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Teaching Chinese
Students
In at least one respect, I'm not a typical expatriate teacher
of English. Many-perhaps most-of us make our careers teaching
overseas. I came out here after many years of teaching and teacher
training in England only three years ago, so I'm still relatively
a newcomer. And of course I make comparisons. Of course former
colleagues ask me what it is like to teach Chinese students? In
what ways do they differ from native speakers of English? How
do they compare with the students in English schools who are of
Asian parentage, but who hardly remember a home elsewhere than
in an English city? To these questioners my answer is that Chinese
students differ from one another just as do those of any other
nationality. The longer I stay, the less I am willing to generalize.
我教中国人英文
至少,就某方面而言,我还不能算是最典型的外籍英语教师.我们当中许多人,也可以说大多数的人都是以海外教书为终身职业。我经历多年的教书生涯，而于三年前到英国接受教师训练之后，才来此地任教，因此算是相当资浅的教员。不过，我倒作过不少教学的比较研究。当然，以前的同事总会问我教导中国学生的一些心得；比如，在教法上，中国学生和以英语为母语的学生有何不同？
或者，和就读英语学校，从小又一直生活于讲英语的城市之亚裔学生，又有何不同？针对这类问题，我总是回答，中国学生和其它任何国家的学生一样，也因个性和程度的差异，各有不同。我教书时间愈久，愈不愿以偏概全，一概而论。
When students
ask me similar sounding questions, I find that I want to give
a rather different answer. There is, I think, more to their questions
than friendly curiosity. They want to know (even if they do not
put it like this) where they stand, and how they rate, as users
of English as an international language. They know, as I do, that
for all the hard work that has gone into their learning of the
language, their attainments still fall short of their hopes. They
want to know if that English is good enough, and indeed what “
good enough” means. They would like to know if there are ways
in which their bilingualism, and their biliteracy, gives them
and appreciable advantage, and whether, especially, their limitations
and weaknesses in English are identifiable and can be remedied.
要是学生问我类似的热门问题，我就很想以不同的方式来答复。我认为在回答时， 不应是满足善意的好奇心理，而就针对他们的问题，多作阐释与发挥。他们很想知道（即使不明讲），自己目前的程度，以及在使用国际语言的能力方面，如何给予自己确切的评估。他们也和我一样明白，尽管为了学好英语，下过功夫苦读，但成效依然不能令人满意。他们也想知道，自己的英语是否够好，而“够好”的真正定义又是什么？他们更想了解，是否可利用某些捷径，得以有效提升自己的双语沟通与读写的能力；此外，尤其想知道，是否可以找到自己学习英语的先天限制与种种缺失，以及补救之道。
待续。。。
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