Qualities of a good Chinese teacher

[xuefang]

I would like to start a discussion about the qualities of a good/excellent Chinese teacher.

I'm interested in this topic because I'm studying a Chinese as a second language undergraduate degree in China with a specialization to Teaching Chinese as a second language. I'm planning on applying for scholarships next year in order to study a master's degree in the same field. So, one day I might be a teacher my self and of course want to do a good job

When I think about my favourite Chinese teachers, these kind of qualities come to my mind: strict with homework, makes us use our heads, lets us think of a new ways to do something, lets us test our langauge skills by making us write papers in Chinese, passionate with her/his profession, prepared for every class, encourages students to do better/to improve, tries her/his best to make a boring course more interesting for us, makes sure that we understand that lesson, teaches according to the course (speaking on spoken course, listening on listening course etc), makes us to use our Chinese in the highest level possible for us...

Of course I've also met many not so good teachers during the years: too shy to speak up, very strong non-standard accent for a spoken Chinese teacher, no idea how to teach students, made us watch Hollywood movie during Chinese culture class...

I think the biggest problems I've come accross during the courses I've taken in Chinese are following:

- boring teaching method on a boring course, no one wants to learn

- inexperienced teacher making a potentially interesting course boring because doesn't know how to teach

- teaching isn't in line withe course, for example on a spoken Chinese course students don't have enough opportunities to open their mouths and speak, teacher is doing most of the speaking

In my opinion an excellent teacher should have the following qualities:

- passionate about her/his profession, honestly wants to do her/his best to help students to learn Chinese

- has a clear idea/plan/goal for the whole course/lesson

- helps students to set and reach their goals

- encourages all kinds of students to study well and improve

- tries her/his best to make lessons interesting, fun and useful

- takes different students into consideration when planning lessons, wants to get everyone involved and active

- explains students why they are learning X and how can they use X in the real life

- etc

What do you think? What kind of qualities an excellent teacher should have? Or perhaps you could describe your favourite teacher to us?

[roddy]

I think often people don't realise that there are loads of small techniques you can use as a teacher which make your work more effective. Classroom management type of stuff. A few examples of the top of my head (it's been AGES since I taught, but I miss it sometimes).

Student makes a mistake. Natural instinct is to correct the mistake. Better is to indicate there's been a mistake - a tilt of the head is enough, once they get used to the fact that you tilting your head - and let them have a shot at fixing it. If they can't, see if anyone else can. If they're all stuck, THEN you correct it.

Student's talking too quietly. Loads of teachers will step closer to they can hear properly, but then nobody else in the class can hear. Back away even further so they have to raise their voice.

Student says something you can understand, but for whatever reason the rest of the class can't, so you reformulate it and repeat it. Very bad message - the speaker thinks it wasn't good enough and is discouraged, the rest of the class thinks they don't need to listen to each other, they can just sit there and wait for you to come up with a more comprehensible version. If students can't produce utterances that other students can understand, your levels are off somewhere.

Massive one - asking 'did you understand?' while nodding your head hopefully. 'Course they're going to nod back. Ask 'em questions - look up concept checking.

A nice big arsenal of techniques like that is invaluable. You can look up grammar and vocab stuff any old place.

[Guest realmayo]

I remember one very experienced teacher who could turn up without any obvious lesson plan and just teach, in a way which got everyone interested, and where we walked away with improved Chinese.

But only one! All the other teachers I had who didn't come to class with a firm lesson plan did not teach well.

For me it's two things. First, having a plan that you will follow and not be side-tracked too much. Although there's nothing wrong with a bit of flexibility. And the more experience you have, the better you'll gauge when it's appropriate to side-track, and how for how long. But if every class the plan gets derailed it's unlikely, unless you're the teacher I mentioned first, that the students will consistently learn much.

Second, anticipation of what questions you're going to be asked as you introduce certain topics/grammar/words. Some inexperienced Chinese teachers figured that because they were native speakers with a Chinese degree they could just skim through the chapter before the class and then answer any questions. But every single class, they got asked questions they couldn't answer -- either it was grammar they knew but couldn't explain, or vocabulary they couldn't give a useful example sentence for. With a bit of preparation they'd have had no problem. As it was, they almost instantly lost their students' respect.

I know the above is super obvious, but almost without exception: the better the planning, the better the class went, and the better the class went, the more motivated the students were for the next class. And I think it improves the teacher's confidence too, that they've got a plan. I remember one teacher, who seemed very good, it was halfway through the semester we realised we were her first ever class, she was still training to be a teacher. But she was extremely well-prepared and executed those plans steadily.

One thing I hated as a student: in a largish class, the teacher asking one student a question, then another student, and so on: if that's three minutes per student, and 20 students, it means each student is talking for 3 minutes and listening for 57 -- listening to your classmates which means that, unless the class has been structured in some fantastic way, you're not learning much. For speaking classes: better that students talk to each other, but with very clear targets: i.e. communicate this thing, making sure to include this and that in how you do it. Not just aimless "talk about your family to each other for 5 mins" etc.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I think large classes can pose problems and I don't know what a good teacher would do in that situation. It's just that I have seen a few teachers give up, both in Spanish and in Chinese. I noticed after a while the teacher will just stop correcting the student. I guess they say to themselves, "good lord it's been 8 weeks and their pronunciation still sounds nothing like it should, but at least the grammar was correct, so let's pretend nothing happened and carry on".

But as I said, I don't know what the best teacher could do in such situation in a large class where time per student is limited.

[roddy]

One thing I hated as a student: in a largish class, the teacher asking one student a question, then another student, and so on:

And if they go round the class in order, then everyone goes to sleep until it's almost their turn.

[anonymoose]

I think to a large extent, being a good teacher entails being a good entertainer. If the students are entertained, they will be attentive and enthusiastic. Obviously the teacher needs to make sure they are meeting the teaching objectives at the same time.

I do feel sorry for some teachers, though, in that they have the odds stacked against them from the beginning. I agree with a previous poster that listenning classes can be tedious, but there is not much the teacher can do if they are compelled to work with a textbook and a cassette, especially if the cassette material is boring.

Speaking classes are also difficult, because you can never satisfy everybody, especially in a large group. I can identify with a previous poster who mentioned the teacher asking questions to each class member one by one with everybody else listening, but personally, I do not like practising speaking with classmates because I want feedback and correction on what I'm saying. Otherwise I might as well practice with my cat.

[roddy]

You'll have to cough up for one to one lessons then ;-)

Group size is obviously an issue, but you can do a surprising amount of monitoring. I'm maybe remembering myself as better than i was, but I'm pretty sure I could sit in the middle of 6 groups practicing some dialogue and listen to them all pretty much at the same time - with a bit of experience the mistakes jump out at you, like your name at a crowded party. And you can get students doing a lot of self and peer correction. It's better than talking to your cat.*

*no offense to your cat

[Guest realmayo]

but you can do a surprising amount of monitoring

Yes, over 10 years ago for me but I remember the same being true, once the students were used to it I could give them a task, circulate and hover, pick up on certain points, intervene now and again. But this was helped hugely by having a classroom with chairs only, no desks. Most Chinese teachers I've since come across are more reluctant to descend from their dais at the top of the class, and most of their students are probably reluctant to see them do so anyway.

[anonymoose]

That's true, but in my opinion that is just turning a negative into a slightly less negative. It's still not a positive.

[Guest realmayo]

Otherwise I might as well practice with my cat.

Cat-chat would give you good speaking practice but not conversation practice: and given that most people do more conversation than monologues or speeches, it's a useful skill to practice in a structured environment. But obviously students at higher levels will already by used to converation in L2 and should be able to find native speakers to usefully talk to.

[roddy]

Glad I never taught you, Anonymouse. Feeling's probably mutual though

Or maybe I did...?

[WestTexas]

Different students like different styles of teaching. Personally, I wish my Chinese teacher would have made us practice conversation and listening more. Probably 80% of the time was spent on characters and grammar.

I think to a large extent, being a good teacher entails being a good entertainer.

I don't agree with this. Maybe for children, but for older students? They are there to learn. If that involves smiling and having fun, fine. But if it doesn't, it doesn't. They are in school to learn, not to have fun. If they don't want to pay attention because I'm not entertaining them, they get a bad grade. Period.

I'm a fairly serious teacher (I teach English in China), and some of my students complain about how I'm too serious. Other students complain about how the other foreign teachers only play games and never teach anything useful. From my point of view, I am teaching stuff that is useful, and if the students aren't having fun, it doesn't matter. I'm still doing more than the guy who makes them sing and play games every class.

But different learning styles suit different people. Looking back on my college years, I remember the most, and feel like I learned the most, from my most difficult classes. But other people I have talked to say they learn more when they are having fun.

One thing I do think is important for a good teacher is that they communicate well. IMO, some people will just never be good at this. They can go get a PhD and still suck at communicating. Like, a student will ask a question about something, and instead of explaining with a simple example or comparison, the teacher goes into too much detail and makes it seem even more complicated, and the student just gets more confused. Or the teacher will just ramble for like 30 minutes and 90% of the class can't understand them or aren't listening, but they are either oblivious to this or don't care.

Like someone else said above, don't assume that because the students nod or because the best student can answer your questions, that the others all understand. Ask questions and try to make sure that 80%-90% of the students understand.

[anonymoose]

I did not say that entertainment only meant playing games and telling jokes. Obviously for young children it does entail some of this, but generally it means using any techniques for engaging your students and maintaining their interest, even if the material is dull. If they find your classes boring, they will switch off, and you've essentially failed in your teaching goal. The worst kind of teacher is the one that doesn't recognise this, and just shifts responsibility onto the students by dishing out bad grades.

[xuefang]

I personally prefer and almost need my lessons to be fun. I don't want to play childish games, but I enjoy and I'm more motivated if the teacher has a sense of humor and/or lots of passion towards his/her job. It might be because I'm lazy, but it's hard for me to even concentrate on boring classes. I'm sure my 综合课 teacher from last semester tought I'm a reluctant student, never really volunteered to answer questions, but on 教育心理学课 we had such a great teacher that I just loved discussing the topics in class.

Have anyone been lucky enough to take an interesting 阅读课? It always seems to be the most boring one. On my last 报刊阅读课 we had a textbook published 10 years ago， our teacher was young and inexperienced. She studied something else for her undergraduate and changed to 对外汉语 on her master's. I passed the course easily by trying not to fall asleep during lessons and doing the exam. Didn't really learn anything new.

I know I'm a bit hard student to please, but later I want to have high standards for my own teaching work as well.

Oh, and I always speak Chinese to my cats.

[skylee]

My Chinese curriculum was probably very different from foreign learners'. When I think Chinese lessons what came up in my mind was always memories of lessons on classical Chinese. But there are two points which might be relevant - 1) the teacher should be able to tell the students much more than what is on the textbooks. 2) the teacher should be ready for challenge and admitting his/her mistakes if there are any.

One of my Chinese teachers did (1). He told us a lot more than the textbooks, which was interesting in my opinion, and in examinations he asked questions on the extra materials he taught in class. Many people failed in his exams, though.

[roddy]

I think part of the problem with how Chinese is taught in Chinese universities is the division into the four skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Usually you get an hour or two of one, and that can be a real struggle. If you integrate them you can really up the pace of the class. Eg, Tell students they're about to listen to a debate about... ok, not gay marriage, this is China. Cars vs public transportation for urban transportation. So they brainstorm vocab they might hear - traffic jam, pollution, subway, etc. They listen and see which words they spot, plus add others to their lists. Then answer a few questions. Then read a passage and say if the passage is mostly in agreement with speaker A or speaker B. Then give them roles (car manufacturer, environmentalist, etc) and tell them to write letters to the newspaper giving their view, then have a debate on blah de blah de blah. I don't envy any teacher who has to teach reading for an hour.

The teacher herself doesn't need to be entertaining - I've seen people who taught from a seat, in a monotone. You just need to be chucking out interesting and varied activities which gradually build up student skills.

Xuefang, if I were you I'd look at the type of TEFL-certification that budding English teachers might do - look at the British Council for suggestions. Even if you don't do the course (which takes a month and costs a bit) getting hold of the reading lists will give you loads of ideas. If you end up teaching 40 Koreans in a Chinese lecture hall you might be limited in what you can do, but it's better to have the ideas and not be able to use them.

[benzr47]

As people have said, it's hard to get the right balance, but I think the key for any teacher is flexability, tailoring the class to the students' real needs rather than what the teacher THINKS are the students' needs. I've had a few too many of the latter in my day...

[xuefang]

Xuefang, if I were you I'd look at the type of TEFL-certification that budding English teachers might do - look at the British Council for suggestions. Even if you don't do the course (which takes a month and costs a bit) getting hold of the reading lists will give you loads of ideas. If you end up teaching 40 Koreans in a Chinese lecture hall you might be limited in what you can do, but it's better to have the ideas and not be able to use them.

Thank you for the tip Roddy! I'm actually having my first lesson this week about how to teach foreigners Chinese vocabulary. There's going to be just a few students in class, young graduates of Chinese or Teaching Chinese majors.

[Steingletscher]

The biggest problem I have is that the materials used to teach Chinese (or any second language for that matter) requires you to think in a certain way. All of the connect the dots, fill in the blanks with the limited vocabulary lists, and multiple choice just gets on my nerves. It isn't how I see and feel things; I read it differently then the choices I have to choose from. The SAT, but in a different language.

All language is a form of thinking, so don't try to hinder where the students minds takes them. The only barrier to their ability to express comfortably themselves should be their Chinese ability, not the expectations as what is wanted out of them.