my download page) The study reveals the complaints of the 1,600 students. The Dean’s reaction can be found at the end of the article. She was a horrible administrator who repeatedly lied to her students [...]
THE PURPOSE OF THIS THREAD IS TO SHOW AGREEMENT BETWEEN ONE CHINESE AND TWO WESTERN TOP EDUCATORS AND IS NOT AN ATTACK ON CHINA.
EAST VS WEST
Several years ago there was an educational conference in Beijing where the three keynote speakers were the Chancellor of Oxford University, President of Yale University and the President of Peking [...]
I AM SO #@&%$ ANGRY! – – AND YOU SHOULD BE TOO
CONCLUSION
A Sun Yat-sen administrator ( not in the English teaching department) disregards students’ opinions and does not disguise his contempt for those he is supposed to serve:
“You mean you believe in their moody frustration in learning (yes, learning) English? — I fully [...]
UNREACHABLE AND UNTEACHABLE STUDENTS
Every Chinese college and university has them, from top tier down to the bottom 4th tier.Usually every class has at least one and the unlucky teacher may be saddled with several. Occasionally, an entire class may be beyond reach.
No matter what the pedagogy, the methodology, the materials; there are some students who [...]
WRITING VS. SPEAKING
Written English and spoken English are different.
Written English is formal and spoken English is informal.
Memorizing set phrases or other written English is useless in daily conversation.
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