But we need to recognise that few if any students from mainland China arrive on our campuses with the level of English language skills they would need to work monolingually in English, and that even the best of them are likely to take at least half a semester (6 weeks) to develop facility in thinking in English.
Students don't know how to: enter a discussion - add to the last speaker's turn - express disagreement without offence - pose a question politely - hold the floor against an interruption - refuse a turn to speak - gracefully - deflect a question - respond to a challenge - use humour respond to humour - express non-comprehension without looking foolish - seek clarification without losing face
Today, I want to introduce to you, and give you some insight into using A major skill that appears to be lacking in most of the students I have taught. It is the skill of using word association.
Word Association
Word Association at its simplest just means, 'What do you think of when I mention a specific word'. For Example: If I say 'dog' you might say: 'Cat'. If I ask 9 people for one word that they associate with the word 'dog' they might come up with the following list:
Lovely Loyal Friendly Big Fierce Guard dog Friend Pet Protect
We could word associate a different way. For example, when I say 'dog', you say - 'loyal'. When I heard the word 'loyal', I think - 'friend'. When you hear 'friend', you think - 'boy'. When I hear 'boy', I think - 'girl'. When you hear 'girl', you think - 'beautiful'.
Word Association is simply a thinking skill that connects words to ideas or concepts. It links one keyword with another, - but different - keyword and topic.
Word association allows us to think of more than the specific topic under discussion, and by the use of language skills, we can find it very easy to change the direction of the topic currently under discussion. See:Group Discussion in Conversational English Class.
In this article, I want to show you in a very easy and simple way, how word association works, and how it leads to changing Topics.
The Importance of Oil
One of the handouts I give my students is about oil. Naturally they think that this is a boring subject, but in fact, this exercise is quite interesting, for it brings into play, word association, which leads from one topic to another to another.
Using the word - 'oil' - I demonstrate how by word association, we can connect topics, for example:
Oil is imported into China because it is a developing country. As China develops, people are becoming richer, but in fact many people are still very poor. The most poor are the people of the West, in such places as Tibet. Unfortunately, there are some who would split Tibet from China, and in this they are much like some people in Taiwan. The splittest sentiments of some people in Tibet and Taiwan threaten to upset the Olympic games in 2008, and this may have an effect on both tourism and business.
In preparation for the Beijing Olympics, the Beijing Government has built or renovated 400 public toilets to improve hygiene. Of course in the process there was a lot of dust and noise pollution created. Pollution itself, like public hygiene, is a health issue, and the Chinese Government currently has a healthcare plan called 'Healthcare 2020', which is designed to provide affordable medical treatment to every person in China.
KEYWORDS through WORD ASSOCIATION, bring a variety of topics together. Take a look at these next two photographs and see how word association can connect different topics.
CHART / A - B
"A" - Oil is a major contributor to the development of China, and People becoming wealthier. Some are still poor, People of Tibet at poor, Some Independence groups are in Tibet, Also in Taiwan. There is a new president in Taiwan now. How will this affect the Olympics that are to be held in Beijing? 400 new public Toilets in Beijing - noise and dust pollution - there are other pollution problems in China (like oil pollution) - which is a health hazard. Healthcare 2020, which was a major platform at the 17th party Congress in 2007, aims to give everyone affordable health care.
"B" - Oil is a major contributor to the development of China, and that development is now required to rely on Scientific Methods (a strong point in 17th Party Congress) and Technology. The Internet is a modern scientific technology that can be used in all types of Education: Political, Social, Sexual, Medical etc.
Copy these photos to your computer and then join them!
CHART / C - D - E
"C" - 1 Oil is a major contributor to the development of China, and a leading polluter of the environment. It affects many things, including the quality of Agriculture. This can affect people's health and the government is serious about making sure everyone is covered by Healthcare 2020, a program discussed at the 17th Party congress.
'C' - 2 Agricultural quality may affect the volume of China's exports and lead to dependency on foreign imports. This will raise the cost of living, which affects both rich and poor alike.
"D" - Oil is a major contributor to the development of China. Another factor in China's current development is the One Child Policy, which has lead to an increase in the number of girls being educated to University level. Such women are finding employment and becoming financially independent, which means that there is less pressure on them to marry. One of the alarming things about Marriage in China today, is how the divorce rate is rising, and this is of concern for many reasons, one of which is that it can cause depression and suicide. This is once again a health issue. Another major health issue today is HIV/Aids, which is likely to be spread most rapidly via prostitutes and homosexuals because they are more sexually active and have more partners than others. China is currently undergoing a type of 'sexual revolution' most probably hastened by internet pornography. When it comes to internet pornography, many feel that the government must exercise control over the internet, and even the media, but in western democracies, a free press is the norm. China is of course slowly moving toward Democracy, as was discussed at the 17th party congress. It will take some time however to educate people so as to understand what democracy really means, and both it's positive and negative effects on society.
"E" - Oil is a major contributor to the development of China, and China is heavily dependent on foreign imports. - Can you discuss the concept of foreign dependency?
Can you see what I have Done here?
The idea is simple! Don't try to think of something wonderful to say - just start by thinking out keywords that are related to your topic. That is the simple part. Then comes the more technical part - the writing.
Word Association and Writing.
I am not going to go into detail here in this article on this concept, suffice it to say that there is a basic formula for writing
Memos, letters, emails, faxes, reports, essays, novels, speeches - and - a Thesis.
The problem most people have in writing, is that they can't think of 'what to write next'. When you learn the simple trick of using word association, the problem is not 'what to write', but what to leave out of your writing.
The Body of a Letter, Speech, Memo, Report, Thesis etc.
Every document and every conversation, has:
An Introduction
A Body -and-
A conclusion
The Body
The body is that part in which you write about your topic. So ask yourself: "What is my Topic?"
Then ask yourself: "What keywords do I associate with that topic?" (Remember - as shown in the beginning of this article - that you might want to word associate in two different ways)
When you have written down all of your keywords, Assemble them into some type of order or category. For example, if you were going to talk about your day 'yesterday', you would first talk about the Morning, then the Afternoon, and finally the Evening. In each of those sections, you would naturally put everything into chronological order. By this I mean you don't mention what you did at 11am before you mention what you did at 9am.
When you finally have your categories organised, then write something about each keyword. In the article entitled: Chinese Students ask: How Can I Improve My Oral English? - and - in the article "Does it take skill to introduce yourself?" there was presented a grammar test based on answering a number of questions about yourself. In that exercise, you replied to every question using a whole but simple sentence. Then you had to use good grammar to fit all the information into just a few sentences, and thus provide informative answers. See:Why are Informative Answers Important?
So You use the same process of collating information provided in your keyword sentences, to form the body of your letter or speech. For Example:
Associate the word Dog with 9 key words such as - Lovely, Playful, Strong, Intelligent, Loyal, Obedient, Big, Black and Cat.
Organize these 9 words into 3 separate categories or paragraphs, for example:
a. Character of Dogs
b. Nature of Dogs
c. Description of Dogs
With that done, now write one sentence about each key word. Now you have 9 sentences. Take those 9 sentences and turn them into just 3 informative sentences. Now you have a little speech.
That is all I will say on this topic at the moment.
R.P.BenDedek is from Brisbane Australia and is the author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' at http://www.kingscalendar.com His academic articles set forth Apologetics for and results of his discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Bible, Josephus, the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah.
He writes photographic 'Stories from China' and social editorial commentaries, both at KingsCalendar, and as a contributing newspaper columnist. He currently teaches Conversational English in China and in addition to his English Lessons at KingsCalendar, he has created specific sites for Students of English.
