ESL7CITIESCN
New member
- Joined
- May 3, 2023
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- English
- Home Country
- United States
- Current Location
- United States
Hello everyone, I'd like to share the computer programs that I used while teaching English in China for the past nine years, because none of the schools provided these tools for their foreign teachers or even really discussed them. It was left entirely and implicitly up to the foreign teacher to decide how to accomplish all of their expected teaching tasks. There are several options out there.
Grade Book: Starfruit Chart
When I first arrived in China and throughout my time there at public, private and professional schools, they never gave me a way of keeping grades. Some classes that I taught, such as Literature to grades 7-9 at a good school in Shenzhen, required lots of homework, classwork and quizzes in addition to the midterm and final tests. With five classes full of about thirty students, that added up to a lot of assignments to keep track of. So I used an early version of Starfruit Chart by Neon Starfruit Lab. It let me keep all the scores for up to 100 students (some classrooms in China will have 60-80 students packed into the classroom) and calculated grades at the press of a button. That was its most useful feature for me, because it saved a lot of time.
Students appreciated the ability to see what type of assignment they needed to improve in the most during student-teacher performance meetings. I could easily tell them this because the types of assignments are each given their own scores for that category of assignment. It also shows students' rank in their class, and Chinese students, being very competitive in school, enjoyed being able to be told their rank in class.
There were end-of-semester reports that needed to be written at some schools. The administrators appreciated the inclusion of graphs in those reports that visualized the scores of each class as a whole. Schools were generally pleased that I had this type of program for keeping grades and managing classes.
Memory Card Game: Starfruit Cards
Chinese students love games, especially computer games. Most schools in China are well equipped, even schools in small cities in the countryside are being equipped with large smart screen computers at the front of the classroom for showing images, playing music and presenting Power Point presentations. In this case, I used the memory card game in classrooms with small class sizes, about 10-15 students, and they students could use the touch screen to play the game.
dict.bing.com was used to look up the Chinese words that would be placed on cards to be matched with their English words. I had a particularly useful lesson plan that was used after the main classes were finished and yet classes continued for two more weeks. The English language version of the Chinese newspaper, which I forget the name of off hand... China Today??, was used to select an article to read. The terms that students did not know were identified by having them read through the article in class and mark any word that they did not know yet. Those words were put up on the board and the students would find the Chinese word for each and write it next to the English word on the board. Then we would read through a few times, practicing pronunciation. And then the students would take a photo of the board with their cellphones to take home with them and study. Later, students would need to complete a handout where they had to choose 10 words and write a sentence for each. They would get that back with corrections, eventually. Then they would play the memory card game on the touch-screen computer at the front of the classroom in groups of 2-3 students. Their score and time would be recorded to see which group of students won. Then student would read through the article out loud in class, reading one paragraph each, maybe having two readings if the article was long enough for their turn to come around again. Next students would write a summary of the article. And finally students would write an opinion about the article. Both of these were corrected, scored and handed back. Oh, there was also a vocabulary quiz after playing the computer card game that had students match words to definitions in groups of five vocabulary words and covering all of the new vocabulary words. It was a good lesson plan that covered three class periods. Students never got tired of the card game, somewhat surprisingly. In fact, I found that I was the one who at long last would get tired waiting for the students to finish each game, but it was always useful for the students.
Speaking Timer: Starfruit Timer
I even used the Starfruit speaking timer too. I only used it at two schools, but it was very useful for managing the time for practicing speaking in class with the time format used in the iBT speaking test. There is a preparation period in addition to the speaking period and the timer wrapped those all together. I was able to display it on the projection screens at the front of the classrooms. Students appreciated that. It gave a sense of good organization to the activity which we did quite regularly.
I think that I am done with my ESL teaching career. Nine years in China was quite enough for me. So I am going to try a different field of work, if I can. Best of luck to all of you ESL teachers, no matter which country you teach in!
Grade Book: Starfruit Chart
When I first arrived in China and throughout my time there at public, private and professional schools, they never gave me a way of keeping grades. Some classes that I taught, such as Literature to grades 7-9 at a good school in Shenzhen, required lots of homework, classwork and quizzes in addition to the midterm and final tests. With five classes full of about thirty students, that added up to a lot of assignments to keep track of. So I used an early version of Starfruit Chart by Neon Starfruit Lab. It let me keep all the scores for up to 100 students (some classrooms in China will have 60-80 students packed into the classroom) and calculated grades at the press of a button. That was its most useful feature for me, because it saved a lot of time.
Students appreciated the ability to see what type of assignment they needed to improve in the most during student-teacher performance meetings. I could easily tell them this because the types of assignments are each given their own scores for that category of assignment. It also shows students' rank in their class, and Chinese students, being very competitive in school, enjoyed being able to be told their rank in class.
There were end-of-semester reports that needed to be written at some schools. The administrators appreciated the inclusion of graphs in those reports that visualized the scores of each class as a whole. Schools were generally pleased that I had this type of program for keeping grades and managing classes.
Memory Card Game: Starfruit Cards
Chinese students love games, especially computer games. Most schools in China are well equipped, even schools in small cities in the countryside are being equipped with large smart screen computers at the front of the classroom for showing images, playing music and presenting Power Point presentations. In this case, I used the memory card game in classrooms with small class sizes, about 10-15 students, and they students could use the touch screen to play the game.
dict.bing.com was used to look up the Chinese words that would be placed on cards to be matched with their English words. I had a particularly useful lesson plan that was used after the main classes were finished and yet classes continued for two more weeks. The English language version of the Chinese newspaper, which I forget the name of off hand... China Today??, was used to select an article to read. The terms that students did not know were identified by having them read through the article in class and mark any word that they did not know yet. Those words were put up on the board and the students would find the Chinese word for each and write it next to the English word on the board. Then we would read through a few times, practicing pronunciation. And then the students would take a photo of the board with their cellphones to take home with them and study. Later, students would need to complete a handout where they had to choose 10 words and write a sentence for each. They would get that back with corrections, eventually. Then they would play the memory card game on the touch-screen computer at the front of the classroom in groups of 2-3 students. Their score and time would be recorded to see which group of students won. Then student would read through the article out loud in class, reading one paragraph each, maybe having two readings if the article was long enough for their turn to come around again. Next students would write a summary of the article. And finally students would write an opinion about the article. Both of these were corrected, scored and handed back. Oh, there was also a vocabulary quiz after playing the computer card game that had students match words to definitions in groups of five vocabulary words and covering all of the new vocabulary words. It was a good lesson plan that covered three class periods. Students never got tired of the card game, somewhat surprisingly. In fact, I found that I was the one who at long last would get tired waiting for the students to finish each game, but it was always useful for the students.
Speaking Timer: Starfruit Timer
I even used the Starfruit speaking timer too. I only used it at two schools, but it was very useful for managing the time for practicing speaking in class with the time format used in the iBT speaking test. There is a preparation period in addition to the speaking period and the timer wrapped those all together. I was able to display it on the projection screens at the front of the classrooms. Students appreciated that. It gave a sense of good organization to the activity which we did quite regularly.
I think that I am done with my ESL teaching career. Nine years in China was quite enough for me. So I am going to try a different field of work, if I can. Best of luck to all of you ESL teachers, no matter which country you teach in!
Last edited:
