Eliciting responses in English from some students in China can feel like pulling teeth. A culture of ingrained modesty and a fear of making mistakes in front of others (‘losing face’) can mean all but the most confident, or perhaps naughty, of students stay deathly quiet in your lessons. But you don’t have to resign yourself to talking to a brick wall. Let’s take a look at how to increase student engagement as a foreign English teacher in China.

Source: Asia Development Bank

Opening up

Overcoming a barrier of silence is often the most difficult and frustrating task for a foreign English language teacher in China. Here are a couple of approaches you might like to try if you’re struggling to get your class talking.

Make it interactive

As any TEFL course will tell you, an interactive class is the catalyst for participation. This is particularly important for younger age groups. For example, if you’re teaching young children the English names for fruit, bring in the actual fruit from the market and make a game out of it. You could hide the fruit under different buckets, swapping them round and asking the children to guess which is where. You'll soon have a class of excited children screaming out the names in English.

Play the clown

Mr Bean's popularity in China is testament to the fact that comedy can cross borders and break down barriers in communication. Playing the clown and introducing a bit of slapstick humour into your lessons will help you seem less intimidating to a class of young Chinese children who may have never had interactions with a foreigner before. ‘Losing' your pen before remembering you’ve tucked it behind your ear will always get young children giggling, as will reading your textbook upside down.  

Picture power

If you’re artistically gifted, illustrate words on the board with funny pictures and exaggerated characteristics (for example, a big nose on a face, a very fat elephant, etc). This is a great way to introduce new adjective vocabulary and break the ice with self-conscious teenagers.

Group work

If your students don't have the language confidence to speak on their own in front of the class, try setting small group tasks instead. A shy student will often have the confidence to talk in a smaller group of their peers. But don't forget to monitor each group to make sure they’re not just chatting in Chinese!

Reward system

Many schools will already have an established reward system in place that you can utilise to encourage participation. If yours doesn’t, pop into a street-side stationery store and buy a pack of stickers. Use these to reward students who answer correctly and encourage shy students to get involved. It's amazing what impact some simple stickers can have on young learners’ participation levels.  

Resources and teaching materials

Difficulties with class participation can be compounded by poor teaching resources. I’ve worked at many schools that provided English language textbooks that take no account of China's unique social characteristics; for example, setting exercises on talking about brothers and sisters when the majority of children here have none. But don't sweat it! With a little understanding of the Chinese mentality and access to the right resources, you’ll soon get your students out of their shells.

These days, many of the big chain English schools in China provide their own brand of textbook, which can make a foreign English teacher's life much easier… as long as it’s decent. If you’re working at a smaller school or providing one-to-one classes, however, it’s easy to become disheartened by the stacks of uninspiring English language textbooks that are commonly used in China.

If you have any agency with your school, you could ask if you can use other textbooks in your class. I have found New English Parade, published by Pearson Longman, is good for younger ages as this series is packed with colourful pictures and age-appropriate lesson content. The textbooks also come with a homework book containing fun exercises that review textbook content and contain sticker sets, again always popular.

I also recommend the New Interchange series, published by Cambridge University Press, for older children and adult learners. This comprehensive series comes with a very handy teacher's book that provides activities and advice on how to deliver lesson content. The grammar explanations are also nice and clear.

If your school's curriculum is fixed and you’re stuck with a boring textbook, try and complement your classes with activities and exercises from elsewhere. You’ll find tonnes of websites catering to foreign English language teachers. My favourites include the one offered by the BBC World Service, which provides quizzes, words games and lots of current affairs materials; and teachingenglish.org.uk, which offers a wide range of resources on many subjects.

Best Topics

If you're teaching in a chain of private schools in China, class content will probably follow a prescribed curriculum. It’s often Chinese state schools or universities that will allow a foreign teacher more flexibility to individualise their lessons. If you do get the opportunity to customise your curriculum, here are some topics for certain age groups that I find always go down well.

Young children

Just like young children everywhere, kids in China love animals and vehicles. Try making animal noises and getting the children to guess what you are or turning your classroom into a train carriage. Anything to get them excited, shouting out and moving about.

High school students

Most Chinese high school students follow a relentless routine of schoolwork, schoolwork and more schoolwork. It’s perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that fantasy topics tend to be popular with this age group. You could ask your students to talk about what superpower they’d most like and why or get them to write dialogue for a short comic book strip. Fantasy film imports, such as Harry Potter, are also hugely popular in China and make for good subjects to base exercises on.  

University students

Just like university students all over the world, Chinese university students are busy making plans and thinking about their futures. So what better subject to base a lesson on? You might discuss how China will change in the next 10 years or ask your students to make predictions about their classmates' future jobs. The latter usually provokes some laughter and lively discussion. 

Adults

Many Chinese adults are learning English because of work, emigration or travel plans. Workplace, travel and cultural nuances are therefore topics that tend to go down well with this demographic. Ask your class to think of ways in which Chinese and Western customs differ or to talk about things they admire or find strange about other countries.

Hopefully some of the above advice that I’ve gleaned from my long experience teaching English in China will prove useful to the uninitiated. If you're already a veteran of the classroom here, add your own suggestions in the comments section below.

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Keywords: foreign English teacher in China