Imported from China to teach Mandarin at a low-performing Los Angeles high school, Zhao Yan Feng struggles to teach students who want to learn when most don’t care.
(Teacher coach Sharon) Markenson reminded Zhao that many of Dorsey’s students live in poverty and lack family support. “Some of our students are depressed,” she said. “That’s why our scores are so low.”
Zhao had never seriously considered the effect of poverty on his students. In China, 900 million of the 1.3 billion people are still essentially farmers. Being poor was commonplace — but so was studying hard no matter your lot in life.
Zhao, who was a university instructor in China, learns to confiscate cell phones and set up competitions to motivate students.
This is insane. Whose bright idea was it to teach Mandarin at a school where one would be lucky if most students spoke English? I wonder how much money was spent to import this teacher and whether it was the LA school system or our Federal taxes that footed the bill.
He thought Dorsey looked like a prison. The campus is surrounded by a tall fence, and just getting in and out was a challenge.
“Two years,” Zhao said. “Sometimes I don’t know how I’ll do it.”
And unlike being in prison, he doesn’t get time off for good behavior.
Whose bright idea was it to teach Mandarin at a school where one would be lucky if most students spoke English?
Most likely this course ended up looking more like Chinese language and culture appreciation where they learn to say colors, numbers, sing happy birthday, memorize a few conversational lines, recreate holiday celebrations, etc. I doubt the Spanish class next door would have been treated any differently. Without such an approach the students are not “engaged” and will become serious behavior problems. And we all know that learning can not take place unless the students are “engaged.”
Since I have taught foreign language to American kids who “didn’t speak English” I am skeptical that it can’t be done. It can be done and it can be done using an academically rigorous approach. The students will learn all that English grammar they missed out on along with whatever foreign language they are learning.
Richard said, “This is insane. Whose bright idea was it to teach Mandarin at a school where one would be lucky if most students spoke English? I wonder how much money was spent to import this teacher and whether it was the LA school system or our Federal taxes that footed the bill.”
Thank you, Richard, for stating the obvious.
I admit, I learned quite a bit about English in my high school German class.
Still, Richard’s point is valid–given the school.
“It had become his routine: limit the damage done by the unruly students and continue to reach the interested ones.”
That seems like a pretty low standard to me. I wouldn’t be comfortable with it at all. I can’t really blame the teacher, who’s completely unfamiliar with our culture. To me, though, hiring teachers unfamiliar with our culture seems a less than optimal approach.
NYC tried importing teachers from all over the galaxy on several occasions and very few stayed. Many of those who weren’t frightened away by the kids fled when they finally figured out how high the rent would be.
And unlike being in prison, he doesn’t get time off for good behavior. Worse, the students get time off for bad behavior.
I learned quite a bit about English in my high school German class. So did I, but German is quite closely related to English so it was easy to recognize parallels and differences. (E.g., English still has the bare bones of German grammar and sentence structure, although it has thrown out grammatical gender and the use of articles to tag the nouns as subject, object, etc.) Mandarin is so utterly unlike English that I doubt learning it is going to teach anything relevant to properly using English.
Also, learning Mandarin (or any other new language after you’re about
is hard. In a school where getting students to work at all is quite a challenge, doesn’t it make more sense to concentrate on the basics that are not quite as difficult, but are much more likely to be used after students leave school?
He doesn’t get any pay from US government or LAUSD as far as I know…Honorable fighter!Chinese people’s dedication should be learned by all of us….