It depends on the students, but I'd say with these girls it was maybe 65% English 45% Chinese. Actually they didn't know I could really speak Chinese before that day, so I think they were kind of testing out how much I could speak/understand. I try not to use it at all in class except when it can work to my advantage as a shock factor, like telling them in Chinese that they're not allowed to speak Chinese haha. I've observed that if students know I can speak Chinese, they have more confidence in speaking English with me. Now this doesn't really make sense to me, but I think it kind of gives them the security to experiment with the language, knowing that if I don't understand something, they can switch into Chinese
"its alive!" . . . .but what is it?
ReplyDeletelooks like yall had a lot of fun!! :)
Just curious, when you hang out with your English students do you use English or Chinese or sometimes both?
It depends on the students, but I'd say with these girls it was maybe 65% English 45% Chinese. Actually they didn't know I could really speak Chinese before that day, so I think they were kind of testing out how much I could speak/understand. I try not to use it at all in class except when it can work to my advantage as a shock factor, like telling them in Chinese that they're not allowed to speak Chinese haha.
ReplyDeleteI've observed that if students know I can speak Chinese, they have more confidence in speaking English with me. Now this doesn't really make sense to me, but I think it kind of gives them the security to experiment with the language, knowing that if I don't understand something, they can switch into Chinese