Voices of Young China: Online Life(Part 1)(1)

2007-04-11 14:44:34 [ Big Normal Small ]  Mark Berthold  　Comment

I have done a variety of things-my profile appears upon clicking on my photo – but my recent experience of teach bright young Chinese students has proved particularly refreshing and challenging. I have been allowed to choose topics which enable me to listen to them, rather than their only listening to me-this is why I call this new series voices of young China. Chinese classrooms buzz with energy, especially if the students perceive the opportunity to have their say.



My task has been to help them to develop oral English skills-to converse in English. For it is recognized that speaking English is different from writing English: we speak in clauses rather than sentences and the rules of written grammar are less relevant (the actual processes have only just become understood and are documented in Scott Thornbury’s How to Teach Speaking (Longman 2005)). Only one class a week is generally allowed for students to practice their oral English-the primary focus of teaching English in China is on structured lessons for reading and writing followed by regular and indeed relentless testing. This is stressful for students and their teachers alike, but is still widely perceived as unavoidable in such a competitive environment.



With class sizes ranging from 35 in the school pictured up to 60 in less fortunate schools, it is obviously not easy to afford each student much opportunity to actually talk in a 40 minute class. Furthermore, if just entering their teens it is beyond the capabilities of all but a few to get up and string together a few fluent English sentences. So to help them to collect their thoughts it can assist if they have the opportunity to write them down first. The topic must sufficiently excite the students’ interest to prompt them to respond. So what about online chat? Well I quickly learnt that in this Shanghai key school for 12-13 year these kids were already sophisticates. Largely products of China’s one-child policy, almost all the students had computers at home and often the most advanced gizmos in their pockets such as mobiles that can take snapshots.



But their views of course varied. So let’s hear it from the students themselves. My discussion topic was. IF YOU DO NOT CHAT ONLINE YET WOULD YOU LIKE TO? This is how they responded-I have tidied up their grammar, but striven to retain each student’s unique “voice”:

“I want a net pal. I like making friends. I think making many friends is very good. I can tell my secrets to her. She can give me some good advice. The most important thing is that I don’t know her, and she doesn’t know me. So I’m not worried about whether she will tell my secrets to my classmates.

I want a net pal because I want to make friends. I want a net pal because I can share my happiness or sadness with him or her.

I want a net pal because I want to have some friends. Friendship is very important to us. A good friend can help me in a lot of things. I can chat with him/her and we can know each other. But I have a lot of homework to do, so I don’t often chat on the Internet and I haven’t got a net-pal.

I don’t know what QQ [China’s most popular chat service] is! I think that the people who chat with QQ must be crazy! They may be feeling bored! The Internet has made many students become bad. Most students spend too much time on the Internet. I’m worried about it. Many students play games on the Internet all day long! It’s not good for our studies!

Related: